persistent chat logs

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

I see that walters had some problems persisting chat logs. One issue is
the the multiple discussions problem (have we decided if we want this?).
Another is the reference to person and the fact that chat lines can
change.

Actually, re chat line changes. Do we want such changes logged? What if
a chat line changes some time after the comment was closed? That means
the log changes, and the log now isn't strictly a log of what happened
at the time of the discussion.

I just found another problem. Chat lines that reference whiteboard
images don't persist well, since whiteboards are not persisted either.

As things are looking, it seems we're on track to making every object
persistent. I'm not sure we really want that, it makes things much more
heavyweight and complicated, especially for things like the chat. Also,
some things truly are transient (like LiveComments).

I think we want to keep the idea that the discussion is transient and
active, but then things get archived in a more finalised fashion. We
don't want to store half-finished comments, nor do we want to store
half-finished drawings.

So, maybe we want something like this:

When you post a whiteboard into the chat this is a form of closing. It
creates a persistent whiteboard. This whiteboard object doesn't have a
version field or anything that lets you edit it. Its just the raw data
for the image. This object is persisted in the database, and the chat
log can reference it.

Similarly chat logs don't have to reference the active chat lines that
are in the currently happening chat. Instead they are archived copies of
that log.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a notorious overambitious gangster with a robot buddy named Sparky. She's 
a hard-bitten hypochondriac snake charmer with only herself to blame. They 
fight crime!