Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#181

Post by PeterMikhailov » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:27 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #167

PeterMikhailov wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried running this stuff? Have you tried running your own home server and then bridging your irc network to it? It's not simple.

I have run my own homeserver, you're right it's not simple. However, the main Matrix homeserver has those bridges set up (so if you don't mind using it, you can). But in the context of a corporate environemnt, you have people who are paid to maintain services like this.

Can I bridge my Slack to the main Matrix homeserver ( matrix.org )

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#182

Post by Improvotter » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:27 PM UTC

I'm honestly looking forward to a worthy competitor. Slack has literally been slacking, I haven't seen any noteworthy features in 2 years. And we still don't have a proper client imo, can we please get a native one with some more progress?

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#183

Post by milesvp » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:30 PM UTC

Hello71 wrote: post #166

komon wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it took them months to implement some (mind you, still not all) features that are useful for blind users that someone already did in a userscript in a few days A userscript hammered out in a few days is not really that comparable to incorporating accessibility in a flexible and sound way across a codebase. Where one is dependent on the current representation and types of features in the app, the other touches prett…

assuming this claim is valid, that it took "few days" to implement what took them "months", then they could rewrite the entire user script from scratch every time a change is made, and this could be repeated dozens of times , which, assuming major UI changes are made once every few months, would take several years.

But, but, but, then I'd have to touch the same code twice... /s

There is definitely a poison in our profession, I definitely have to fight the urge to make sure no future changes will break something, instead of just budgeting time to fix breaking changes later. Especially since no one seems to remember when we all agree something doesn't need to be bullet proof. Just today there was an expression of disbelief when I reminded people I'd built a tempermental UI for some internal tool. Never mind that it was a conscious decision to prioritize a better UI later if we found the tool useful and found the UI was causing problems.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#184

Post by bwooster » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:31 PM UTC

Despite being a walled garden, the IRC gateway was Slack's saving grace. It was what made it palatable to many old-school chatters and people who didn't want to add another proprietary client to the giant list of other proprietary chat clients needed to keep in touch with people.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#185

Post by RaycatRakittra » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

anglebracket wrote: post #159

dangom wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is about to break because of the current announcement?

I don't believe so. emacs-slack uses their official OAuth2 + Websocket integration https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack#how-to-get-token-the-...

Correct. emacs-slack uses WebSockets and Slack's Real-Time Messaging API.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#186

Post by endgame » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

I see Slack is now big enough that they can stop pretending to care about interoperability, and essentially pulled a Google Talk on us all. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#187

Post by snuxoll » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:38 PM UTC

panopticon wrote: post #175

sushisource wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use Qt. It's harder, but not dramatically harder, than a web-based implementation.

The web-based implementation means you only have one codebase for both Slack in the browser and Slack in Electron. So adding Qt in addition to their browser client means they have two disparate clients instead of one client (plus Electron glue code).

And? I am absolutely tired of companies taking a giant dump on the experience of desktop applications. If you're going to make a desktop app make a damned desktop app, stop making everybody accept a terrible electron app because "oh no, I have to do extra work" - give me a break.

How many companies still maintain native iOS and Android apps? Lots. Qt even feels (mostly) native on GNOME desktops these days, if you can't afford to develop a 100% native app for Win, Linux and Mac then at least use a real toolkit that gets you 80% of the way there whereas Electron gets you 0%.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#188

Post by Kudos » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:39 PM UTC

nopacience wrote: post #32

Slack was fine, now it is time to move back to IRC. Some people like slack or telegram because they provide an API for BOTs. Something IRC has been open to since the begining. Non power users might have trouble using IRC with the usual clients (mIRC/irssi/bitchx). Today a family member, not technical and 60+yrs asked about "that tool" that is like whatsapp however it allows users that just joined a group to read old…

The two things IRC is actually missing for most people is push notifications and "offline" history. Yes you can get these if you run your own bouncer, or whatever, but it's not native to the technology. I think Matrix is ahead of IRC for solving both of those issues.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#189

Post by evrydayhustling » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #145

cyphar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are open protocols like Matrix which are superior to Slack in that they are decentralised, have support for full e2e encryption, entirely self-hostable, don't store your data outside of the home-servers used for communication, etc. Riot is a perfectly fine client (looks just like every other chat application), and there are weechat plugins as well as native applications as well. Open protocols exist, and people…

I really wanted to like Matrix but it expects you to independently verify the keys for each device every person is using. If they get a new device, new keys to verify. This is crazy. The keys should be per person, not per device.

This is an example of the kind of business problem Slack is solving incredibly well relative to {chat client X}. Slack's not just a Slack client, it's user lifecycle management, tiered administration, a granular permission model for integrated applications, etc etc etc.

How you solve those problems impacts and is impacted by the messaging protocol. If Slack is going to keep moving fast on features that matter for businesses, they're likely to keep needing protocol features that wouldn't necessarily be the priority for an open standard.

Re: Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

#190

Post by CaptSpify » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #106

akkat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

email is an open protocol and works great. you can add pgp on top of it if you want security

Email does many things, but "works great" isn't one of them. PGP even less.

What doesn't work great about email? easy to use, easy to set up, easy to modify, easy to switch which software handles your email both server-side and client-side....