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IRC Will Never Die (2021)

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Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#31

Post by bsima »

op00to wrote: post #8
bsima wrote: post #7

IRC is still my favorite chat system even if my close friends have moved on to fancier systems like discord and Zulip and slack. If I could set technical direction in a company we’d use only IRC and email. Maybe mumble.

IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.

I don’t want searchable chat, I want my coworkers to write actual documentation. Ephemerality is a feature in this case.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#32

Post by FireBeyond »

Arnavion wrote: post #13
op00to wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.

Any company which goes to the lengths of setting up an IRC server would find it trivial to also set up a bouncer and search index for that server. That said, these days a Matrix Synapse instance would be an easier choice.

Worked at Red Hat, the amount of anger around decommissioning our internal IRC servers was HUGE (and hell, even then, half the company was using/happy with GChat, the other half on Slack. People who actually paid attention to both were very minority).

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#33

Post by bsima »

duskwuff wrote: post #14
op00to wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.

Not to mention: 1) IRC doesn't support any form of message threading. There's some user conventions like "username:" or "@username" to direct a message to a specific person, but there's no way to make a clear distinction between multiple conversations in a channel. (You can make a new channel for the conversation, I guess, but that's even more hostile than usual to other users trying to follow along.) 2) IRC doesn't…

1-3 are features. Keep chat messages short. Use git or NFS for sharing files. 4 can be solved by putting the server behind a VPN that does better (2FA) auth and then custom NickServ backed by your auth

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#34

Post by nrdvana »

paxys wrote: post #18
Arnavion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company which goes to the lengths of setting up an IRC server would find it trivial to also set up a bouncer and search index for that server. That said, these days a Matrix Synapse instance would be an easier choice.

If you start a company and spend a non-trivial amount of your time, effort and money into handcrafting and customizing a perfect IRC server, that company is going nowhere.

If you know IRC well enough to want to mandate it for your company, you can probably set the server up in an hour or three. You can then install https://thelounge.chat/ and have your employees log into that for browser and mobile apps vs. native IRC clients.

What money would it require? Any leftover PC from the last 15 years can run the server.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#35

Post by averageRoyalty »

bsima wrote: post #31
op00to wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.

I don’t want searchable chat, I want my coworkers to write actual documentation. Ephemerality is a feature in this case.

100%. No need for bouncers, search indexers or chat loggers.

Real time communication should be used for real time communication. Send me an email if it's async, or call me if it's urgent and I'm not available via normal RTC channels. People want Slack etc to be an everything client, which is why we have the gross bloat we have.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#36

Post by carom »

senectus1 wrote: post #25

is it still in use? I cant remember the last time I saw a reference to an active channel. Or seen it installed on any system.

I visit a /g/ adjacent channel regularly on Rizon. I've also interacted with two software projects on Libera in the last 6 months. So yes, it is still active.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#37

Post by jrm4 »

So, I was a decently heavy IRC user back in its heyday. Today, "the kids" are all about Discord -- and I do mean the geek coding creative kids most like me but younger and I absolutely see why.

I think I do lament the abscence of a more aggressive "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?"

WAY easier said than done, and I think Matrix is trying, but I suppose the most frustrating thing is trying to tell the young'ns, hey this has a strong chance of enshittifying

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#38

Post by skydhash »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #35
bsima wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want searchable chat, I want my coworkers to write actual documentation. Ephemerality is a feature in this case.

100%. No need for bouncers, search indexers or chat loggers. Real time communication should be used for real time communication. Send me an email if it's async, or call me if it's urgent and I'm not available via normal RTC channels. People want Slack etc to be an everything client, which is why we have the gross bloat we have.

Also, you spend a day off and if the channel is active, it's a chore trying to get back on track if the team does not have better suited communication methods. Quasi real time discussion on a bug is great, but it's better to add the final findings on the ticket/PR. Same for features, draft up a doc afterwards. Slack and the lack should be considered transient and important information put on more permanent and more brows-able forms (Wiki, document repo, ticket system,...).

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#39

Post by skydhash »

nrdvana wrote: post #34
paxys wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you start a company and spend a non-trivial amount of your time, effort and money into handcrafting and customizing a perfect IRC server, that company is going nowhere.

If you know IRC well enough to want to mandate it for your company, you can probably set the server up in an hour or three. You can then install https://thelounge.chat/ and have your employees log into that for browser and mobile apps vs. native IRC clients. What money would it require? Any leftover PC from the last 15 years can run the server.

Aggressive delegation to third parties is how we end up with all these complex services. A chat system, a ticket service, a git interface, should be pretty trivial to install and maintain. And consistent too.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#40

Post by barbs »

I've always thought Hacker News could do with a chat room, and given how simple it is (and free), IRC would probably best fit the bill. Searching Hacker News shows that some people have proposed different chat rooms but nothing's stuck really. I reckon it'd need a "chat" tab up the top. Nice-to-haves would be adding an optional web-based client, and tying it into your actual HN login.

I've never set up IRC before though, so I have no idea if this is actually feasible.

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