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IRCv3

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Re: IRCv3

#61

Post by petre »

SilverRed wrote: post #58
tastyfreeze wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What upgrades do you think should be added? I miss the environment of IRC 25 years ago. Its something that no messenging application has really been able to replicate for me.

At a bare minimum it needs to be redesigned for modern computers. We have left the days where user all use desktops which sit online always and hold an open connection. IRC needs to support something HTTP like with history.

MQTT or another pubsub queue protocol is probably a better choice than HTTP for disconnected operation. Use it over websockets if you want it to go through proxies.

Re: IRCv3

#63

Post by rendaw »

Arathorn wrote: post #26
alekratz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps that IRC is extremely simple. Most servers you can connect to and chat using telnet if you're so inclined.

Matrix is pretty simple too; one HTTP hit to send a message; one HTTP hit to receive a message. c.f. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20949477 As others have pointed out, there's also a pretty decent range of very usable "daily driver" clients these days (Element, weechat, FluffyChat, nheko, Quaternion, NeoChat all spring to mind). 2nd generation servers are also progressing well (Dendrite in Go & Conduit in Rust…

I've been interested in reading more about the Matrix client protocol, is there documentation anywhere? At least as far as sending/receiving text messages and maybe threading.

That linked message has a lot of good information though.

Re: IRCv3

#64

Post by SilverRed »

lillecarl wrote: post #62
SilverRed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the web socket let you see the history while your device was sleeping?

irccloud allows this

Not familiar with the service but is irccloud one of those services that sits in the middle and converts IRC to a modern http protocol for your device to consume?

Re: IRCv3

#65

Post by grammarnazzzi »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #33
t-writescode wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing bots from scratch in a new language is more fun when parsing is easy.

Yeah but this is such a niche usecase. Also, Matrix uses an HTTP API and almost every language at least has a binding to libcurl, so it's trivial to get something up for Matrix as well. If you're not into the ascetic appeal of writing bytes raw onto a socket, then IRC just seems silly these days.

>> Writing bots from scratch in a new language is more fun when parsing is easy > Yeah but this is such a niche usecase.

I think the point is that writing anything for anything is simpler, faster, and has fewer dependencies when parsing is easy.

> Also, Matrix uses an HTTP API and almost every language at least has a binding to libcurl.

Certainly there are advantages of using Matrix and it's HTTP compatibility to implement some solutions. However, I can also imagine some projects are best served with a simple protocol with lean libraries that don't incur unnecessary dependencies on HTTP and the related bloat and complexity.

Re: IRCv3

#66

Post by lillecarl »

SilverRed wrote: post #64
lillecarl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

irccloud allows this

Not familiar with the service but is irccloud one of those services that sits in the middle and converts IRC to a modern http protocol for your device to consume?

Yes but not only. If you pay for their service It's also an IRC bouncer, meaning you can bring your own IRC client. It'll replay messages for you.

Re: IRCv3

#67

Post by gangohango »

rendaw wrote: post #63
Arathorn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix is pretty simple too; one HTTP hit to send a message; one HTTP hit to receive a message. c.f. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20949477 As others have pointed out, there's also a pretty decent range of very usable "daily driver" clients these days (Element, weechat, FluffyChat, nheko, Quaternion, NeoChat all spring to mind). 2nd generation servers are also progressing well (Dendrite in Go & Conduit in Rust…

I've been interested in reading more about the Matrix client protocol, is there documentation anywhere? At least as far as sending/receiving text messages and maybe threading. That linked message has a lot of good information though.

https://matrix.org/docs/guides/client-server-api

Re: IRCv3

#68

Post by arp242 »

nirvdrum wrote: post #51
azinman2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, by innovating and giving people the user experiences they want. IRC is a joke once you’re used to Slack, especially in an organization that uses it well.

I appreciate having a streamlined chat application, but understand that others feel differently. IRC applications are much better on resource consumption and snappier in my experience, but aren't all that practical on a mobile device. Naturally, how each of us feels about that experience is subjective. So setting that aside, the part about IRC that I haven't seen handled with Slack is being a one-stop shop. With IRC,…

The big thing I miss in IRC is that I can't just open my IRC client, connect to a channel, type a few messages, close the client again, do other stuff, come back a few hours (or even days) later, and see if there are any replies to it.

I know about IRC bouncers and all that, but I don't want to set up a server just for that, and managing them is a pain as well. I know about IRCCloud too, but I don't use chat often enough to justify $5/month (I'm poor, and I just want to chat occasionally).

I don't care much for Slack for many reasons, but at least I can actually use it. I find IRC to be functionally unusable because of this.

From a quick glance, it looks IRCv3 solves this with the chathistory extension/specification.[1] But AFAIK most (no?) servers implement this (yet) and the specification isn't finished either.

https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory

Re: IRCv3

#69

Post by Arathorn »

_abox wrote: post #60
Yoric wrote: post #16

Given that Matrix seems to be quite successful these days, and afaict is basically a next-gen IRC, is there any compelling reason to push IRC?

Matrix seems to lack a good high density client. The only one that's really full featured is Element but it's very consumerish and uses lots of screen space. As soon as you bridge multiple IRC networks and have lots of other chats open, the chat list becomes really messy imo.

Element Web has various high density modes including a dedicated IRC style mode which looks and behaves like xchat?

Re: IRCv3

#70

Post by rendaw »

gangohango wrote: post #67
rendaw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been interested in reading more about the Matrix client protocol, is there documentation anywhere? At least as far as sending/receiving text messages and maybe threading. That linked message has a lot of good information though.

https://matrix.org/docs/guides/client-server-api

Thanks! I did look around the site quite extensively. That page says

> this is specific to a homeserver implementation

which suggests that it's not documenting a Matrix protocol. Unless Matrix has no standardized client protocol? Are all clients going to be homeserver-specific?

Even so I'd hope there's some document that says "Matrix standardizes server-server communication, client-server communication is out of the scope of this standard and is left to individual implementations" or something like that.

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