I am new to xmpp and all that implies. I'm a RoR Developer and I need to use a xmpp server for a project. On top of that, I will need to do some heavy customization so that my rails app can create users, make them friends, track all communication, etc.
Being a ruby developer, and someone who likes nice (looking) things, I REALLY want to use vines for the xmpp server. It's in ruby, it's friendly, I like it: http://www.getvines.org/
But, other things like ejabberd, Tigase, etc have much more reputation, and I guess they have a better community. I'm guessing this because finding tutorials seems far too difficult.
So I'm looking for someone to tell me why Vines is not a good solution for XMPP, and what I should use instead. Because otherwise, I'm opting to use Vines =)
Thanks!
For anyone reading this later, I've learned a good bit today about vines.
Firstly, it seems the entire thing was made by one developer, who has since started fulltime jobs for twitter then github. So there is not likely to be new features or updates coming to vines.
Second, is there is virtually no community build around vines. It's very hard to troubleshoot issues.
Hope this info helps others!
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I have a Web Application based on Vue.js, REST(JSON) and Java EE with Payara Server.
Now i want to add a chat. There should be different fixed chat rooms (global, groups) and there should also be the possibility for private user-to-user chats.
I've been looking for a while now and have come across various Vue Chat projects that use 3rd party services e.g. socket.io, PubNub, CometChat. I don't want to outsource any functions in this way. In addition, it probably does not make sense to use finished components, since I have so far not found anything that can meet the above specifications and I would have to modify the component accordingly.
So I think I can't avoid building something new for myself, which is not a problem. However, I don't want to reinvent the wheel and I'm unfortunately not familiar with the best practices of building chat applications.
Roughly off the hook, I would create a database table that is used to store the messages. The messages are delivered and picked up via my REST interface, in whatever way.
Is this direction correct? Can i make it like this? It kind of feels ... dull. I have seen a lot of finished chat servers, do i really need something like this, or can I implement this with my Payara server without major complications?
Unfortunately I could not find any suitable examples. I would be very grateful for a short advice or suggestions.
the best advice I can give you is to use a communication protocol which grants real time data. I mean, something like websockets or socket.io, which is a pretty good option.
Besides, if you want to develop a chat app, the data will be bidirectional, this means that it will travel from server to client and viceversa. I hope this could help you. Here
you have an example of a pretty basic chat app using socket.io.
I hope this could help you, regards
I'm actually trying to find the best way to write a simple XMPP server or find one that leaves a really small foot print. I only care about the core features of XMPP (statusing, messaging, group messaging) . Also learning about XMPP protocol at the moment, so please bear with me if i'm saying something that is naive.
So currently, open fire is being used in our application. It's really heavy and has a lot of features that aren't necessary for our needs.
I've looked at tigase which is another XMPP server that leaves a smaller footprint.
I also looked at apachi mia framework which contains or has an extension module (vysper - XMPP server). I've tried to google reviews on this when compared to other servers, but can't find that much information.
In general, I"m looking for the best way to implement a simple XMPP server either from scratch or from an already built library/framework in java which leaves a smaller foot print then open fire. Interested in getting more pro/cons with vysper in comparison to openfire and tigase as well.
Any advice appreciated,
Thanks,
D
I can talk for Tigase only as I am Tigase team member.
For basic XMPP features Tigase binaries take no more than 1.5MB and if necessary it could be reduced to something below 1MB.
We run periodic tests with small memory and all the basic features work fine even if you run Tigase with 10MB of RAM, of course for no more then a few dozen online users.
I think this is quite small foot print. We put a lot of effort on optimizing and testing. It is also designed to easily integrate with other systems so this is the way to go :-)
Of course I am biased towards Tigase which is understandable. Please wait for some more independent opinion.
I am about to develop an application for iPad and it has enormous amount of background thread network calls.
I would like to know which one will be better? ASIHTTPRequest still works but not maintained. However few sources says AFNetworking framework creates lots of complications.
Update (September 2013)
It's been nearly two years since I originally wrote this answer, and quite a lot has changed. AFNetworking is about to go into version 2.0 and has a thriving developer community, whereas ASIHTTPRequest is pretty much dead. Additionally, AFNetworking has dozens of great helper libraries and classes available for handling things like OAuth, Amazon S3, and the like. It's so popular that there's several books available on it.
Given this, there's no reason at all to keep using ASIHTTPRequest. My original answer is below, so if you're still interested do read on - just bear in mind I would now recommend without a doubt not using ASIHTTPRequest and going with something more modern (namely, AFNetworking, but other options are available).
Original Answer (December 2011)
How much time have you got? Here's my thoughts, although as a subjective question I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.
I lead a development team that works on commercial apps for sizeable clients, and some of my colleagues are always on the look-out for new libraries that can make things easier. Currently I guess the vast majority of our networking uses ASIHTTP. We took a look at AFNetworking about six months ago, and decided at the time we'd stick with what we know. ASI has been around for a while, and there is far more documentation and helpful advice available online for it. It is a solid codebase, and been around long enough to have gained a lot of traction and respect.
That said (and hopefully people who disagree with everything I've said above will read on!), I think if you're starting afresh now is the time to move on to something else. Even the developer of ASI thinks so. Given all of the changes that have come with iOS 5, I think a modern actively maintained framework like AFNetworking (and there are other options, like RestKit) is a good choice.
Now, you're right to say some people have trouble using AFNetworking in their application. But equally, a quick google reveals many people who had problems with ASI (valid or not)! I think whatever framework you go with, someone somewhere will have had trouble with it, either through something genuine wrong with the framework or their own limitations.
So with all this in mind I think I'd dive in to AFNetworking, and see how you get on! One of my new year resolutions will be to migrate over to a new networking library, and I think it will probably be AFNetworking.
From Author's Comment:
A little update: I've actually really enjoyed using AFNetworking, and in many ways it's considerably better (probably not the right word: 'refined', maybe) than ASI. That said, you shouldn't go into it expecting a 'like for like' replacement, and there are certain things you may want to consider other options for (Amazon S3, which ASI supported out of the box for example). But I'm generally really pleased, and find it a clear, well documented library. So if you're looking to move from ASI to something else, you really can't go wrong with AFNetworking...
https://github.com/BoydYang/BYRequest
BYRequest based on MKNetowrkKit, but it works like ASIHttpRequest, so you can easily migrate your project from ASIHttpRequest to BYRequest and also enjoy ARC.
There are must be a lot of apps that are designed to communicate with server. My question is only about App installed on iOS device + Server side service interaction. Web app is not what I am talking about, and there should be no webpage involved in this discussion at all. Typical examples are Apps like Instagram and Twitter, in which most of the information exchanged between the App and the server is just data like String, Image and Integers(wrapped in JSON or XML), no webpage presentation needed.
My question will be: if you are an independent app developer, and you are designing such an app from scratch without any existing website API, database structure or application(so you are not limited by any existing API or database structure or application protocol), What will be the most efficient approach?
What the sever side need to do are:
receive data send by the App;
process the data with designed logic;
interact with database(like MySQL);
do necessary data mining and analysis---this could be a constantly running service or one time task requested by the App client;
send the data back to the App upon request or spontaneously;
exchange or broadcast the data between/among different App clients (i.e.: group chatroom and peer to peer message);
As far I as know there are 3 obvious options to implement the server side:
PHP
Python
Ruby on Rails
(please feel free to add more options)
My questions are:
which one is the most appropriate choice to implement the server side?
If the App is focusing intensively on natural human language/text searching, analyzing and data mining, which one is the best choice? I heard Python is doing pretty good in this area.
Any advice on the database choices? I am using MySQL for now, and I found it's quite powerful for my purposes, I heard Twitter is switching to Cassandra. Will that be too difficult to start with?
For the server end, if you need to build a Server management interface, for you as an admin to manage and monitor the community, membership, data and such, is there any existing solution, or framework or tool for that? what will be the most efficient approach?
If a new programmer has no experience in non of them, which one you suggest he/she to start with?
Is there any good reference material or sample code on the server side in such context we can learn from?
I know there are a lot of very experienced experts on these areas on Stackoverflow, but I saw more newbies who just entered the iOS developing area without much knowledge in server/database programming experience. And I hope this thread can help these who are thinking to design an App with server/client structure but have no idea where to start with.
ps: I will keep updating this question thread and adding my findings on this topic, to help all other users at stackoverflow. :-) Please try to make your answer informative, easy to understand, and constructive. I guess most of readers for this thread will be new members of this great community.
Are you sure you want to spend time & money to develop your own Server & develop your own API?
There are lots of mBaaS (mobile Backend as a Service) providers today such QuickBlox, Parse,StackMob, which are ready to use and they have great Custom Objects API and some of predefined modules. They have great free plans with big quota. Some of them such QuickBlox has Enterprise plan - so you can buy license and they server team update server for you purpose.
So, i recommend not develop your server and think about mBaaS market.
Just about your issue - I can recommend look at QuickBlox Custom Objects code sample and also Custom Objects API. Custom Objects module provides flexibility to define any data structure(schema) you need. Schema is defined in Administration Panel. The schema is called Class and contains field names and their type. I think it's what you need.
which one is the most appropriate choice to implement the server
side?
Well that depends on what you know, there is reason to choice one of the other
If the App is focusing intensively on natural human language/text
searching, analyzing and data mining, which one is the best choice? I
heard Python is doing pretty good in this area.
This would reflect on your first question, you pick the language on you needs. Thus if python makes it easier then pick that one.
Any advice on the database choices? I am using MySQL for now, and I
found it's quite powerful for my purposes, I heard Twitter is
switching to Cassandra. Will that be too difficult to start with?
Again not one that is easy to answer, since it all has to do with requirements. But any SQL server will do. Cassandra is meant for "scalability and high availability without compromising performance" accourding to there website. Do you think you webservice will get many request then it might be a choice to consider.
For the server end, if you need to build a Server management
interface, for you as an admin to manage and monitor the community,
membership, data and such, is there any existing solution, or
framework or tool for that? what will be the most efficient approach?
This again is only going to be answered when you pick the a SQL server and server language.
If a new programmer has no experience in non of them, which one you
suggest he/she to start with?
Start with something simpler, you are really going out on a limb here.
Is there any good reference material or sample code on the server
side in such context we can learn from?
Propably there is some, but you should really start small and work from there.
Twitter started out as a Rub on Rails app and is working on scalability and availability which ruby is not really good ar (that is my person opinion). or Look at facebook they have written a php to c compiler to make php run faster.
The only thing I can say to start code, when you app does take off then tackle the some of the performance issues.
And since you state that you are new to programming do not bite of more then you can chew.
This is a huge question and I don't think there is a best answer. It most depends on what you care about, such as how quickly the development process, how easily the implementation, etc.
And which one is popular, which one is cool, I don't think it make really sense.
In my personal opinion, I'm good at ASP.NET and I can get Windows server easily, so I'll start with an ASP.NET service to provides data.
And, to be continued.
I am trying to write a iPhone group chatting/message-board app which will have a backend component. I expect users to register with our system and start posting messages on chatrooms/message-boards. These message-boards can have more than 2 individuals, must support real time notifications and should be accessible from any other clients (like web) as well.
I stumbled upon http://code.google.com/p/xmppframework/ . I realize that XMPP is a very attractive proposition for our needs but I am seriously worried about the infrastructure complexities and scale issues. Besides, XMPP has way too much to offer for my needs. Looks like, XMPP might be the only choice for my pleasure in pain, but I wanted to see what you experts have to say on this.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
My advice is: whichever protocol you're choosing, do not try to invent your own protocol. Go for XMPP or if you can find an alternative which you find more compelling, use that. Especially if there's already a nice framework for you to use. Why ? Because a single developer new to a field is seldom smarter than a bunch of people with experience ;-) Make use of other peoples' experience by using an established protocol, and make use of existing frameworks to avoid coding mistakes and investing a lot of time to solve a problem yet again that was already solved.
That being said, XMPP is widely deployed and thus would make for a good choice if you later plan to write additional clients for other platforms or want to have third-party clients connect to your server.