XMPP for Ruby (xmpp4r)

XMPP4RXMPP/Jabber library for Ruby

Harisankar P S@coder_hsps

http://xmpp4r.github.iohttp://github.com/xmpp4r/xmpp4r

XMPP

● Exchange Message and Presence Protocol used in communications

● Its a collection of standards that specify how a near real time communication system can be build

● Its an open standard ● Popular companies that provide xmpp services are

google, facebook, microsoft, AOL, CISCO (they own Jabber Inc.)

● Thus you can use it to build network and cross network chat system

● You can use it to build a notification system for your site, which is accessible even outside your site.

● You can use it to build twitter :)

My experience with XMPP

One day a client of ours asked us, can we build a chat system for his CRM.

● I said yes, it sounds simple. I can build one using web sockets.

Then he asked ”can you build it using Jabber so that I can add my clients directly into it rather than make them register again”.

● Jabber. Hmm, I have never used them, but I have heard about them. It might be possible, but let me do a bit of research and get back to you.

I went to google

And it said?

● There is Jabber4R– Last released August 14, 2005

● There is XMPP4r– Last released July 15, 2009

● Bunch of gems that implemented parts of the protocol were rubybosh, bosh4r, etc but not the entire protocol

– Well what I wanted was BOSH as well.

I asked other Ruby Developers how they worked with jabber, and there response

was like....

Jabber!!! Not again...

● Better not use jabber its hard to work with.● Almost all responded. We used, xmpp4r, but it

doesn't work much any more. So we hacked what we wanted.

● Not a complete solution, we just used what we could get.

Well hearing all this I decide to build a solution, of our own. (Reinvent the wheel)

● But as I started it made me realize

I have this problem, people before me had this problem and people after will continue to have these problems.

Why not fix it for everyone!!!.

History of XMPP4R

● Initial release was in early 2005● It implemented the standard, and did nothing more

than what the standard demanded● Despite being unmaintained, all the things it did do.

It did them well.● Original author: Lucas Nussbaum

So what we did?● Started to update xmpp4r.● Got in touch with Lucas, who transferred the

ownership of the gem at rubygems to me● Created a new website● updated the readme and documentation● Started looking around at various forks of xmpp4r.

– Every forked tried to fix one part of the system

– Those we felt were good fixes, we asked them to send a pull request

– Asked them if they could help updating the original gem :)

RoadMap XMPP4R

● Update the test Spec (Make Travis Green)● Update the gem to work well with ruby 1.9 and 2.0● Initial support for ruby 2.1 (not a priority) ● Update the examples

Expected release of the next major release by, End of October, 2013

Point of the presentation?

● So the idea I which to share is, rather than releasing new gems, restarting old un-maintained projects is also a form of contribution to opensource so:

– Take up old unmaintained open source projects

– Because in opensource no projects are really dead.

– And if are interested, fork and start contributing to xmpp4r :)

Thank you