Lua and Instant Messaging
Matthew M. Burke
St. Mary's College of Maryland
Why?
A million open source projects can't be wrong....
- libgaim
- Net::AIM
- msnlib.rb
- yahoo.py
- jaimbot
- elizabot
- yada, yada, yada
- Not to mention commerical projects like ActiveBuddy
There already exist a ginormous number of IM libraries. Why do we need another one? Because we want to access this functionality from Lua.
No, really. Why?
- Ultimate thin client
- Kids live on IM
- Really simple session managment
But, why do it at all? There are some reasons why IM is an attractive platform upon which to build an application.
Doing it in Lua
- Bind to libgaim
- Do it in Lua (using LuaSocket)
Coding as much of the software as possible in Lua has advantages over binding to a foreign library. Many (most?) of the existing projects are based in some part on libgaim; which is a mess.
Common Features
- send message
- who do you like?
- (i.e. buddies)
- chatrooms
- ad hoc implementation
What's the base line for the major IM services?
What we are doing
- Class diaries
- Knowledge-base access
- Peer-to-peer support (admissions project)
Anything that motivates a student to reflect on her work is a good thing!