they wanted to be able to leave their desktop logged in, move to their laptop, and not have the conversation pop up there
Did someone outside the XMPP-bubble really request that?
Why would you possibly want to not see the entire conversation when switching between multiple devices?
the problem is that it's vastly complicated and therefore nobody ever implemented it.
That's what I mean by over-engineered. As a matter of fact no single jabber client or server (that I know of) supports multi-device sync, not even without crypto. I.e. 13 years after its inception jabber (the "platform") still lacks fundamental functionality. Despite tens of thousands of lines of specification and lots of energy spent on absurdities like "transports".
Did someone outside the XMPP-bubble really request that?
Why would you possibly want to not see the entire conversation when switching between multiple devices?
the problem is that it's vastly complicated and therefore nobody ever implemented it.
That's what I mean by over-engineered. As a matter of fact no single jabber client or server (that I know of) supports multi-device sync, not even without crypto. I.e. 13 years after its inception jabber (the "platform") still lacks fundamental functionality. Despite tens of thousands of lines of specification and lots of energy spent on absurdities like "transports".