[Telegraph-users] Telegraph for FreeSWITCH

[Jonathan Palley]

Hello All -
  In light of recent discussions on the mailing list, I would like to
let everyone that I have released an initial version of Telegraph for
FreeSWITCH.  This code base is completely refactored and reflects my
vision of where Telegraph + Voice/Web Integration should go.  It
currently does not support Asterisk, but read on and you will see why
it easily can and should.  You can find more API info here:
http://code.google.com/p/telegraph/.  I will be presenting at ClueCon
and discussing this.

Some motivations and information about this new version of Telegraph.

a) After dealing with constant Asterisk head-aches, I have ditched it
in favor of FreeSWITCH.  Why (warning, the following is my truthful
promotion and endorsement of FS)?
   i) Asterisk was built as a PBX.  If you are using Telegraph/Rails
you are almost certainly not using it as a PBX.  FS is, surprise, a
SWITCH.  There is a fundamental and powerful difference.
   ii) FreeSWITCH has a great modular architecture, Asterisk is a mess
that endlessly locks.  Spend a few hours comparing their code.  You
will truly be astonished.
   ii) FS is considerably more stable.  Hard to believe since its so
new but in my experience we rarely deal with FS problems while
Asterisk was always a culprit.
   iv) Unlike Asterisk's AMI/AGI, the FreeSWITCH controlling
interfaces are clean and standardized.  Take a look at the ami.rb code
to understand what I am talking about when it comes to Asterisk's
quirks.

b) The new Telegraph is built using EventMachine, not TCP.
EventMachine is faster, more stable and doesn't require the use of
Ruby's notoriously bad threads.  We have been running it in production
for quiet a while and, again, its considerably more stable than the
TCP library based version.

c) Telegraph is now modular.  The FS specific code and the overall
control/rails integration code has been separated.  This is why, in
theory, adding an EventMachine based Asterisk interface would be quiet
simple.

We have been running this code with FS in production for the last few
months and its been incredibly smooth.  If you don't have a reason to
use Asterisk over FreeSWITCH, use FS.  If your reason is that you are
more comfortable with Asterisk, learn FS...you will thank yourself.

There are some folks already working on updating Telegraph to work
with Asterisk in the new codebase.  If you are interested in helping I
can connect you.  I don't believe in writing code that you do not
really use.  Right now, everything I and my company does is with FS.
I could develop for Asterisk (and am happy to consult) but it should
come from someone who is really using this stuff....

Hope this helps!

Jonathan
P.S.  Anyone going to be at ClueCon?  Anyone in Chicago/Bay
Area/Sacramento using Telegraph?  I will be in the U.S. at the
beginning of August in those locations.  Drop me a line if you'd like
to meetup.