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I'm at UC Berkeley right now. Most the college organizations I know use it (including the hacker's club I was a part of). Almost every computer science class us

I'm at UC Berkeley right now. Most the college organizations I know use it (including the hacker's club I was a part of). Almost every computer science class uses it for internal staff communication, which is pretty important considering that our intro CS class has 40+ course staff/assistants. Nobody wants to set up and use IRC, which is ugly, time consuming to set up, and not fun to use. I hear Slack is also gaining a lot of traction for open source community discussion (although IRC is still common). This is all on the free plan obviously, but guess what the next wave of tech startups are going to use (or are already using). This is not including the big companies that are already adopting it. There's probably more usage of Slack among CS students than there is usage of bitcoin, VR, drones, or any other technology popular among hackers that people argue (rightly or wrongly) are poised to go mainstream.

afarrell 10y ago
> although IRC is still common I am sad to see an open-source tech get replaced with a closed source one, but I am glad that the default IM system for talking about code is no longer one that prohibits multi-line comments. Considering the amount of skilled time and effort that good UX takes, I suppose closed-source was the most likely thing to happen.
- anderspitman 10y ago
  Being able to use inline LaTeX and Markdown is the killer feature of Gitter for me.
ldehaan 10y ago
quick question, have you ever setup irc? it's actually really easy, and as far as clients for IRC go, there is such a huge range that it's hard to believe you really tried it. there are all the functions of slack and then a ton more. just an FYI, IRC is awesome and you own the data. paying for chat is ridiculous IMO.
- brianchu 10y ago
  Nope. And why would I bother learning when I can just click a few buttons to get Slack? I'm pretty lazy and have no interest spending the weekend learning all the features of IRC. Also: > This is all on the free plan obviously, but guess what the next wave of tech startups are going to use
tedmiston 10y ago
> I hear Slack is also gaining a lot of traction for open source community discussion (although IRC is still common). The white elephant in the room is if there's really value there: Would most open source efforts actually pay for Slack as a group communication tool? I think the answer is no, almost by definition.

afarrell 10y ago

> although IRC is still common I am sad to see an open-source tech get replaced with a closed source one, but I am glad that the default IM system for talking about code is no longer one that prohibits multi-line comments. Considering the amount of skilled time and effort that good UX takes, I suppose closed-source was the most likely thing to happen.

anderspitman 10y ago
Being able to use inline LaTeX and Markdown is the killer feature of Gitter for me.

ldehaan 10y ago

quick question, have you ever setup irc? it's actually really easy, and as far as clients for IRC go, there is such a huge range that it's hard to believe you really tried it. there are all the functions of slack and then a ton more. just an FYI, IRC is awesome and you own the data. paying for chat is ridiculous IMO.

brianchu 10y ago
Nope. And why would I bother learning when I can just click a few buttons to get Slack? I'm pretty lazy and have no interest spending the weekend learning all the features of IRC. Also: > This is all on the free plan obviously, but guess what the next wave of tech startups are going to use

tedmiston 10y ago

> I hear Slack is also gaining a lot of traction for open source community discussion (although IRC is still common). The white elephant in the room is if there's really value there: Would most open source efforts actually pay for Slack as a group communication tool? I think the answer is no, almost by definition.