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9
DEC
2008XMPP and Metaprogramming Screencasts
I've mentioned some nice screencasts I've found in the past. Well, I've been watching quite a few more lately and I've uncovered some more hits.
First, PeepCode has another excellent screencast on using XMPP with Ruby. This video explains what XMPP is and isn't, why it's important, and shows a good deal of information about how you can work with the protocol to accomplish some real world server to server or human communication tasks. You don't need any prior XMPP knowledge going into this one.
It's hard to overstate exactly how much PeepCode got right with this video. For example, I've seen quite a few screencasts now that byte off more than they can chew for a short video. That's not the case here. XMPP turns out to be perfectly bite sized in that a one hour video can serve as a strong introduction to pretty much all you need to know when using it. This has other advantages too. Since the creator isn't trying to squeeze too much content into too short of time, he can afford to drop some truly stellar related tips. In the case of the XMPP video these are what IM client to use when debugging, because it allows you to see the underlying protocol, and how to easily combine XMPP with DRb for fire-and-forget messaging. These extras really push this screencast over the top.
