IRC and MSN (WLM) interface plugins for StatusNet.

Hi again StatusNet folks, Luke checking in with a final GSoC update for you.

For those of you which haven’t read my previous blog posts, I spent summer developing IRC and MSN (WLM) interface plugins for StatusNet. The plugins allow you to exchange messages with a bot to interface with a StatusNet instance. Screenshots of both plugins in action can be seen in the previous blog post. As my first experience of open source programming, the project was a fantastic introduction offering a peek at all the great aspects of working with a great community of programmers. Both plugins were merged into the official 1.0.x development branch on August 18^th and development will now continue there.

The new IM interface architecture offered to developers in the upcoming 1.0.x release of StatusNet was essential for development of both plugins and was an absolute pleasure to work with. The flexibility offered by such a generalised system is incredible. Just take into account how different the MSN and IRC protocols are, then imagine a code base that will allow development of plugins for both!

When deciding on a project to apply for at the beginning of the Summer of Code program, there were a number of chat networks for which a plugin had been requested; to me the two most critical were IRC and MSN. Although initial development of the MSN plugin was hindered by some shortcomings in the library I was using, the plugin was feature-complete by July 5^th. On the flip side of the coin, the development of the IRC plugin was smooth throughout due to excellent assistance from the development team of the library used (Phergie).

Although both plugins are feature complete, there are still improvements that can be made. As noted in the previous blog post, the plugins will ideally use a Delayed Queue which is yet to be implemented. Once this does happen, the plugins can be modified to operate in a far more efficient manner. Due to an unfortunate limitation of the queuing system, the MSN plugin will currently only work when using the Database queuing system, however, this will also be corrected by the introduction of the Delayed Queue.

Overall this summer has been an extraordinary experience that has given me a taste for open source development that will never leave me. I don’t think there are words for the amount of thanks that need to go out to both my mentor, Craig Andrews and Brion Vibber; I’d still be at the drawing board without them!

Anyone interested in using the plugins or how they work can find documentation on the following two wiki pages:

http://status.net/wiki/Msn
http://status.net/wiki/Irc

Also feel free to contact me on identica!

- Luke

Thank you Luke. On behalf of StatusNet, I would like to wish you luck in your future endeavors!