Is XMPP the 'Next Big Thing'

Open Standard Lover writes "XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) has been getting a lot of attention during the last month and it seems that the protocol is finally taking off as a general purpose glue to build distributed web applications. It has been covered that AOL was experimenting with an XMPP gateway for its instant messaging platform. XMPP has been designed since the beginning as an open technology for generalized XML routing. However, the idea of an XMPP application server is taking shape and getting supporters. A recent example shows that ejabberd XMPP server can be used to develop a distributed Twitter-like system."

Comments

Re:Am I too late...

[Bogtha]

A lot of people pronounce it "Jabber". The name "XMPP" arose when they were moving it through the IETF standardisation process.

Re:Am I too late...

[TheRaven64]

Speaking as someone whose frustrated with having to implement two code paths in a Jabber client - one for the standard and one for the compatibility with Pidgin - I'd be very happy for Pidgin users to stop connecting to the XMPP network.

Re:XMPP as a silver bullet?

[rindeee]

Bzzzt...wrong. All IM in Gov/DoD is IRC based but moving to Jabber. This is public knowledge (not even U/FOUO). Lot's of commercial development going on around this if you Google around a bit. Some really cool stuff in the pipeline, especially where XMPP is concerned.

Re:Just what we (didn't) need !!

[Enleth]

Have you ever actually SEEN this protocol in action, its specifications, functionality and security features? This is one of the few cases where XML is actually a proper, well-implemented technology suitable for the job. I've been using Jabber as my IM of choice for a few years already, and XMPP as a communication platform for a few non-IM projects and all I can say is that the people involved in its design got it right and created a really flexible, adaptable and secure technology.

Yeah, I know, this is Slashdot, where people like to spew completely uninformed pseudo-opinions, but this one is just too obvious. Well, happy IMing on unencrypted, stone-age, propertiary networks that force-feed you with ads and censor your messages, if that's what you want.

Re:XMPP is a PITA

[Enleth]

That's just this library. For example, the Smack API for Java is literally five lines of actual code to connect, announce the presence, load the roster and send a message. PyXMPP is quite low-level for a Python network library. Try XMPPy, much easier to work with if you need Python.