Reflection 65¢

Before my diagnosis change I had been and have been playing around with self-hosting. It wasn’t goal directed specifically but an opportunity to better see, manage and understand the complexities and trade-offs of running services (and in theory organisations with just 1 human).

One of the decisions I came up to was what kind of chat system could/would be used, and of course I don’t claim any insight into correctness or what’s right for others but I did implement XMPP as developed by others against my LDAP of 1 + a few server profiles. I picked XMPP because it was light weight relative to other communication alternatives I found and seemed more suited to what I was trying to do, and facilitating that lightness I think due to the age/communication/diversity that others have invested in the protocol.

Anyway, I just wanted to express my bias and appreciation for the outcomes of collaboration/communication/diversity and efficiency. I can’t say its the best set of trade-offs for everyone or for every situation but its those characteristics that I think I have enjoyed playing with, learning about and experimenting with.

It’d be nice to be able to play with federation which I’ve never done and can come with a mountain of complexity but in that is the fun! Even if I was wrong in my bias it was fun to have an opportunity to start experimenting. I hope the experimentation continues!

— LostLetterbox