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Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

dave.cheney.net

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Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#261

Post by Arathorn »

Arathorn wrote: post #257
swiley wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in the spirit of IRC" is a bit of a stretch. This is all a massive blob of web technologies which contrasts IRC's minimalism and it's lightweight clients written in C. It doesn't appear to require any specific service though so at least it has that.

I'm not sure it's fair to call it a massive blob of web technologies (although I'm biased, given I work on it). To compare sending a message on IRC versus sending one on Matrix: $ telnet irc.freenode.net 6667 ... NICK Ara4n USER Ara4n Ara4n irc.freenode.net :Matthew Hodgson ... JOIN #matrix PRIVMSG #matrix :test versus: curl "https://matrix.org/_matrix/client/r0/rooms/!cURbafjkfsMDVwdRDQ%3Amatrix.org/send/m.room.mess…

(that said, I think the point of Dave Cheney's article is more that sync realtime chat is bad for FOSS collaboration relative to mailing lists and forums. So until Matrix finally lands threading & forum semantics and smtp/nntp bridges, I suspect it's part of the problem he's complaining about :D)

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#262

Post by nullc »

ktta wrote: post #236
swiley wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in the spirit of IRC" is a bit of a stretch. This is all a massive blob of web technologies which contrasts IRC's minimalism and it's lightweight clients written in C. It doesn't appear to require any specific service though so at least it has that.

Well we are moving to a web first world, and passing the terminal days of IRC. Trying to avoid web technologies isn't going to do anyone good. Best we can do is try to make them better are secure. Light weight clients can be written in C if you want. There's nothing that needs a web browser Here's the spec if you're interested[1]. There's also a weechat script if you want a command line client[2] [1]: https://matrix.…

> Well we are moving to a web first world,

Too bad much of the web stinks, with terrible responsiveness and usability and impose those results through bloated protocols and spaghetti architecture on anything that tries to interface with them.

Multiple times on caltrain I've had people ask me how I'm on the internet as I have meetings on IRC without even noticing the connectivity has gone poor -- while their webchat stuff with multiple megabytes of ajaxy whatever won't even load.

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#263

Post by iffycan »

Arathorn wrote: post #257
swiley wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in the spirit of IRC" is a bit of a stretch. This is all a massive blob of web technologies which contrasts IRC's minimalism and it's lightweight clients written in C. It doesn't appear to require any specific service though so at least it has that.

I'm not sure it's fair to call it a massive blob of web technologies (although I'm biased, given I work on it). To compare sending a message on IRC versus sending one on Matrix: $ telnet irc.freenode.net 6667 ... NICK Ara4n USER Ara4n Ara4n irc.freenode.net :Matthew Hodgson ... JOIN #matrix PRIVMSG #matrix :test versus: curl "https://matrix.org/_matrix/client/r0/rooms/!cURbafjkfsMDVwdRDQ%3Amatrix.org/send/m.room.mess…

Call me crazy, but I think your example illustrates one reason why IRC is great: I can read it. And I could probably get it right even typing it from memory.

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#264

Post by chrisseaton »

cat199 wrote: post #198
s73ver wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Feature wise slack doesn't really bring much new. It just has a good interface." That's a pretty huge feature. Never underestimate how making something more usable increases it's popularity.

Really - what is sooo unusable about IRC? Get a good GUI client, enter some parameters into a text bar, click 'ok', then chat. exactly the same process as a web browser.. The real problem is the 'endless summer' of tablet-era people who confuse the 'interweb' with the 'internet'. There used to be much more general community advocacy and understanding of promoting open communications 'baked in' to the internet culture…

Can you easily share multi-line code, formatted in a proportional font and syntax highlighted, in any IRC client? That's something I want to do almost every hour I'm working.

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#265

Post by Arathorn »

iffycan wrote: post #263
Arathorn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's fair to call it a massive blob of web technologies (although I'm biased, given I work on it). To compare sending a message on IRC versus sending one on Matrix: $ telnet irc.freenode.net 6667 ... NICK Ara4n USER Ara4n Ara4n irc.freenode.net :Matthew Hodgson ... JOIN #matrix PRIVMSG #matrix :test versus: curl "https://matrix.org/_matrix/client/r0/rooms/!cURbafjkfsMDVwdRDQ%3Amatrix.org/send/m.room.mess…

Call me crazy, but I think your example illustrates one reason why IRC is great: I can read it. And I could probably get it right even typing it from memory.

Agreed that the IRC line protocol is superficially easier on the eyes, but it's far from intuitive (especially the weird USER command). Whereas remembering the URL shape for Matrix is... just another URL (plus you can always cheat and just 'copy as curl' from a browser's network inspector). But each to their own :D

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#267

Post by russdpale »

nullc wrote: post #262
ktta wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we are moving to a web first world, and passing the terminal days of IRC. Trying to avoid web technologies isn't going to do anyone good. Best we can do is try to make them better are secure. Light weight clients can be written in C if you want. There's nothing that needs a web browser Here's the spec if you're interested[1]. There's also a weechat script if you want a command line client[2] [1]: https://matrix.…

> Well we are moving to a web first world, Too bad much of the web stinks, with terrible responsiveness and usability and impose those results through bloated protocols and spaghetti architecture on anything that tries to interface with them. Multiple times on caltrain I've had people ask me how I'm on the internet as I have meetings on IRC without even noticing the connectivity has gone poor -- while their webchat s…

Yeh in this vain, I'll add that I have very experienced colleagues who are so fed up with the current internet that they don't even fight net neutrality, and would rather another protocol rise in its place.

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#268

Post by eridius »

hdhzy wrote: post #133
falcolas wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's anything like my experience, the trip from clicking on the button to open the app and wait for the myriad of redirects, before clicking through to the page you actually want to monitor is non-trivial (and sometimes doesn't occur if the tab isn't in the foreground). I don't have that many open, and it still takes me around 5 minutes every day to open them back up.

At least you have SSO! Imagine what if you had different credentials to each of these services (even logins)! There are big companies that operate like that...

Having different credentials would actually be faster. One key chord to ask 1Password to fill in my password and log in, and I'd be done. Instead, with SSO, every time I need to log in, I need to type in my email address, go through a bazillion redirects to Google where it asks me which of my accounts I want to use (even though I already typed in my email, and even though I only ever use one of those accounts for SSO), click it, often have to then enter my Google password and/or OTP code, then go through a bazillion more redirects back to the app.

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#269

Post by eridius »

cls59 wrote: post #222
throwaway9475 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's necessarily a generational thing. I know people in their 30s who don't know what IRC is (or who at least haven't used it), and I know people in their 20s who DO use it (or at least know what it is). And it's not as though the knowledge is lost; IRC still exists and there exists plenty of information about it. It's just not carried around in people's heads as much. None of this is good or bad; it ju…

I don't think it's a generational thing either. I know how to use IRC and how to connect with it. The problem is the difference in the amount of energy demanded by the set-up process. Connecting to Slack is extremely simple and I don't have to fiddle with the settings in order to get a decent experience. Compared to IRC, I have to: - Figure out how to configure my client. - Figure out how to interact with the user ac…

The benefit, though, is once you are set up with IRC, joining new channels is a breeze, especially since most open source software uses a single network (Freenode). All I have to do is type something like

  /join #rust-lang
and I'm in the new channel. Compare this with Slack, where, no matter how many teams you've joined in the past, you have to go through the exact same rigamarole to join a new Slack team.

Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications

#270

Post by duskwuff »

iffycan wrote: post #263
Arathorn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's fair to call it a massive blob of web technologies (although I'm biased, given I work on it). To compare sending a message on IRC versus sending one on Matrix: $ telnet irc.freenode.net 6667 ... NICK Ara4n USER Ara4n Ara4n irc.freenode.net :Matthew Hodgson ... JOIN #matrix PRIVMSG #matrix :test versus: curl "https://matrix.org/_matrix/client/r0/rooms/!cURbafjkfsMDVwdRDQ%3Amatrix.org/send/m.room.mess…

Call me crazy, but I think your example illustrates one reason why IRC is great: I can read it. And I could probably get it right even typing it from memory.

The IRC protocol is surprisingly difficult to implement correctly. I'm not an expert on the issues involved, but a few of the high points include:

* No standard maximum message length. If you input a line which is more than 510 characters after being prefixed with the channel name, server name, and other metadata, it may be truncated for some clients. If you're on a network which includes multiple servers, some clients may actually see your message truncated in different locations, based on how long their local server's name is.

* No standard text encoding. Some clients assume ISO8859-1, some assume UTF-8, and some will mix and match (ew).

* No way to determine when certain commands have succeeded. In particular, commands which can generate multiple lines of output (like WHOIS) don't have a standardized termination. Command-line clients sidestep the issue by just showing all the output in one place; higher-level clients have to guess.

* No standard identity services. NickServ is a common bolt-on, but it's a total hack. (It works by pretending it's another IRC server!)

* Bold, colors, and emotes (/me) are all client-side hacks.

* DCC file transfer is a complete and utter mess. It's like TFTP, but poorly implemented, over a TCP transport.

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