Life In 19x19

Charlie wrote:Also: ... JSONP ... mutter ... cross domain requests ... mutter ... mutter ...

Lol I get the impression that WMS is still quite dubious about open source.

Charlie wrote:I briefly considered some sort of co-deployment so that a .NET client could fire up the server as a surrogate process. That would be possible but complicated and the deployment footprint would be untenable.

Interesting idea. It will probably be a bit complicated, but the footprint may not be so bad. If you assume Java as prerequisite (not unreasonable if you're going to consider .net as a prerequisite) then you can run jetty as your servlet container, which is "only" about 11 megs zipped.

I have just gone over the Google+ thread and found this post by WMS, in response to the question if he is planning to host the binary-to-JSON converter in the foreseeable future:

Yes, other clients can use the JSON translator, but I don't have much interest in other clients. I'm not going to stop people from writing them, but I don't plan to actively help them either.

I'm fine with an open source HTML client. As long as a good HTML in-browser client is written, I'll be very happy.

This sounds as if WMS has no interest in an iOS client, despite the fact that so many people are desperately waiting for it. Strange, isn't it?

SpongeBob wrote: This sounds as if WMS has no interest in an iOS client, despite the fact that so many people are desperately waiting for it. Strange, isn't it?

wms has no iOS devices or macs in which to write it. I imagine most iOS users will be at least happier with having an html version and anyone interested in programming an iOS KGS app now can.

oren wrote:... and anyone interested in programming an iOS KGS app now can.

Is that true? Where would the binary-to-JSON conversion happen - is it possible (and if so, how) to include that within the app?

I'm guessing running the war file would be next to impossible on an iOS device, so you would want a small server and have other iOS devices pointing at it. I am running the war file on my own system and server.

Anyone wanting to write a client in a non-html technology (like iOS, or Windows, etc) is taking on a significant risk: either you have to host the json converter on your own server, or you have to hope that wms hosts the json server on the kgs server.

Running your own json converter is fine for development, but I would not want to run it in production. There are hosting costs (compute+bandwidth) with no apparent means of income, unless you charged for the iOS or Windows apps, which sounds like a legal minefield. Furthermore, if there were technical issues, you'd have very little means to resolve them. The json converter is closed source, and you would have no access to the binary logs.

Realistically, you'd have to hope the 2nd scenario happens - that someone writes a good enough html client that persuades wms to host the json converter on the kgs server itself.

It has been suggested to embed the json converter inside the client application. An interesting idea, but since this requires Java itself, it may make the installation footprint enormous, not to mention complicated. It does suggest an obvious direction tho - perhaps someone can write a better Swing client

This is equally disappointing as when the stones sound issue was not getting fixed and when an HTML client was announced and never came ...

All technical problems have solutions, easier or harder solutions. But in this case, the biggest uncertainty is that the KGS owner's full cooperation is not guaranteed.

Quoting from KGS’ post on G+:

KGS wrote:For people who are interested in the KGS JSON protocol, I've set up a mailing list at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/kgs-client-coding

Please visit there and sign up if you have any interest in writing a client!

It seems evident to me that the biggest threat to KGS' future is its own parent. Sad, really.

Drew wrote:It seems evident to me that the biggest threat to KGS' future is its own parent. Sad, really.

Yeah as long as he refuses to opensource any of it, KGS development is doomed to stagnate.

I'm also pretty sure that wms is the only person on earth still posting on Google+