Language

The server was written in C++ using the GNU C Compiler(http://www.gnu.org) on a Debian GNU/Linux system with a 2.2.16 kernel. For such an application, a high-level, object-oriented language such as C++ or Java was the obvious choice. The author has a fair experience of software development in Java, but none of C++ (or C), but being similar languages picking up C++ was not difficult. There are a number of reasons for choosing C++ over Java:

• Access to machines for testing. Through a college computing society^2.6 the author has (remote) access to approximately 15 computers, most of which are running Debian GNU/Linux. Therefore, the ability for the program to run on these systems makes thorough testing much easier but problematic in that few are installed with recent versions of Java.^2.7.
• Performance and resource usage. Once the system gains a substantial number of users there is going to be a great deal of data to process. The server program is likely to be run on machines that are permanently connected to the Internet, perhaps running other services such as a web server. If the program is too demanding on resources it may affect other services that are seen as more important to the host's owner. Also, if the performance is not acceptable, then users will become disenchanted by the system and use a different one.

The aim is to design a system that can be implemented on any platform in any suitable language, but to facilitate the reuse of code between server and client programs (e.g. parsing modules), the client was also written in C++.