Chat program advice

HI,

I want to build a simple chat program and have no idea how to start from which languages?

Anyone knows that ICQ or AIM used which language to enable the instant chat session?

Java or VC++? which one is better?

Thanks

gogo

If you're talking about a chat room on the web, cgi is simple, Java is powerful, and more popular than cgi now. If you're talking about IMs like MSN, AOL, Yahoo, or ICQ, Java would be the easiest, but to make it practical you would need an exe file, so VB is probably best for that scenario.

Sorry, do you mean that if I want to program the IM application like simplified ICQ for window platform, I should better use VB instead of Java as it can create the exe file. If so, do I need to handle the COM and WinSocket, etc?

Do you have any resources that could suggest to me? e.g. sample code or tutorial.

Happy New Year!

gogo

Also, I start to be confused about the chat program.

I go to chat.yahoo.com - it is a java chat program that can have text, voice and video chat.

Is this kind of chat room called Internet Relay Chat (mIRC.com) - people can chat through the browser, and not required to install any software on the desktop?

On the other hand, the chat room in aol.com or excite.com which did require to download a software like AIM in order to chat in the browser. ICQ also has to be downloaded and let people to initiate the chat seesion. So, this kind of chat program was written by C++, VC++, Basic or VB?

How about the voice and video chat like clearphone.com? It needs the installation of quicktime for win2k and quicktime + netmeeting for win98. So, this kind of chat software was done by VC++ instead of java?

In conclusion, web-based chat program (do not need to download and install the software) was built by Java.
Others are done by VC++ or VB.

Maybe I am totally wrong.

Any advice?

gogo:confused:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Sean
If you're talking about a chat room on the web, cgi is simple, Java is powerful, and more popular than cgi now. If you're talking about IMs like MSN, AOL, Yahoo, or ICQ, Java would be the easiest, but to make it practical you would need an exe file, so VB is probably best for that scenario.

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Wait, VB? Would anyone mind posting some sample VB code for things like chatting over the internet or doing something over networks? My friends and I tried for months to get weird stuff like that to work, but we never figured out any actual code.

I need to learn VB... all i know is what it's useful for, but I don't know how to code it.. Any suggestions anyone?

Basically, think C without pointers or bit-shifting, with a string data type, and with arrays that can be re-allocated. Then think of each branch of the switch() statement you'd put in your message pump as an "event," and then it's pretty simple. I wouldn't try to do anything complicated in it. You can, though. In fact, just about any windows API function can be called from VB. Some are tricky and require work-arounds for the lack of pointers, though.

VB also has primitive classes, but I never bothered to even look at them.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Sean
I need to learn VB... all i know is what it's useful for, but I don't know how to code it.. Any suggestions anyone?

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Eh, well VB really isn't all that hard...
At least not what I got into in my VB class...
Then again we didn't do anything especially tough, never got into anything more graphical than just images (no sprites or anything) hardly any internet or network stuff (the extent of that was putting a browser control on the screen and adding back and forward buttons and stuff) Really I had no idea VB was useful for anything beyond simple games and stuff. Again if anyone would like to post sample code for some stuff like this, or email me privately about it (considering this is a C++ board) it would be much apreciated.

lol me too jt

i know some vb, but what exactly is it useful for?

everything i learned in vb i know you can do in c++ (although its slightly harder)

I believe VB is the most suitable language for doing something like that, because you don't have to worry about handling events or so, you just have to focus on the functionality.
I tried once to create one chat app for school, but I didn't have enough time, so I dumped it.
By that time, I was using VB4, and a control named WinSock(not the Inet control). I believe that in more recent versions the control is better.

Unfortunately, I dumped all that code and don't remember much of it, but it wasn't that hard.



:cool:

DisPatchMessage();
GetMassage();
SendMessage();

Use winsock controls

(if ur goign to connect to a server, ull need port, and ip and possible ID)

just some advice, take if u want it..

For everyone putting Java down because of no exe, do you all know what a jar file is? :rolleyes: