Seeking Professional Advice

[Phreak]

A friend of mine and I are wanting to write an Instant Messaging Service much like the "well-known" services such as AIM and MSN Instant Messenger. We're not doing it to try to develop a competitive product, but to just expand our knowledge and experience of programming. So I would like to ask a few questions and by all means, please give us all of your thoughts and opinions. Here are the questions I'm seeking advice on:

 

1. We're wanting to write this application/service(s) in VB.NET. At least in .NET if not VB. Any language advice or preferences anyone can give for a project like this?

 

2. What type of DBMS (Database Management System) would you recommend. We're thinking of using MS SQL Server 2000. Any ideas or suggestions on this?

 

3. We're also thinking of encryption between "buddy" messages. And whether or not they should be peer-to-peer or sent through a server. Any thoughts or opinions? Any suggestions for encryption?

 

That's all for now. I don't want to bombard anyone with too many questions. Please post your suggestions if you have any, as we are REALLY looking for some professional expertise on this. Thanks a ton!

[Heiko]

1. I'd write it in VB.NET or C# - for learning purposes. However, you might want to consider using another platform, because this would require the .NET framework installed on every client (might make your distributable/installer quite big).

 

2. There's no DB with better .NET integration than MS SQL Server 2000. Or at least I don't know any.

 

3. There's an encryption sample at http://download.microsoft.com/download/visualbasic.net/sample77/1.0/NT45XP/EN-US/EncryptandDecryptData.exe

 

 

Personally, I'd send the messanges through a server. Maybe that's because I have ideas in mind how to design it this way, but don't know about peer-to-peer connections :)

 

HTH

Heiko

[divil]

I agree, I'd definitely do it through a server. There are all kinds of problems associated with peer-to-peer IM programs, not least of which are firewall issues. And what happens when you want to invite more people to the chat?

[Nerseus]

What level of programmer are you, Phreak? If you're fairly new I'd suggest scaling WAY back and just try to write a simple chat program and worry about adding SQL Server and encryption and such later. Just a suggestion :)

 

-Ner

[Phreak]

Thanks for all of the help so far guys!

 

Well, I wouldn't say I'm a "n00b" :), but I'm by far an expert. To give you guys a little more of an idea of what we're doing, here is what we have planned for about the next 6 weeks (just planning what we're going to do):

 

1. What DBMS and platform do we want to use?

 

2. How many different services are we going to need? Authentication, notification, update, etc.

 

3. What exactly do we want the program to do besides IM? File transfer?

 

4. What kind of UI do we want?

 

Basic planning things like these. We want to make sure we have the basic plan of attack down on laying the ground work out. Any other ideas of what we should maybe look into?