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."

buzzwords are my favorite

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.

Minus two points for not managing to cram the phrases "AJAX" or "Web 2.0" into this writeup.

Re:buzzwords are my favorite

Except that XMPP isn't a web technology.

Re:buzzwords are my favorite

Wash your mouth out with SOAP. Everything is a Web 2.0 technology.

Re:buzzwords are my favorite

Why not? The web is basically a way of sending XML to users. XMPP is a way of sending XML to users. AJAX is an ugly hack. It's fine for sending data from the client to the server, but to get updates from the server you need to keep polling. With XMPP, the server can push XML fragments to the client whenever it wants and some client-side JavaScript could then process them into the DOM. There was a proof of concept a few years ago (before AJAX was a buzzword) where someone integrated an XMPP client into a web browser and used it to deliver updates to the page.

Re:

A twitter-like system could be built on top of xmpp. In much the same way that a gmail-like system can be built on top of SMTP/POP. That doesn't mean that SMTP/POP are web-based.

Re:buzzwords are my favorite

Minus two points for not managing to cram the phrases "AJAX" or "Web 2.0" into this writeup.

Huh?

• AJAX = Any technique for combining the XmlHTTPRequest object (or sometimes just an iframe) with JavaScript and XML methodologies to create a more dynamic web page = buzzword
• Web 2.0 = Anything with a smooth logo, whose name is missing some vowels, and that looks like it might possibly be using AJAX methodologies = buzzword
• XMPP = A very specific set of protocols, currently being formalized by the IETF, that form the basis for an extensible messaging or presence system and happen to be based on XML = not a buzzword

Field test of XMPP based system

My next project is a field test of a XMPP based Single-Number-Service-System for Siemens phone system, the OpenScape 3.0 [siemens.com]. Seems that there is really some XMPP around right now.

Am I too late...

To try to standardise how this is pronounced? eg. "wizzywig", "scuzzy" etc.

'Zemp' would be a nice easy way of saying this.

Re:Am I too late...

"ex-em-pee-pee"?

Re:Am I too late...

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...

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:Am I too late...

Wouldn't it be easier to just make the fix in Pidgin and submit a patch?

Re:Am I too late...

Yeah, I'm not sure why it was modded funny or overrated.

If the guy can write an XMPP client, and knows exactly what is wrong with Pidgin's implementation in order to "fix" his client to support it, then he should be more than capable of providing a fix to Pidgin's code, so that he doesn't have to keep fixing his code, and the all of us Pidgin users can benefit as well.

XMPP as a silver bullet?

One thing often overlooked by people is that is kills vendor lock. There are several government agencies which use a proprietary messenging system for instant messenging. Once you introduce true XMPP-compliant products, this kills the stranglehold that some of these vendors have. I'm sure this is true outside the government too.

Re:XMPP as a silver bullet?

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.

Performance

I poked around their web site and could not find anything about the performance of the protocol. We do a lot of XML based communications at work and even for simple messaging, we find that there is definitely a drop off in speed compared to less verbose techniques. Not just in terms of transmission speed, but a lot of time is spent in the XML parsers. Perhaps this is a by-product of using the XML classes in .NET, but that's the technology we're stuck with. If anyone has some simple benchmarks or tests of XMPP, that would be interesting to see.

Re:

Actually, ejabberd is probably one of the highest performing XMPP server. It can supports tens of thousands of simultaneous connections on a single node and can work in a cluster. That's for a single domain, but with distribution as described in the protoc

A brief explanation

XMPP is what Jabber is based on. Jabber, for those that don't know, is a chat protocol. It's used by Google Chat, Livejournal Chat, and vast numbers of other chat systems - all of which are interoperable, because built in to the underlying system is the idea of message passing from server to server.

If someone connected to a gmail jabber server sends a message to [e-mail] then google chat automatically connects to the livejournal jabber server and passes the message over.

You can see how this could be extended to allow federations of application servers to communicate. Heck, you could reimplement email over this without massive difficulty.

Re:A brief explanation

Heck, you could reimplement email over this without massive difficulty.

In reality I think it was one of the first things they implemented in Jabber. A lot of clients, especially the hardcore jabber clients, have different messaging modes: one mode composes a single message, another mode opens up a little chatbox. If you examine the former, you'll find that it's exactly like e-mail, although really it's just a jabber message. Everybody ends up using the chatbox because that's what jabber is for, and many popular clients (eg Pidgin) have only that.

In terms of server and protocol, in my opinion Jabber is fully able to do e-mail. In fact, I'm sure Jabber servers already have e-mail gateways. You just need a client that operates in a manner that implements e-mail as we are used to; for example, most clients just pop up offline messages as soon as you connect, or mark them on your roster instead of presenting you with a stored list of messages that you can manipulate mailbox style.

Thanks Google

Say what you will about Google and privacy concerns, but this is one case of Google doing something good. If they hadn't used Jabber/XMPP for Google Chat, I doubt that we would be seeing this level of interest from others. Just about everybody that I chat with uses Google Chat now, and so, for the first time they all use Jabber capable clients. This is a very good thing. If Google goes out of business, or just becomes unpopular, the infrastructure will now be there to somewhat effortlessly transition to a new dominant IM system that is based on open standards, instead of going back to the days of MSN, AOL, Yahoo, and ICQ, all fighting each other and their users.

PFTLOGCWCUWMUA

Please, for the love of god, can we come up with more useless acronyms?
Ugh!

XMPP is a PITA

Perhaps it is just the library I've used [jajcus.net] to develop an XMPP client, but I found implementing a client a complete PITA. Most specifically I couldn't find *anything* that simply stated you have to do X, Y, and Z to "do" XMPP. It required a lot of trial-and-error (lots of XMPP packet dumping) with another XMPP client to "subscribe" to someone else (aka get on their buddy list), to notify everyone you're online, and to send messages. All of the RFCs and JEPs are neat if you know what you're doing, but otherwise it just confuses the hell out of you trying to figure out exactly what it takes to make even the most basic client.

XMPP also requires you to keep a fair amount of state information. Stuff I seemingly would think should be kept by the server. I suppose by making the server really dumb (basically a router) you really put the eXtensible in XMPP but at the cost of a more complex client.

On its surface XMPP looks great: an open-source IM protocol!! Once you, the newb, get into it it gets really ugly.

Then again, maybe I made a poor choice in a python package or I just happened to not find that key page with google that basically explains my problem away (and that's all it is is acclimation, it's not terribly difficult once you "get it"). Not even the wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] explains inner-working details of XMPP. And FWIW, I was *trying* to do what this story was saying XMPP is going to be so great for: server glue for a distributed web-based application. Where I sit now with what [little] I know: I completely disagree until someone wraps it all up into a super-easy library (which shouldn't be too hard).

Re:XMPP is a PITA

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.

New Here

You should never let people know hen you don't understand an abbreviation. To impress the geeks you should express an opinon even if you don't understand what the hell TFA is going on about. Examples

Could an ejabbered XMMP server really be said to be Twitter-like?

I don't think that Twitter-like systems are the way to go here.

That's really cool, we could really use a Twitter-like enjabered XMMP server here. It will revolutionise computing!

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

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.