I don't use IRC for my social life, but it's essential to my professional and software life. Freenode, without a doubt. I've learned a lot discussing stuff on

I don't use IRC for my social life, but it's essential to my professional and software life. Freenode, without a doubt. I've learned a lot discussing stuff on the channel, received a lot of help, and met a lot of people. My favorite channels: #vim - Super helpful, from extreme newb questions, to learning how to us vim more efficently, to plugin discussion, and learning about features you never even asked for #python - Another friendly community from the pythonista to someone new to programming. Things I don't like: - Disconnects. It's 2016, it's absurd I need to use a VPS to keep up with my channels on a laptop. - Join spam - Excessive reliance on bots - Hard for newbies, leading to a monoculture and excessive like minded thinking.