How we use IRC at Last.fm

Re:How we use IRC at Last.fm by axod on Friday January 09, 2009 @09:05AM (#426581)

Here is the login procedure:

  * Send out some xml spam to "create a stream"
  * Receive a stream reply, with feature sets.
  * Send out starttls
  * Get a reply back
  * Switch to secure mode
  * Send out some xml spam to "create a stream" inside the first stream
  * Receive reply back, check supported auth modes
  * Send out auth
  * Receive reply back
  * Send out some *MORE* xml spam to "create a stream" inside the first 2
  * Receive reply back, with features
  * Bind
  * Create session

THEN you can do something useful. Most of the verboseness is idiotic XML:

eg <proceed xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-tls"/>

Those xmlns's are everywhere, and are stupidly verbose.

You can write IRC commands by hand into telnet. But typing in xml is just not feasable since it's so stupidly verbose.

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Re:How we use IRC at Last.fm by daleharvey on Friday January 09, 2009 @10:00AM (#426631)

yeh its too much to be typing into a telnet session, but the extra functionality like being distributed, offline storage, out of band messaging can be very very useful.

irc works great as a chat protocol, xmpp is more viable as a generic messaging protocol

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Re:How we use IRC at Last.fm by teej on Friday January 09, 2009 @10:41AM (#426675)

Simplicity and ease of access to a protocol is -key- in widespread adoption. This is why REST-like APIs are so popular - you can write a quick script in practically any language, you can test it on the command line with a quick CURL, or you can simply boot up a web browser and try it out.

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