Smack Beta 1.1 Released

Smack Smack Dev
1

There was a minor problem with the build process that merged the XML JAR incorrectly into smack.jar. Beta 1.1 has been released, which corrects this problem.

Regards,

Matt

2

Hi Matt,

Good to see the excellent progress being made with Smack (still not convinced about the name of the library though;-)

Where abouts is the download on the site, I can only see links for smack-1.0-beta2.zip etc beneath “Download – Smack Beta 2, February 10, 2003” at http://www.jivesoftware.com/xmpp/smack/ ?

Kind Regards,

Colin Coates.

a.k.a. cocoa69@jabber.org

3

Colin,

Don’'t like the name??

Sorry for the confusion on the naming – beta 2 is the newest release. The previous one was 1.0 beta 1.1, which probably should have been called 1.0 beta 1a (it was a very minor change from beta 1). If you check out the changelog, that should clear stuff up.

Regards,

Matt

4

Matt,

Well it has been previously suggested by (at least one) Computer Science luminary, that having the right name is crucial to the success of software. Gotta try & remember where I read it, maybe it was Donald A. Knuth; it was definitely a “Ha, ha, only serious” type of comment!-)

The name Smack just seems to connote violence and/or drug abuse to me. This probably says more about my psychology then the merits of the name though:-)

The name doesn’‘t take anything away from the quality of the original idea for the software, or its execution to date. I’'m sure I will get used to it given time… maybe you would like to comment on why the name was chosen?

Kind Regards,

Colin.

5

Colin,

Heh, we’'ve never been ones for standard naming conventions (hence Jive). We could pretend that Smack stood for:

Simple Messaging And Communication Kit

although we just thought of that on the spot. Anyway, according to dictionary.com, smack has a few other meanings you might not be familiar with:

  • A fishing boat sailing under various rigs, according to size, and often having a well used to transport the catch to market.

  • A distinctive flavor or taste.

Of course, it does mention that smack is a synonym for heroin as well… but what fun would there be if there wasn’‘t at least a bit of controversy? In any case, we’‘ll definitely consider your feedback and if enough others complain about the name, we’'d certainly consider changing it.

Regards,

Matt