The author makes a huge list of all the things Slack does and then goes on to suggest time-consuming ways to hack standard IRC clients to do the same thing. The

The author makes a huge list of all the things Slack does and then goes on to suggest time-consuming ways to hack standard IRC clients to do the same thing. The question is: why in this day and age should we have to do that? Have you ever noticed just how many open source projects are still using shitty software from the 90s? No doubt, some of that software is actually quite good but I will argue most of it exists primarily as a result of tradition. In other words: a lot of it isn't the best way to do things presently, and perhaps if we stopped using such mediums as: mailing lists, newsgroups, and IRC channels to run our open source projects then presumably our projects might be filled with more diverse people than dinosaurs that still roam our mailing lists. I don't know why developers do this: but they assume because they have the skill to do just about anything with technology that other people who also have the skill ought to take the same time to do as they have. But honestly: even developer time is too valuable to waste on pointless shit. We ought to be trying to make things easier to use.