After using Jython (Python) for quite sometime, it was definitely difficult to give it up and use only Java for a project. After coding using Jython and coming to Java I realised that I wasn't necessarily doing coding Java the easiest way. I realised that one of the reason my Jython codes were so small was because of public properties.
Certainly, the builtin datastructures, the expressiveness of Python makes it friendlier and more enjoyable. However, I was making my Java program unnecessarily difficult. I don't remember where I really picked it up, may be working with JavaBeans, I always made my properties or variables private and had accessor methods for them. ALWAYS. This meant every class I wrote had lines and lines of code that just did get/set! That was something I did not do much in Python. Hmm, so I just got rid of that in my Java codes. While not as exciting as coding in Jython, definitely much less code. Hmm not so bad. I wish the data structure were friendly like in Python.
As usual I was searching on the web and wasn't sure what exactly I was searching for. I was jumping from Python to Jabber to Mozilla to many more places before I ended up in at DevCorner@cmeerw.org. The result is that I have latest BBC news coming as instant messages in my Jabber client.
Let me just introduce the components of the system.
Jabber is an open source instant messenger. More like an email the Jabber protocol allows users on one Jabber server to communicate with the users in another Jabber server. No wonder the Jabber Ids are like email ids. My Jabber Id is: axhixh@jabber.org and I can communiate with any other Jabber user on different Jabber servers like someone@elitesecurity.org. Why don't you subscribe to Jabber service in one of the free public servers and get yourself a Jabber client for your platform. Of course, you might want to choose a public server that allows your jabber client to connect to other instant messaging services using transports.
Another part of the system is RSS. An XML file syndicating news. It is often used by sites to let its users know about changes or updates about the site. To learn more about what you can do with it why don't you visit an excellent site RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers .In addition you can learn some more about RSS at the O'Reilly site.
With the basic components of the system intgroduced let me explain how I get the latest news from BBC in my instant messenger client. I am using a Jabber RSS bot called JabRSS. It collects news from various RSS or RDF or XML feeds that I subscribe to and sends it to me as instant messages. Cool, huh? If you are interested you can use the instructions at the JabRSS site.
Of course, you would then need to subscribe to a few RSS feeds before you get anything. So let me list some RSS feeds for you:
BBC News: http:///www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/ukfs_news/front_page/rss091.xml
The weblog of JabRSS: http://cmeerw.org/blog.rdf
GrayGarden: http://weblogs.shrestha.net.np/graygarden/index.rdf [Updated since original post.]
Of course, news feed isn't the only thing you could do on Jabber. How about the summary of your emails?