Earlier this year I pinged the NLUG asking for recommendations for easy network programming toolkits for a project I’m planning.
Chris Booth suggested Jabber which, at the time, I dismissed. I was wrong.
Having spent some time recently talking with the folks who’ll be using the projects output I ended up at the Jabber web site and after poking around some I realised that Chris was right, Jabber is the answer!
In particular XEP-0045: Multi-User Chat and (hopefully) XEP-0166: Jingle with XEP-0167: Jingle Audio via RTP.
I’ll be able to get my project up and running with a Jabber server (and cross platform client) which supports Jingle and has a plugin architecture such that I can easily extend them. From there I will be able to add the features I require and in the process perhaps create a simple JEP to share the extensions I implement.
Tonight I’ve been playing with Openfire and Psi both of which seem like strong contenders to build my Jabber based platform for running paper-based role-playing adventures online.
I’m excited!