Abstract:

Jabber is a widely useful tool which every developer should consider. The standard application for Jabber is of course instant-messaging; but Jabber has its place as middleware, the communication layer of an application spread out over the network. Most inter-process communication is synchronous; the client blocks and waits. A key advantage of Jabber is that it can be used asynchronously.

Developers are too locked in to the client-server mindset. As a peer-to-peer technology, Jabber offers other options.

The architecture of communication is completely flexible: one master, many slaves; complete peer-to-peer equality; or any other arrangement. This allows for much greater flexibility than, for example, a message-queue (such as JMS). "Presence" is built in; peers broadcast their status to others in their group: on-line or off-line, busy or available, etc.

The technology is mature. Jabber is available for every mainstream platform and language. A large range of open source and commercial libraries and servers can be downloaded readily. The servers are proven over years in production; they scale well and are designed to be federated to further increase scale.

Presenter: Kevin Noonan

Kevin is a professional software developer with a decade of commercial experience. He has worked on system and server software for two NASDAQ-quoted technology companies; as well as stints with three brand-name Irish financial institutions. Lately he delivered a talk on the emerging Django framework at the BarCampGalway conference. He lives in South Dublin.

Slides: IJTC_2007_Jabber.ppt

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