xml-rpc

[catness]

Hi all,

I had asked a question about the missing XML-RPC custom groups support a while ago. Just now I've installed a local DW clone for testing, and hacked ljprotocol.pl to support a new method called "gettrustgroups" - it looks exactly like "getfriendgroups" but returns trust groups. My LJ-client (qtxpost - it's fully functional now, at least for posting/editing) calls this method in addition to "login", if the server is described in config as a "dreamwidth" code branch, to replace the empty groups list returned on login.

So far it seems to be working :) I wonder if you would accept a patch for it, or you've been planning to do it in a different way and it's anyway too cheeky for a newcomer to poke around important code? Also, is it possible to join DW development team, even if I can't guarantee how much time I would be able to dedicate to it? (I work a full-time job as a programmer/sysadmin.)

Comments

[sophie]

If you have a patch, we'd love to see it. :D You will have to sign a Contributor Licensing Agreement or the code won't be able to go in the codebase, but while you're waiting for that to be received you can certainly go to the relevant bug in Bugzilla and upload the patch.

As it is, it looks like there's no bug for it right now, so you might want to create one. (Bug 1291 says that the protocol changes for gettrustgroups would happen in another bug, though it doesn't appear to have been created.)

If you can, please make sure the code conforms to the Programming Guidelines.

And joining the DW development team is as easy as picking out bugs and patching them! We do hang out on IRC a lot, so feel free to come and hang out with us if you like!

[catness]

Thanks a lot! Will send the licensing agreement when I'll get hold of the scanner!

Reading the discussion on bug 1291 - got an impression that Mark doesn't want anybody to mess with the protocol ;) anyway, what I did was mostly a copy/paste job, very trivial... so maybe I should wait a bit before creating a new bug... :)

[zvi]

I went ahead and read the bug discussion. When Mark says "talk to me first", what he means is, "The code should function in a particular way that I have not yet taken time to write out as a spec, so talk to me so you can get the spec from my head." The spec in his head may or may not be difficult, dangerous, or intricate; it could be trivial and easy, just something he hasn't written down yet.

As someone longing for a good native client (and knowing that this is the rock on which all of the quasi-native client implementations so far have foundered), I wish you would talk to him long enough so you could at least write up a proper bug and get the spec out of Mark's head, where other people can work on it. (I'd try to talk to him myself, but the programming is sufficiently far enough above my head that I wouldn't understand what he was saying.)

[mark]

Oh, I would absolutely love someone to work on the protocol! zvi is exactly right, though, I have thoughts in my head about how it should work that haven't made it out yet.

However, I'd rather have something out there that works, so if you take this up and make it happen I'm not going to complain and even if it's not how I would do it you can bet it'll get accepted and put into the codebase.

[catness]

Great! thank you!!

So then, adding this one function will be the first step, and because it can't be really tested without a proper client, I'll upload the new version of my program with all the changes, too - hopefully all will be done tomorrow.

[denise]

If you need help testing or need a development environment to work in, etc, just post here. We can mobilize people to help test quite easily!

[catness]

Wondeful! thank you! I do have a development environment (just installed a DW-clone yesterday, and I really appreciate how smoothly everything works! compared to LJ, anyway.) The client program will definitely benefit from more testing. Maybe it can be included into the list of DW-recommended clients someday...

[denise]

Oh, trust me, we'll promote the heck out of it :)

[denise]

Maybe braindump your thoughts into a dw_dev post or Wiki page to have a starting place to work from?

(And yes, protocol work would be awesome.)