Modern XMPP project discussion - 2021-08-25

Matrix vs XMPP?

XMPP

Next question? 😄

MattJ: I really really dont understand why you have this opinion here? This sounds out of the blue to me! 😉

it would actually be nice to have a page explaining why

because this is obviously a frequently asked question

and personally, it takes me like 10 minutes to explain it every time someone asks

But you mean why XMPP or why people XMPP over Matrix?

raucao: > it takes me like 10 minutes to explain it every time someone asks My default response is, "from the user perspective, Matrix is better at replacing public/team chat (Slack) while the popular XMPP clients are better at replacing private chat/groups (WhatsApp)".

My own reasonings are about the protocol structure and how it's maintained, but users won't care.

i'm working on the public/team chat angle :)

and i do thing the protocol structure and how it's maintained is actually what people are interested in also, when asking this question

at least the developer crowd

Well, not sure about our selling points over Matrix there, TBH. Some people criticize Matrix' distributed database design for privacy and/or scalability reasons, others complain about how the specs + reference implementations are maintained by a single team plus how stuff is de facto centralized at matrix.org (identity service and whatnot), but ... users won't case.

i know many who do. there's no "the user" who you can just speak for

raucao: Yeah, some people might care of course. Most devs will tell you how straightforward a proper REST API is though.

raucao: Right. The vast majority of the target audience _I_ am interested in doesn't care about protocols and stuff, though.

it's certainly convenient. see e.g. JMAP for how it makes email app development easier

Yup.

*triggered*

lol

Oh no

success :)

For those who do care, XMPP's modularity (proper IETF core that's not affected by adding new XEPs) is my #1 selling point.

> doesn't care about protocols and stuff, though not in the technical sense perhaps, but in more subtle ways a lot also do. and with matrix, you have to learn matrix addresses e.g.

that's a protocol thing

same as a JID is

in decentralized systems you cannot hide some of these things

Heh, was going to respond that the Matrix ID is supposed to be hidden, in theory.

> For those who do care, XMPP's modularity (proper IETF core that's not affected by adding new XEPs) is my #1 selling point. agree. but it's also a major criticism for client support disparity

Yeah. I strongly disagree with this criticism :-)

If clients are missing support for important features, the reason is missing manpower, not spec modularity.

it sounds like you have some strong opinions on this subject, so it would be especially interesting to read a slightly longer-form explanation of your viewpoints

Most Matrix clients are missing important features.

to a lot of people i guess

> Most Matrix clients are missing important features. is this referring to element being the only full-featured client, or does that include element?

The former.

right. same goes for servers then

Since what's considered an important feature varies from person to person, I'm sure you can find someone who thinks element is missing the most critical feature ever. Or does that only happen to XMPP software?

Zash: Element did miss the most critical feature ever until a few weeks ago, audio messages!!!

only emojis, stickers, and threads are critical in 2021 🤡️

Zash: Now that they have it, Matrix has superseded XMPP. (No kidding, I've read that just yesterday.)

Of course

I guess we should pack it up then since we clearly lost and everything is pointless

In other news, being able to link the Snikket iOS developer to friendly docs on Modern XMPP instead of having to vaguely explain how things should be implemented... is really nice :)

:)

(currently https://docs.modernxmpp.org/client/design/#names )

nice!

pretty cool

following the discusions we had in jdev and joinjabber on room name/description/topic it would be nice to have some guidelines about that in there as well

Yeah, I thought the same when I read them. PRs welcome :) (probably to https://docs.modernxmpp.org/client/groupchat/ )

yeah let's open an issue so people can contribute feedback on how their specific client does UX on that

oh wow, i hadn't even realized that there was a subject in addition to the description

(only just reading the spec)

i like the idea of using the subject as a kind of pinned announcement message in UIs

vaguely remember some web client having done that with IRC channel topics

The subject is essentially a pinned message, so that makes sense.

Name: "Modern XMPP discussions" Description: "This is where we discuss the Modern XMPP project" Subject: "Our next sprint is coming up soon! Register here: https://..."

i'd still prefer names as short as possible, like e.g. "Modern XMPP". perhaps ideally capped at ~15 chars (as best practice, not hard limit)

this way they're not cut off in most clients