Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

dino.im

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 153 posts

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#141

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

mekster wrote: post #129
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - WYSIWYG formatting instead of automatically parsing symbols into bold texts etc WhatsApp is the most popular chat app among non-technical users in the world, and it explicitly uses symbols instead of WYSIWIG for formatting. I'm pretty sure you're making up these requirements without actually researching your target audience.

What does your research say? I'm barely mentioning the features which people would generally expect out of chat apps. Regarding the WYSIWYG, I always hear complaints, including myself that texts get weirdly formatted when they paste from somewhere else and it does more harm than good when symbols are automatically parsed, so the other option would apparently be WYSIWYG editor, which anyone will have no problem compre…

You're making very strong statements that aren't backed by empirical evidence.

All I can say is that I see that successful chat apps for 'normal people' seem to have converged on something that isn't WYSIWIG, and it's probably not an accident.

P.S. Asking users what they want probably isn't the best idea. See "Homer's car" for a humorous take on this issue.

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#142

Post by SamWhited »

neiljohnson wrote: post #135
SamWhited wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix works well as a big distributed graph protocol, not so much for chat. XMPP works well for chat or anything where you need efficient near-realtime streams (eg. stock trading and tickers sometimes use XMPP, some accessibility caption systems, etc.). Also XMPP is better standardized (by virtue of having a long-term non-profit standards body, Matrix is sort of trying to do that, but also trying to figure out how t…

There are multiple companies building on top of Matrix, some quite publicly like New Vector ( https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed... ), some choose to do so more privately. However, the protocol itself is governed by the Matrix.org Foundation acting as a neutral guardian ( https://matrix.org/foundation/ ), so it unclear how the spec itself would become part of the product. To suggest that Mat…

It really doesn't have massive adoption; it looks big because we're in a little bubble of people who play with new tech on HN, I suspect, but overall other protocols like XMPP are used by a vast number more companies and daily users.

The matrix foundation has had trouble trying to fundraise to pay developers, it's not a proper non-profit standards foundation, in my opinion. I'd be skeptical of trusting them.

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#143

Post by SamWhited »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #122
SamWhited wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fan of XML and think its use is one of XMPPs biggest flaws, but I wouldn't pick JSON over it… with XML at least you get a lot of the stateful encoding and namespacing (eg. extensions) right in your XML library of choice, with JSON you have to reinvent all of that which is more code, more spec, etc. I'm not really sure if there is a good alternative to XML, sadly :(

Oh, I wasn't aware of these issues - thanks for the information... would YAML help here ?

No, YAML is just terrible in general :) (ahem, unhelpful strong opinion aside: YAML is way too complicated. If you think XML is over engineered, you really want to stay away from YAML)

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#144

Post by SamWhited »

kitd wrote: post #128
SamWhited wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this have a standards body behind it advocating for and developing a spec that anyone can implement? I'd argue that this is a requirement for any communication system to take off and be useful and sustainable long term.

SMTP - https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc821 IMAP - https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501

That does not cover the higher level messaging and presence protocol.

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#145

Post by SamWhited »

neiljohnson wrote: post #134
SamWhited wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix will likely never take off, sadly. I was hoping for an alternative for a while too, but not having a proper standards body to advocate for and push the standard probably means it's not displacing XMPP any time soon. Also the protocol just isn't great for chat; if you need a giant distributed graph database, great, but for chat it's just very heavy.

The evolution of the Matrix protocol is governed by the Matrix.org Foundation ( https://matrix.org/foundation/ ). XSF contributed the XMPP spec to the IETF after ~10 years, Matrix is a younger protocol (2014) and perhaps it will do something similar in the future. Given the adoption rates of Matrix, I think it is fair to conclude it is a good fit for chat. Though it is fair to call out that it works quite differently…

If they donated the spec to a proper standards body I would be much more comfortable with it.

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#146

Post by SamWhited »

vertex-four wrote: post #126
jandrese wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But again, if you're not the domain admin you are pretty much SOL. It's not a friendly technology for the hobbyist.

The hobbyist is the domain admin. What situation are you thinking of where they're not? It's not a friendly technology for enterprises where it might take weeks to add a DNS record, maybe. But nor is much else.

Yah, if you're using this for enterprise though you probably have to jump through all the hoops either way. Eg. to provision and install a client (be it some general XMPP client, slack, hipchat server, whatever) on your dev machines, to provision machines for a server and get that setup or to contract it out to someone, and yes, finally, to setup DNS records. So I don't think it's a big deal that DNS records are required for enterprise, they're going to have to keep a papertrail and do all the extra overhead anyways. :)

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#147

Post by SamWhited »

jandrese wrote: post #123
vertex-four wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the assumption is that you have your SRV records set up properly. Modern XMPP clients, like Dino, will then reconnect automatically to a server that they can access, and read history to find anything they missed. Horizontally scaling XMPP servers exist, it's probably up to you to find one that works well in a multi-site configuration though. Your other option is just to give everyone their own XMPP address…

But again, if you're not the domain admin you are pretty much SOL. It's not a friendly technology for the hobbyist.

For the hobbiest there are also other ways, eg. using HTTP and a JSON/XML file on the server. Eg see https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0156.html

DNS SRV is just the easiest (IMO) and most widely supported method, so I generally recommend just doing that since you probably have DNS anyways, even if you don't necessarily have an HTTP server running on your chat machine.

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#148

Post by neiljohnson »

SamWhited wrote: post #142
neiljohnson wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple companies building on top of Matrix, some quite publicly like New Vector ( https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed... ), some choose to do so more privately. However, the protocol itself is governed by the Matrix.org Foundation acting as a neutral guardian ( https://matrix.org/foundation/ ), so it unclear how the spec itself would become part of the product. To suggest that Mat…

It really doesn't have massive adoption; it looks big because we're in a little bubble of people who play with new tech on HN, I suspect, but overall other protocols like XMPP are used by a vast number more companies and daily users. The matrix foundation has had trouble trying to fundraise to pay developers, it's not a proper non-profit standards foundation, in my opinion. I'd be skeptical of trusting them.

I was replying to your previous comment that Matrix as a protocol is not suited to chat by pointing to the millions of people who use the service as a means to refute the point.

You can see numbers for the public network here (https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-current-project-status), though these figures do not include installations that choose not to federate publicly.

The Matrix.org Foundation is a non-profit UK Community Interest Company. As you might expect, it accepts donations which can be used to fund work on the project. It reports publicly on its financial status in the same was as any other UK CIC is obliged to. This doesn't seem very controversial to me.

In any case, should you wish to donate yourself you can do so here https://www.patreon.com/matrixdotorg

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#149

Post by duckMuppet »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #58
drcross wrote: post #55

Slightly off topic but I've never had success with self hosted prosody and the "conversations" app being able to share photos/memes as one would in WhatsApp or telegram. This is the one thing keeping me from being able to sell my non-tech friends on it, has anyone had any luck in this regard?

I'm using it with self-hosted ejabberd and have no issues. It just works.

That's a standard module included in ejabberd. It may not be enabled by default in others, such as prosody

Re: Dino: An open-source application for XMPP messaging

#150

Post by rakoo »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138
ryukafalz wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this MUC replacement MIX or a custom thing? In any case, I may have to give this a try - I used Xabber a bit on Android years ago.

No, it's not MIX. I believe that MIX will never fly, because it requires support by a participant's server. So unless all server developers will implement it, XMPP users will not be able to use it. Also, it puts too big emphasis on compatibility with old MUC, which is beyond saving. Our approach does not require anything from a participant's server, and it does not even require a specialized support by a participant…

Any chance we can see your XEP about this new group chat ?
Post reply on HN