After noticing a number of various clients that try to perform realtime interfacing with the ChatterBox it seemed to me the biggest limitation and flaw was that they have no real time way to get messages, so they must rely on refreshing every X seconds. This is undesireable for a number of reasons, among them being that it provides a rather large additional load on the monastery ( I assume.. ) which only grows larger with more clients attempting to do similar things. Another flaw of course is that the latency is horribly.

So a simple proposal is that there could be a list of servers that perlmonks could message everytime it sees a CB message. I'm not sure of the exact technical details, but I would assume a simple list in the sub that handles CB posts and some kind of message on an unused/predetermined port. The servers that should be included on this list can be submitted to a god or someone similar, or perhaps perlmonks can just update one outside server (perlmonk.org?) that could then push it out to everyone else.
  • Comment on List of clients to autoupdate on cb change?

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Re: List of clients to autoupdate on cb change?
by meredith (Friar) on Jun 14, 2003 at 03:57 UTC
    Not all of us are as addicted to the CB as you. ;)

    I can't say it seems like the bandwidth utilization is high for the CB. I like the one outside server idea, but add use of UDP to the bill too. It seems a lot of people want the CB to be more like IRC... maybe someone should throw up a not-so-official perlmonks IRC instead?

    I haven't personally seen the XML format used for CB grabs, but it is also possible to use server-push (multipart or just stream-mode) to feed clients at near real time. In fact, I believe there's a CUFP on exactly that subject. Of course, this also imposes extra load, so maybe the push could run from the "one outside server" that receives the real stream.

    Somehow I forsee a great smacking-down of this idea, though! :) ++ for the proposition though

    mhoward - at - hattmoward.org
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      It seems a lot of people want the CB to be more like IRC... maybe someone should throw up a not-so-official perlmonks IRC instead?

      Don't be surprised. :) IRC is a de-facto standard for real-time chatting. Many people are aslso used to this facility implemented in other protocols (ICQ for instance). I am also in favor of using IRC for CB. It simplifies things greatly, gives more power to the thing, and most importantly it removes the client-software limitations. Reloading a page is so boring. :) There are also a number of irc2web gateways which provide a better interface then CB does now (server-push/nph, or java and all that).

      Leonid Mamtchenkov aka TVSET

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      I'm sure some of my friends would yell at me for this, but you can come to our little IRC Network ( irc.remnetworks.org (#PerlMonks) ) if you'd like an 'Offically Un-Official' PM Chat
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Re: List of clients to autoupdate on cb change?
by zengargoyle (Deacon) on Jun 14, 2003 at 07:24 UTC

    i think the pentultimate thing to do would be to setup a Jabber server. it has IM, conferencing (groupchat), publish/subscribe and tons of other features in the works. there's at least one Perl/Tk client Jarl. and it's relatively easy to write Bots/Components/XML-RPC types of applications.

    for a simple idea of Jabber, think ICQ, IRC, AIM, MSN and the like but instead of some proprietary transport everything in Jabber is XML and Open.

    take a look at the Jabber site and browse the last month or so of the jdev mailing list for a good idea of what they're trying to put together. it's pretty neat, and i'm not even an XML fan.

    i might actually be able to setup a server. i'm at a .edu so it's not a problem of bandwith as much as will my old CPU handle the load and can i justify having the server. i'm betting i could get away with it if the experience could lead to a 15 minute presentation at some conference or another or lead to a rollout of internal IM.

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Re: List of clients to autoupdate on cb change?
by Anonymous Monk on Jun 14, 2003 at 08:55 UTC
    The chatterbox shall forever remain a small diversion. If you want realtime chat, go to irc.slashnet.org#perlmonks It seems to me that an increasing amount of monks (still probably less than 10) want to make perlmonks the center of the universe on a kind of global scale. That's just not gonna happen. The majority of monks like perlmonks the way it is. For change to happen there must be an overwhelming urge/need/demand and/or a champion/implementor, to make it happen. Rarely, if ever, will an idea simply spring into existence just because someone thought of it.

    *bleh* I should've just stayed quiet, it's best when nobody says anything and nothing changes ... *bleh* i'm going anonymous monk on this one

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      *eh* Petruchio was working on a streaming XML server to replace the current polling XML ticker. It'd be nice in the sense that those of us who generate traffic 24/7 (albiet not much) could get a socket connection and not do continuous polling. I'm told that it'd make a nice dent in the server load. That was before the recent upgrades though so perhaps that changed.

      Anyhow, things spring forth from ideas because are perl monks. We create.

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      >The chatterbox shall forever remain a small diversion. If you want realtime chat, go to irc.slashnet.org#perlmonks
      Thats not the chatterbox though!

      >It seems to me that an increasing amount of monks (still probably less than 10) want to make perlmonks the center of the universe on a kind of global scale.
      Er, where did that come from?

      >For change to happen there must be an overwhelming urge/need/demand and/or a champion/implementor, to make it happen
      Er, my proposal isn't a change to perlmonks. All it would change is how certain outside programs interact with perlmonks. The cb would still function exactly the same as it does now, it would just help certain outside programs.

      >bleh* I should've just stayed quiet, it's best when nobody says anything and nothing changes
      What kind of attitude is that? Stagnation is never good.
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Re: List of clients to autoupdate on cb change?
by kodo (Hermit) on Jun 16, 2003 at 06:40 UTC
    Hi BUU,
    Whatever maybe happens because of this post I really really hope that the "old" CB will still be there. I can only go on web-pages from here via http-proxy and not on IRC/AIM/ICQ etc.
    I would die() if there wouldn't be a CB I can use from here anymore. Also I think it's much easier for new people to use the CB as it is, and I don't think it does cause THAT much server load because the data requested issn't more than a few bytes.
    There's IRC and there's CB, everone got it's advantages, you can choose between both. If you like pure real-time chat without reloading etc. goto IRC, that's what it is for. If you can't go on IRC or just want to chat on CB, use the "simple" CB...

    kodo
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