Advanced Messaging Features [was Re: Applications Messaging Standard

[John Taylor]

On 8 Feb 2007, at 10:20, Alasdair Allan wrote:

>
> Noel Winstanley wrote:
>> Plastic has a lot less support for security, transactions, and  
>> other things that typically concern enterprise software. If a  
>> plastic message is dropped, or even spoofed or intercepted, it's  
>> assumed that this isn't the end of the world.
>
> I think this is a good assumption, we shouldn't over-engineer our  
> solution. Things like quality of service and guaranteed delivery  
> add a whole layer of complexity we don't really need for the task  
> at hand.
>
> I also don't think we need support for (much) security, and I don't  
> really want to go near logging or transactions, again I don't think  
> its needed.

<plasticSpecific>

It does occur to me that some of these more complicated features  
could actually be optional.  There's no reason why someone couldn't  
build a Hub that supported (say) guaranteed ordering of messages (the  
only reason I don't guarantee it now is that it simplifies the impl  
and means that you don't risk messages backing up due to one  
slowcoach application).   Then, if an application needed this feature  
it could send the hub a message:
ivo://foo/hub/enableGuaranteedOrdering


Security is a bit of a tricky one - I'd like to resurrect Mark T's  
ideas on this one.  He had a few changes to the API to consider that  
would stop apps spoofing each other and make it harder for other  
users on your machine to hack your hub.  The changes weren't that  
major....though they do slightly complicate the API (clients need to  
keep track of a public ID and a secret key instead of just the  
former).  I'm in two minds on this -  I'd like to know whether app  
developers are happy to pay this small price in return for filling in  
the most obvious security holes.

</plasticSpecific>
>

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