IRC v3 • Hacker News Board

Re: IRC v3

#161

Post by superkuh » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 12:37 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #139

superkuh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compatibility with a real protocol, IRC, instead of just a marginal bridge. Mattermost will still splinter communities.

The "real protocol" sucks on ice nowadays. No conversation history, no offline message storing, no push notifications, absolutely none of the niceties we've learned since 1990. The whole reason the Slacks and Hipchats and Discords of the world exist is that IRC is a terribly limited protocol that many people have tried to hang enhanced functionality on top of and none have succeeded. Personally, I'm in favor of letti…

I don't know about you but I have all of those things simply by leaving my bog standard IRC client connected to the networks.

IRC is not a limited protocol. What is happening is that people are using limited computers and networks (smart phones) that aren't capable of the same thing a 1990s computer was.

Re: IRC v3

#162

Post by serf » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 12:38 AM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #71

Gruselbauer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah. When I was a teenager my group of friends used to use a QNet IRC chat for communications. Most on mIRC and such clients. Today it's pretty much all nerds. I do enjoy IRC, and pretty much live inside my tmux session, but I don't think I can recommend it to anyone who isn't already probably using it.

>Today it's pretty much all nerds Probably says more about your social circle than IRC. There's a lot of channels and if hookers and blow are more your speed than say, gentoo, you can certainly find a channel primarily discussing them.

i'd just like to mention that hookers/blow & geek/nerd/gentoo are not mutually exclusive.

that is all.

see also: DEFCON, HoHoCon, pretty much any alt-Con.

Re: IRC v3

#163

Post by caf » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 12:40 AM UTC

lfowles wrote: post #159

caf wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prefix is discoverable by client A though: it can send a self-message and thereafter knows the maximum length it can send to any given target.

They will only know the prefix for the server they are connected to. On a larger network such as Freenode, client B could be connected to another server with a different prefix length.

The prefix doesn't involve the server. The prefix that's prepended to your messages when another server passes them on to a client is ":nick!user@host " and is the same for all messages that you originate.

(On Freenode and other networks with a similar service, your hostname can be changed by services, but the client is notified of this and can update its knowledge about the prefix).

Re: IRC v3

#164

Post by op00to » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 12:49 AM UTC

grubles wrote: post #156

op00to wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suddenly it's my job to bring everyone else up to speed on what happened in their off hours? I have a job to do. Slack and Rocket.Chat (and matrix and ...) both solve that problem and a lot of others without the legacy bullshit that IRC slops down the road. I'm sick of spending time working around what is an outdated and inadequate protocol because of momentum in my office.

You realize logging IRC and distributing said logs can be completely automatic, right? Anyone can set that up. It's honestly kind of humorous that you find this to be such a mountain to climb.

Sure. I'll send you logs. Jump onto Slack, and scroll back. Easy.

Re: IRC v3

#165

Post by uxcn » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 12:54 AM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #93

jwr wrote: post #54

I am very glad this is happening. IRC was one of the first applications I started using on the internet. These days it nearly disappeared because of closed silos like Facebook, Twitter and Slack. This effort could help bring back a decentralized service that is not under the control of any single company.

That's the sad thing about decentralized services, they follow a standard that doesn't get updated. Facebook and slack can add new features every month, but adding a new feature to email or IRC is so difficult.

Okay... I agree adding features to email and IRC are probably not the easiest things in the world. There are a number of useful features that have been added to email over time though, and I don't think decentralized control of the protocol is the bottleneck. Wave might or might not be a good example.

Re: IRC v3

#166

Post by wcummings » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 1:04 AM UTC

exhilaration wrote: post #57

bcook wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So logs are no longer append-only? This seems like a uselessly complex thing for all servers and client logs to support. Seems like it would break many things. What situation needs an edit feature? I can think of none, since a quick follow-up correction is simple. Also, edits would ruin many of the funny situations encountered on bash.org. :)

We use Slack heavily in our organization and editing happens all the time - whether it's to fix a typo, or insert a missing word, or cross out something we wrote earlier and put in the corrected version. Once you can do it you'll learn the value of it.

I still use the common irc convention of rewriting the incorrect bit with an asterisk at the end on slack. Old habits die hard.

Re: IRC v3

#167

Post by natermer » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 2:15 AM UTC

serf wrote: post #162

ryanlol wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Today it's pretty much all nerds Probably says more about your social circle than IRC. There's a lot of channels and if hookers and blow are more your speed than say, gentoo, you can certainly find a channel primarily discussing them.

i'd just like to mention that hookers/blow & geek/nerd/gentoo are not mutually exclusive. that is all. see also: DEFCON, HoHoCon, pretty much any alt-Con.

All you need to have hookers and blow is money. Don't need to be sexy, smart, interesting, or good looking.

Sounds like nerds and hookers and blow can go together just fine.

Re: IRC v3

#168

Post by Frondo » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

bcook wrote: post #158

Frondo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logs can be append-only, while clients can still show edits. These aren't in conflict. It wouldn't have to be complex, either, and it certainly isn't useless (says me and a few other people already!). Quick example: I recently typed out about 10 long lines of business development chatter in Slack, the first of which contained a list of prospects. I realized I left a few out in my list, and edited the message to add t…

Personally, I would treat the chat like a forum post and take more time to confirm that what I was posting was accurate. I have never used chat as for business purposes though, so thanks for the insight. I do wonder though, should IRC evolve to be like Slack or should it evolve idependently? I feel that the new features should be more vital, rather than "neat"... like maybe more focus on privacy and/or anonymity. Und…

Forum posts generally can be edited, too.

Re: IRC v3

#169

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 2:28 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #161

Karunamon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "real protocol" sucks on ice nowadays. No conversation history, no offline message storing, no push notifications, absolutely none of the niceties we've learned since 1990. The whole reason the Slacks and Hipchats and Discords of the world exist is that IRC is a terribly limited protocol that many people have tried to hang enhanced functionality on top of and none have succeeded. Personally, I'm in favor of letti…

I don't know about you but I have all of those things simply by leaving my bog standard IRC client connected to the networks. IRC is not a limited protocol. What is happening is that people are using limited computers and networks (smart phones) that aren't capable of the same thing a 1990s computer was.

I'll add I also did these things with 200MHz CPU's, 64MB of RAM, scarce space on HD, a crappy kernel, and a 24Kbps Internet connection that was down most of the time. I'm sure these GHz machines with Nix cores and sporadic 3-4G can handle it. If average developer really tried. ;)

Re: IRC v3

#170

Post by PostOnce » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 2:32 AM UTC

Iggyhopper wrote: post #150

Apps like Discord are the new IRC.

IRC is a protocol. Discord is a business.

NNTP/usenet is a protocol. Reddit is a business.

Email is a protocol. Facebook is a business.

Protocols don't go bankrupt and close up shop. They'll still be around in 10 years.

Protocols don't magically pull the rug out from under you, dictate how you use them, or suddenly change features you want and need without you having any ability to remain on the old system. They don't suddenly up the system requirements or discontinue support for old clients. I can still email from any device I ever could, palm pilot, powermac, whatever. Meanwhile your favorite app is dropping support for Android 4 or whatever 24months after release. Or app xyz no longer works on a 2 year old iOS.

Protocols are something I can rely on. Businesses fly by night. I'm not going to start using Discord now and have it be gone this time next year, I've been using IRC for decades, and I'm going to keep using it. It works perfectly, everywhere. Especially if I have mosh and a server running my irc client somewhere else.