[sldev] Question: Replacing current group chat with XMPP?

[Dahlia Trimble]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:41 AM, David M Chess <chess at us.ibm.com> wrote:

>
>
> > From: "Dahlia Trimble" <dahliatrimble at gmail.com>
>
> >I don't know if the IRC model is applicable to SL, but from my experience
> as
> >a somewhat heavy IRC user, I just dont see any of the group chat problems
> >that SL sees and I haven't seen any evidence that the SL *logged in* user
> >and message volume is greater, if anything I would believe the IRC volume
> is
> >much higher.
>
> Do you have a rough feeling for how many different channels a user is
> likely to be in at once?  Again, my impression from Zero is that the IRC
> provider(s) that he talked to cited that as a particular worry-point for
> scaling.


No, I don't have a feel for this yer, and I don't have any data about how
multiple channel usage affects current IRC servers. I suspect these data may
be fairly easy to get as most servers will tell you what other channels any
user is currently logged into, and the source code could be studied to offer
some suggestions about what limitations there may be, or how they could be
overcome if they do exist.  There are also several available open source
implementations of servers, and some may perform better or worse in this
regard.


> >From what little I know of IRC architecture, each server can serve a
> limited
> >amount of users and also forwards messages to other servers in a star
> >configuration. I'm having a hard time envisioning a system that could
> scale
> >better than that by just throwing hardware at it as seems possible with
> the
> >IRC model.
>
> That's my impression also.  Distributed pub/sub!  (That is, there's no
> polling, and a message isn't sent to a server unless there's an interested
> user in that direction.)
>
> >I wish it was tongue-in-cheek, but I am a heavy IRC user and so far it's
> the
> >only way I can reliably communicate with others when SL's system fails, or
> >if I want to message people on other grids.
>
> Well, sure, but I don't really understand the desire for a normal IRC
> client _in the SL viewer_.  Doesn't KDE / Gnome / Finder / Windows handle
> the problem of offering convenient access to both SL and IRC at the same
> time?


It's a matter of how screen real estate is used. It's easy to forget that
end users are using SL because it offers a 3D immersive experience, and
without that, it's just yet another chat client. Also I will most likely be
using SL on a laptop and screen real estate is critical, having yet another
window simultaneously appearing on the screen severely reduces the 3D
experience. I haven't seen many chat clients of any kind that take this into
regard, and unfortunately that includes the Communicate window and the
minimum size that it will size to, although it has improved from previous
prototypes. Using the chat window in another application and minimizing it
or letting it move behind the SL client window effectively removes me from
the conversation, so that isn't the best option. A possible compromise would
be some kind of client-side plug in architecture for chat protocols, or even
a chat redirection proxy if the client can't be modified in this sense. Then
again a well designed AJAX web chat client running in a browser window
inside the SL client may even be a contender to replace the Communicate
window.

Here's how I use IRC in the current SL viewers:
1. press the F1 key to open a help browser
2. type "google.com" in the URL field and hit <enter>
3. search for "web irc"
4. pick one, some offer connections to different networks and some may use
more or less screen area than others.
5. sign in. resize the browser window as appropriate and chat away while you
are using SL.

Note that if you close the browser of navigate to another page, you will
most likely need to relog into the web chat client to reuse it, as there
doesnt seem to be multiple tabs available in the client's browser.


Also, I'm not trying to advocate a switch to IRC, but rather I'm suggesting
it as a possible alternative and as a well-oiled machine worthy of study.
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