8 ms·

Google Wave: You need to pay attention to this

64 points by raju 17y ago

symesc 17y ago
This some good analysis. I had no idea of the bigger vision of the XMPP protocol. In the near term I've been working through how we could use Wave within some of our (relatively) simple content-creation processes at work, particularly around those items that require review by a number of stakeholders before being made public. The key thing for me around Google's implementation is how one Wave, full of modifications and history, can spawn a new Wave in the form of a published version. We continually struggle with content management, and the balance between easy-to-use and "actually-managed." Version history, content re-use, blah. If Wave can deliver that alone, it'll be worth our effort to use it. If it can deliver all of what Jason talks about this article, it'll be one of the most leveraged chunks of technology in the whole business . . . and insulate us from the whims of Big Software Companies. This is exciting.
ROFISH 17y ago
I keep saying this with every Wave article: Wave is HARD! It's not the XMPP server-to-server stuff, it's the server-to-client Javascripting that is a giant pain in the ass. You literally have to have a HUGE textarea or designMode parser or just flatout write your own input methods.
- bprater 17y ago
  Anyone have a reference for this? I'd be curious to see what the code looks like.
dgreensp 17y ago
Wave is an immature and new technology. And the Wave client does not speak XMPP; it's not an XMPP client. Federated Wave servers, potentially owned by different parties, need a standardized way to open a persistent socket and send messages back and forth, with security, authentication, etc. XMPP is used as a transport layer for that.
btn 17y ago
Wave, in a lot of ways, is just a XMPP client/aggregator. I don't mean that in a condescending way, it's very cool, but it's hardly "the first truly revolutionary leap since HTTP itself". The article says that this revolution hinges on XMPP letting you "talk directly to ANYTHING, and ANYONE", but that's just false (it's decentralised but not peer-to-peer) and hardly "HUGE": SMTP is such a protocol where "Social networks and proprietary transports no longer have an exclusive license to deliver content", it's just too old and crusty for us to slap some buzzwords on it and claim that "it can easily turn into a bona-fide platform for next-generation applications".
- zby 17y ago
  XMPP is only the connection part of the Wave - the other, if not more complex then at least much less understood part, is http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/operational-transform http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/operational-transfor... which is a theory about how to change a document according to concurrent editing commands streams. The idea is that using a special document structure and operations you can emulate the interface of any communication application (in email that document is a thread of conversation with rules allowing people append new 'emails', irc channels can be similarly represented with the document being the channel 'screen', you can even represent a chess game as a series of editing of the chess board). This generality let's you mix and match freely the communication modes used in different communication tools (like wiki and im etc).
frognibble 17y ago
XMPP is defined in two RFCs. RFC 3920 specifies the low level transport between servers and clients. Wave uses the server to sever transport defined in RFC 3920. RFC 3921 specifies messaging and presence. Wave ignores RFC 3921.
thetrumanshow 17y ago
I have no idea what wave is. I keep hearing about it and follow up by purposefully avoiding learning anything about it. I figure if its really really good, it will simply work it's way into my life somehow without any effort on my part.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  You raise an interesting point. I have a sandbox account and while I've seen a couple of cool things on there (in a limited amount of time spent), I've yet to see anything that makes me feel 'I must use this...all the time'. Great for threaded discussions - HN could probably be re-implemented easily - but so far I haven't tripped across any bold new paradigms with it. Anyone have suggestions for particular things to check out?
einarvollset 17y ago
Meh.
jsz0 17y ago
I think it might be impossible for Google Wave to live up to the hype at this point. The problem with declaring something is revolutionary or will change the Internet as we know it (blah blah) is those choices are made by massive numbers of users at a grassroots level. You can't just say hey, this is great, you should stop using all the tools you're content with because it's technically better. It doesn't work that way. I'm positive it will be a useful tool to a certain group of people but it doesn't pass my "will my Mom be using this in 3 years?" test. It doesn't even come close. Google should have probably kept this one under wraps until they were ready for a pretty good public beta. Announcing it so far ahead of time creates an environment where lots of people want to project lots of different ideas on top of it without any understanding yet of how people may actually want to use the service.
- cracki 17y ago
  it's not in public beta yet. not the way google defines "beta". at the monent, only developers get in on it.
tybris 17y ago
(woke up grumpy) A. XMPP is the major leap since HTTP. Wave is just some bloated junk that abuses it. B. XMPP is not the intermediary network that allows anyone in the world to talk to each other, the Internet is. XMPP is just the model that makes it practical. Just as the main job of the HTTP protocol is to define client-server communication. The main job of the XMPP protocol is to define client-gateway-gateway-client communication. Wave is just a bloated, locked-in protocol for asynchronous user group communication. Since it targets users directly, and not communication in general, it will ultimately lose to customer-driven social networks. Meanwhile, you can build stuff on XMPP that's a lot more awesome, because like all the successful protocols before it (IP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, TCP, E-mail, Web Services), it doesn't really do that much. You decide what it does.
- calambrac 17y ago
  What about Wave do you feel is bloat?
markessien 17y ago
I have a wave account. I logged in, and I could not even figure out if the thing could send an email to a normal account. Google Wave is very hard to understand at the moment. It's something that has to be addressed.
- njharman 17y ago
  Totally. I can't comprehend that anybody thinks that busy mess of frames, text, icons, is an "incredibly sexy client".
  - pkulak 17y ago
    Yeah, it's pretty crazy when you log into the dev account, but if I had thousands of people all CCing me at once, my email account would be just as, if not more, confusing. I suspect it will be a lot easier to get a hold of once they open up "real" accounts and I can just participate in waves with people I know.
keefe 17y ago
I found this to be one of the more coherent and simple introductions to wave.

64 points by raju 17y ago

This some good analysis. I had no idea of the bigger vision of the XMPP protocol. In the near term I've been working through how we could use Wave within some of our (relatively) simple content-creation processes at work, particularly around those items that require review by a number of stakeholders before being made public. The key thing for me around Google's implementation is how one Wave, full of modifications and history, can spawn a new Wave in the form of a published version. We continually struggle with content management, and the balance between easy-to-use and "actually-managed." Version history, content re-use, blah. If Wave can deliver that alone, it'll be worth our effort to use it. If it can deliver all of what Jason talks about this article, it'll be one of the most leveraged chunks of technology in the whole business . . . and insulate us from the whims of Big Software Companies. This is exciting.

ROFISH 17y ago

I keep saying this with every Wave article: Wave is HARD! It's not the XMPP server-to-server stuff, it's the server-to-client Javascripting that is a giant pain in the ass. You literally have to have a HUGE textarea or designMode parser or just flatout write your own input methods.

bprater 17y ago
Anyone have a reference for this? I'd be curious to see what the code looks like.

dgreensp 17y ago

Wave is an immature and new technology. And the Wave client does not speak XMPP; it's not an XMPP client. Federated Wave servers, potentially owned by different parties, need a standardized way to open a persistent socket and send messages back and forth, with security, authentication, etc. XMPP is used as a transport layer for that.

btn 17y ago

Wave, in a lot of ways, is just a XMPP client/aggregator. I don't mean that in a condescending way, it's very cool, but it's hardly "the first truly revolutionary leap since HTTP itself". The article says that this revolution hinges on XMPP letting you "talk directly to ANYTHING, and ANYONE", but that's just false (it's decentralised but not peer-to-peer) and hardly "HUGE": SMTP is such a protocol where "Social networks and proprietary transports no longer have an exclusive license to deliver content", it's just too old and crusty for us to slap some buzzwords on it and claim that "it can easily turn into a bona-fide platform for next-generation applications".

zby 17y ago
XMPP is only the connection part of the Wave - the other, if not more complex then at least much less understood part, is http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/operational-transform http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/operational-transfor... which is a theory about how to change a document according to concurrent editing commands streams. The idea is that using a special document structure and operations you can emulate the interface of any communication application (in email that document is a thread of conversation with rules allowing people append new 'emails', irc channels can be similarly represented with the document being the channel 'screen', you can even represent a chess game as a series of editing of the chess board). This generality let's you mix and match freely the communication modes used in different communication tools (like wiki and im etc).

frognibble 17y ago

XMPP is defined in two RFCs. RFC 3920 specifies the low level transport between servers and clients. Wave uses the server to sever transport defined in RFC 3920. RFC 3921 specifies messaging and presence. Wave ignores RFC 3921.

thetrumanshow 17y ago

I have no idea what wave is. I keep hearing about it and follow up by purposefully avoiding learning anything about it. I figure if its really really good, it will simply work it's way into my life somehow without any effort on my part.

anigbrowl 17y ago
You raise an interesting point. I have a sandbox account and while I've seen a couple of cool things on there (in a limited amount of time spent), I've yet to see anything that makes me feel 'I must use this...all the time'. Great for threaded discussions - HN could probably be re-implemented easily - but so far I haven't tripped across any bold new paradigms with it. Anyone have suggestions for particular things to check out?

einarvollset 17y ago

Meh.

jsz0 17y ago

I think it might be impossible for Google Wave to live up to the hype at this point. The problem with declaring something is revolutionary or will change the Internet as we know it (blah blah) is those choices are made by massive numbers of users at a grassroots level. You can't just say hey, this is great, you should stop using all the tools you're content with because it's technically better. It doesn't work that way. I'm positive it will be a useful tool to a certain group of people but it doesn't pass my "will my Mom be using this in 3 years?" test. It doesn't even come close. Google should have probably kept this one under wraps until they were ready for a pretty good public beta. Announcing it so far ahead of time creates an environment where lots of people want to project lots of different ideas on top of it without any understanding yet of how people may actually want to use the service.

cracki 17y ago
it's not in public beta yet. not the way google defines "beta". at the monent, only developers get in on it.

tybris 17y ago

(woke up grumpy) A. XMPP is the major leap since HTTP. Wave is just some bloated junk that abuses it. B. XMPP is not the intermediary network that allows anyone in the world to talk to each other, the Internet is. XMPP is just the model that makes it practical. Just as the main job of the HTTP protocol is to define client-server communication. The main job of the XMPP protocol is to define client-gateway-gateway-client communication. Wave is just a bloated, locked-in protocol for asynchronous user group communication. Since it targets users directly, and not communication in general, it will ultimately lose to customer-driven social networks. Meanwhile, you can build stuff on XMPP that's a lot more awesome, because like all the successful protocols before it (IP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, TCP, E-mail, Web Services), it doesn't really do that much. You decide what it does.

calambrac 17y ago
What about Wave do you feel is bloat?

markessien 17y ago

I have a wave account. I logged in, and I could not even figure out if the thing could send an email to a normal account. Google Wave is very hard to understand at the moment. It's something that has to be addressed.

njharman 17y ago
Totally. I can't comprehend that anybody thinks that busy mess of frames, text, icons, is an "incredibly sexy client".
- pkulak 17y ago
  Yeah, it's pretty crazy when you log into the dev account, but if I had thousands of people all CCing me at once, my email account would be just as, if not more, confusing. I suspect it will be a lot easier to get a hold of once they open up "real" accounts and I can just participate in waves with people I know.

keefe 17y ago

I found this to be one of the more coherent and simple introductions to wave.