GSOC Chat log storage: My thoughts

[Sanket Agarwal]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for starting a single thread!

On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Jorge Villaseñor <salinasv at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 2:51 PM, Peter Lawler <bleeter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all potential GSOC students,
>> Whilst I have no input into the selection of projects for GSOC2013, I'd
>> like to make an observation about some of the expressions of interest I've
>> seen regarding the Chat Log. I've sent this mail to the list, and CC'd
>> folks I've seen expressing interest. If I've missed CC'ing you, I do humbly
>> apologise.
>>
>> To my mind, a Chat Log storage format update would abstract out the
>> storage medium for the log. This would mean SQLite, MySQL, Postgres, SMTP,
>> SNMP, FTP, WebDAV, JSON, CSV or flat file logging 'plugins' would be able
>> to be written by anyone else. Naturally, taking this approach, a GSOC2013
>> project would supply at least one of these backend plugins as proof that
>> it's working. This would keep with the general pidgin/libpurple philosophy
>> of abstraction and extensibility.
>>
>> Anyways, as I say, these are just my thoughts as a (Retired?) Retired
>> Crazy Patch Writer and in no way represent the thoughts of current Devs or
>> those Devs involved with GSOC2013 and in fact may be out of scope as far as
>> their own thoughts for this year go.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Pete.
>>
>
> Agree with Peter and I would like to add some points I have mentioned in
> other threads to keep this one as a single reference point.
>
> If the logs will not be stored in plain text, it is a *MUST* to have some
> way to see them without opening pidgin, also it should work in command
> line, no nice-UI-not-working-over-ssh.
>
> I don't know how Adium or Instantbird stores the logs, but this SoC will
> be pidgin-specific or libpurple-wide?
>
> Hmm, it has been tough to keep track of all the messages spread across, I
would suggest adding all the students to CC (instead of BCC) so that we can
get a better discussion?I have a few concerns:

* Is it really important to have a Grep like functionality available? I
would not think so, otherwise the whole purpose of chat logger is defeated.
Instead, if I may put it -- make it GOOD enough so that you don't have to
Grep anymore ;-).
* Student to try to speak about how wide (libpurple) or narrow (pidgin
only?) should the project be. I would suggest that going libpurple wide is
a good idea, in which case the project could only implement Backend in
given time frame. Students should make sure project is doable and not
glorious :-).

Cheers
--Sanket
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