How do we see the purpose of the "Contacts Control" project
In some threads of this forum, I've read words of Danny Thorpe (developer), describing his vision of the "Contact Control's" target audience, e.g. "...we're focused primarily on the browser web app as a dev platform for the contacts control is that it targets a much larger audience than a Win32 or .NET control.The contacts control can be used on Windows and non-Windows machines, in a variety of browsers, and can be incorporated into a web app by just about anyone with a little bit of scripting experience."
I have my own view on this subject, that I want to deliver to the "Contacts Control's" project development team. And I believe, that other members of the development community ("stakeholders") will join this thread to show us the whole spectrum of opinions. So, maybe, we'll help to adjust the roadmap of this project.
So, what's the "Contacts Control" project, as I see it?
It consists of two parts:
1) Visual (visible to the User), client-side control;
2) invisible server-side Service.
Information, that we, outside observers, have, sheds light to the first, Visible part only, and tells nothing about "Service" part.
My understanding is that "Visual" part is only the top of the iceberg, and the "Service" part is the iceberg itself.
"Visual" part may be used by client-side scripts and it just reminds me some old "Form controls", designed to simplify programming for novices (and non-professionals). Here my opinion is the same, as Danny's.
But I'm sure, that "Service" part has much more use, because it is in the mainstream of modern technology: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and so it may be used by EVERYTHING (among them: desktop applications, AJAX scripts on Web pages and "Visual part" itself).
So, I conclude, (from my point of view) that "Visual" part is just "an example" of "Contacts service" usage. And I'm disappointed, that it is quite an "obfuscated" example, when you try to see its code :-(.
I need information about the Service itself and of cause, I'm sure, that hacking the code and "reverse engineering" the Service is a waste of time and an unsupported solution...
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Yuri Volkov
[4218 byte] By [
yvolk] at [2008-2-4]
Hi Yuri,
The service behind the Contacts Control, the thing that actually stores the contacts, has been up and running for a number of years serving Hotmail and MSN Messenger. The API has not been published, but has been used in a number of projects in a "controlled rollout", to avoid overloading the server grid.
The service behind the Contacts Control isn't ready to deal with the onslaught of support issues associated with opening up the API to arbitrary development. By channelling a large number of smaller developers through the Contacts Control, we can make the contacts data available to the "long tail" of the market sooner than if we wait for the service to build out to that level of coverage. The service caters to a small number of high volume, high revenue partners while the Contacts Control addresses a larger number essentially anonymous participants.
You're correct that the Contacts Control does not separate UI from data service. That is by design - to provide maximum visibilty and control to the end user, the end user has to be involved in the data transfer. A plain vanilla API can't do that. Even as we add more capabilities to the Contacts Control (such as write APIs), these will be interwoven with end user UI and control.
Transparency is the key to trust. It's not always the most convenient, but it is the only way to build credibility and trust.
-Danny
Just after reading Dan's reply, I couldn't understand logic in his words, I felt disappointed... but this subject is interesting to me, and I'm returning to it again and again. And after some time I read that words of "transparency" again, and I've got a reason of this misunderstanding (better late than never :-) ): we're both describing the same "field" from opposite sides, and we're trying to explain positions of these different sides:
- Dan is in a position of the Service Provider, that, naturally, tries to make big announcements of small achievements :-). (and Dan's words were about "transparency" for Microsoft);
- I am in the position of the Customer (End User), who wants to have simple, convenient, safe etc. "way" to the global "Contacts service" (Did I say "for free"?)
So, my understanding of Dan's answer is this: this crippled way (through "Contacts control") of accessing long-existing and full-functional "Contacts service" (Yes, we know about this service from MSNP hacks...) is maximum, that Service Provider (Microsoft) may offer today for "retail customers". This "way" is free of charge, so - no complaints :-).
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Yuri Volkov
