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Ask HN: Best IRC channels?

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Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?

#72

I don't know that there are too many interesting "abstract" IRC communities, beyond those Freenode channels specific to a given programming language or technology. I leave a connection to Freenode running while I'm at work, in a few channels related to my job... so that during builds, or other short bursts of idle time, I can glace over and see if there are any questions I can answer. Likewise, I throw out a quick qu…

As has been extensively documented, the mainstream kills discussion communities. Being hard to find is a proxy for an intelligence filter. And ones without moderation (such as IRC) suffer the worst.

Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?

#75
post #4

I hang out on Freenode, in #nimrod, ##php, #elementary-dev and a couple of others. I'd love to know some good security ones to idle in; I've got a bit of experience in it and am trying to expand it some more, and would love a place to ask questions regarding web security and the like.

Try ##crypto

Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?

#76
post #5

#startups on Freenode was mentioned here before, I think.

#startups is a very unfriendly place with power-tripping mods. Don't go there.

There are very few people with ops in there and one of them is well known on HN (http://swombat.com/). Now that I think of it I've never seen any other op speak.

Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?

#78
post #12

There is one particular use of IRC channels that is insanely useful, that I'd like to share. On various programming language channels, there are ad-hoc expression evaluation bots that experienced people use to guide newcomers through the intricacies of the language. If you're new to Haskell, for example, what you can do is grab the logs for the past 3 years, grep for "> " (used to invoke the evaluator) and you have i…

excerpt of #haskell quality of life https://gist.github.com/quchen/5280339

xQuasar: We are cooperating with you, you're just not aware that your goal is learning Haskell Hilarious with 1984 undertones. I love it!

Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?

#79
post #22

I have always found a bunch of nice people with a lot of knowledge in the various programming and tech channels on Freenode, like #twisted and #pocoo #debian on EFNet also has a great bunch of people.

The official #debian is on OFTC, not EFNet.
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