What is Spark? How can it benefit me? [closed]

Question

Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

We don’t allow questions about general computing hardware and software on Stack Overflow. You can edit the question so it’s on-topic for Stack Overflow.

Closed 8 years ago.

Improve this question

I was reading about the Smack API and XMPP server Openfire . I also read about Spark, an open source IM client.

I am still reading about each of them but one thing confuses me. Do I need Spark? I mean, what does it do? I could have my own chat interface.

Answer 1

You do not need Spark itself to create a chat application. Let's say you're making a web browser. While it may be nice to take inspiration from Chromium, it is not necessary, and is an independent product. The same happens here.

Spark is a client for the XMPP protocol, it seems. Making a chat application involves a server and a client. If you are using XMPP there are many clients and many servers out there so you only need to create a server, or a client, or both if you'd like.