Re: [kicq-dev] Re: [icqlib-dev] icq related pages...

[Bill S. <we...@os...>]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Denis V. Dmitrienko wrote:

> Vadim Zaliva <lo...@cr...> writes:
> 
> > Hi!
> > By they way, as part of my other projec, I am finishing now tiny C++
> > wrapper around ICQLIB. Once it will be ready (within a week) I will send
> > you description. Maybe we can provide it as optional part of ICQLIB.
> 
> And what is the best way: leave icqlib implemented with plain C and add C++
> wrapper to it or switch icqlib to the C++ language? What are all of you
> guys thinking?

I know from my work on the tcp section of the lib I think it's _very_
clear that they implemented the real ICQ protocol in C++, almost all of
my tcp code is very OO-like.  Especially by the way the tcp hello and tcp
packets work- the more specialized packets are simply copies of existing
packets with extra information tacked on the end, indicating to me in the
real ICQ they probably used inheritance, etc.

I think it would be a good change, but I also don't know anything about
portability so I can't comment.  We'd really need to use STL I think- but
is this portable now?  It seems most C++ implementations have at least a
basic STL now, and we could always try to stick to the simple types
(especially since that's all we really need anyway) like lists and queues.

I also think it would _significanly_ clean up the library interface.

ex: 

ICQ::Contact denis( DENIS_ICQ_NUMBER );

ICQ::Link *link = new ICQ::Link;
link->contactList.add( denis );
link->setStatus( ICQ::Online );        

ICQ::Message message( "C++ icqlib!" );
link.sendEvent( message );

delete link;

Either way we're going to need to make an interface change soon I think.
So I say go for it, as long as it maintains portability (if that's still
one of your design goals Denis).

Bill