[jdev] GSoC proposal - open web XMPP client

[Pedro Melo]

On Mar 30, 2008, at 11:13 AM, Tomasz Sterna wrote:
> Dnia 2008-03-29, sob o godzinie 22:20 +0100, Paweł Pacana pisze:
>> I would like to propose/extend your GSoC idea of "open web based
>> Jabber/XMPP client"
>
> Maybe this is kind of off-topic, but...
>
> Why another web client? What is wrong with JWChat?
> And if there is something, maybe it's better to put the efforts in
> extending/fixing JWChat?

That's just not how human nature works. Unless you are being chased  
by very large and terrifying beasts, that will eat your young, humans  
don't rally and join forces. And in our little world, I don't think  
MSN and Yahoo are out to eat our young, at least not anymore.

I love the fact that new developers come to XMPP with fresh  
enthusiasm and ideas, look around and say "I can do better than  
that". I love to see them try and do it all from the start. Most will  
fail, but some will succeed and will gain a respect by the small  
details in the XMPP specs, they will gain a experience that you  
cannot get anywhere else.

The argument that they should be (or that we all would be) better off  
helping existing projects is flawed:

  1. existing projects are rarely well documented that someone could  
start off and do stuff;
  2. its difficult to get instant recognition in a existing project  
(and again human nature loves recognition);
  3. you'll have to convince the current leaders of said project that  
your crazy ideas are worth the trouble of messing with the code.

In the end, I believe the most important part is to have great low- 
level toolkits so that developers can come with crazy ideas and  
implement them quickly. I don't have no problems that they do it on  
their own.

The existing projects, if they like what they see, they will pick up  
on the ideas, and if possible in the code, and integrate it with  
their own code base.

Everybody wins.

IMHO, of course.

Best regards,
-- 
HIId: Pedro Melo
SMTP: melo at co.sapo.pt
XMPP: pedro.melo at sapo.pt