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Slack Calls: Now with video

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Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#11

Post by jamestenglish »

kristopolous wrote: post #4

Does slack feel like IRC to anybody else? Sorry I didn't mean for this to be divisive or rude. I wasn't aware this was a common observation. I'm not trying to be negative or incriminate the product. I use and enjoy slack every day.

Wow quick to the low effort Slack is just IRC comment.

In my opinion Slack does something that is often very undervalues and easily overlooked, it is like the opposite of a death my a thousand cuts - superiority by a thousand minor improvements.

When taken individually or even in handfuls none of the features are that impressive, but cumulatively it creates a much better product. This was very apparent to me at least when I switched from HipChat to Slack. Just reading features or looking at screenshots they are nearly identical, yet with actual use Slack seems like a significant step up.

So yes IRC is to Slack, as the Ford Model T is to a Mercedes S-Class.

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#13

Post by lotyrin »

DoodleBuggy wrote: post #8
kristopolous wrote: post #4

Does slack feel like IRC to anybody else? Sorry I didn't mean for this to be divisive or rude. I wasn't aware this was a common observation. I'm not trying to be negative or incriminate the product. I use and enjoy slack every day.

That's pretty much exactly what it is, to me anyway. It's IRC for non-technical people (not that IRC is particularly technical, but...)

IRC, minus a bunch of technical nonsense nobody who is busy will bother to understand or manage (mode flags, server vs network channels, out-of-band post-hoc client-to-client features, netsplits), with good stories for multi-device (single, consistent cross platform experience) and offline (messages are queued/marked as read server side, in a way consistent across devices) and bots (anyone can add an integration in a few minutes, instead of delegating to a developer to add some code to the latest pet bot which soaks up maintenance effort like a sponge) management (managed, easy access control, no services bolted on as an afterthought) and file sharing (files stored server side, every client and user supports the feature, file can be sent when user's client is offline, doesn't have to figure out how to forward some ports or something) presence (consistent single feature instead of someone maybe implementing away status or an away nickname) identity (nicks === users) and so, so much more.

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#14

Post by aluminussoma »

Has anyone else noticed how pristine the audio quality of a Slack call sounds? I wonder how they optimized it. My company's voip, and Lync, and Skype all fail to deliver the same kind of call quality. I've only noticed / admired better call quality when making a call within Cisco to another employee.

I don't use video much but I hope they've done as good of a job as they did with audio.

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#15

Post by bazzargh »

joshmanders wrote: post #3

I hope screen sharing comes soon. They bought Screen Hero a while back, and said they were integrating it.

We started using screenhero (paid) before the slack takeover, but were using paid-for slack too so nothing changed for us. The integration is fairly weak, you can launch a screenhero session from within chat but tbh I tend to use screenhero's own UI instead. Still the best tool I've used for remote pairing.

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#16

Post by kristopolous »

schmichael wrote: post #10
kristopolous wrote: post #4

Does slack feel like IRC to anybody else? Sorry I didn't mean for this to be divisive or rude. I wasn't aware this was a common observation. I'm not trying to be negative or incriminate the product. I use and enjoy slack every day.

This is an odd question to ask when the feature being announced, video call integration, is definitely not available in IRC. Slack is "just IRC" as much as vim is "just ed."

Certainly! I was just wondering if anyone had that similarity feeling that I did. Didn't mean anything more than just an innocent curiosity.

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#17

Post by kosinus »

aluminussoma wrote: post #14

Has anyone else noticed how pristine the audio quality of a Slack call sounds? I wonder how they optimized it. My company's voip, and Lync, and Skype all fail to deliver the same kind of call quality. I've only noticed / admired better call quality when making a call within Cisco to another employee. I don't use video much but I hope they've done as good of a job as they did with audio.

I'm not sure what codec those products use, but I wouldn't be surprised if Slack went for Opus. Seems like it's the most popular choice these days, with little competition. (Discord also uses Opus.)

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#18

Post by kristopolous »

jamestenglish wrote: post #11
kristopolous wrote: post #4

Does slack feel like IRC to anybody else? Sorry I didn't mean for this to be divisive or rude. I wasn't aware this was a common observation. I'm not trying to be negative or incriminate the product. I use and enjoy slack every day.

Wow quick to the low effort Slack is just IRC comment. In my opinion Slack does something that is often very undervalues and easily overlooked, it is like the opposite of a death my a thousand cuts - superiority by a thousand minor improvements. When taken individually or even in handfuls none of the features are that impressive, but cumulatively it creates a much better product. This was very apparent to me at least…

The one thing that I liked (and still like) about IRC is its federated server model. Maybe I need to do more research, but I guess I am assuming that slack is a for-profit company with private servers that they own somewhere that everyone uses ... or am I totally off?

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#19

Post by [deleted] »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #5
kristopolous wrote: post #4

Does slack feel like IRC to anybody else? Sorry I didn't mean for this to be divisive or rude. I wasn't aware this was a common observation. I'm not trying to be negative or incriminate the product. I use and enjoy slack every day.

Not sure what you want to say with that statement. Slack has a ton more features than IRC, so until IRC catches up and is easy to maintain I couldn't care less what Slack is written in.

[deleted]

Re: Slack Calls: Now with video

#20

Post by kristopolous »

lotyrin wrote: post #13
DoodleBuggy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much exactly what it is, to me anyway. It's IRC for non-technical people (not that IRC is particularly technical, but...)

IRC, minus a bunch of technical nonsense nobody who is busy will bother to understand or manage (mode flags, server vs network channels, out-of-band post-hoc client-to-client features, netsplits), with good stories for multi-device (single, consistent cross platform experience) and offline (messages are queued/marked as read server side, in a way consistent across devices) and bots (anyone can add an integration in a…

It sounds like you've extensively tried to work with both, correct?
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