Drafting the proposal
January 18th, 2006
Ok, first the technologies. Client side, it is pretty well set: xhtml for the formatting of the webpage/chat client, css 2.1 for the styling, javascript 1.5 for handling the submission and retrival of messages. Target platforms are Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 1.5, Safari 1.3, and Opera 8.5 - Probably a javascript library will be used, which will dicatate the exact requirements.
Sending information to the server will be handled via the POST method, retieveing by the GET method (the first is all handled by server headers, the second will return an XML file - the format probably being different than the example I sent off earlier). The feed will be incremental based on time, and contain only messages for the specified user.
Server side programming will probably be done with either jsp or php - comments following. A database with three tables (four, if login names can be reserved) will store all state information. MySQL is the most likely candidate. Along with login, logout, message to all, private message, ignore user, and user list functionality, it may have additional server command functionality added.
Functionalty is generally based on the Cyan Chat client, cho.cyan.com/chat . Issues with that client are: 1) it requires java to be installed (it is an applet). 2) uses ports which can be blocked.
By using HTTP POST and GET, the new client will only require a web browser with javascript activated. While it can be blocked by domain, it can not be blocked by port without blocking web access or some very specific packet filtering. Part of the expected XML feed change would make this even harder.
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PHP vs JSP:
JSP: could be installed on my server (tomcat 5), but would only be available on campus. Java based. Setups I have seen require additional server configuration, which I should be able to handle personally.
PHP: Free documentation at php.net. Have much more experience in using it myself if there are questions. Have web space available with ftp access. If the samples I sent earlier were mostly understood, would recomend going with it.
Posted in TFHCC / CCMock |