Description:

The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is a set of open standards for real-time presence and communication. Apart from powering high-traffic instant messaging systems, XMPP can also be used to write cutting-edge real-time web applications using Ruby web frameworks. This session will provide a high-level overview of the XMPP protocol and various scalable front-end and back-end messaging architectures including message queuing and publish/subscribe that will help offload many of your app's expensive operations. There will also be a comparison of various XMPP servers and an introduction to Ruby libraries that help interface your framework with XMPP. Finally, there will be a discussion about front-end browser interfaces that use XMPP via Javascript and the BOSH protocol to provide lightning-quick and elegant user interfaces. Attendees will walk away with a thorough understanding of what it takes to modify existing web applications to include XMPP solutions for backend messaging or to create full-blown XMPP applications from scratch using Ruby.