4 ms·

For obvious reasons I don't consider web clients a reliable solution, but it's a practical alternative when away from your desk.

by cm3 10y ago

mgbmtl 10y ago
Considering a lot of people use Gmail for email, I would be curious as to why you consider web clients to be unreliable. (I don't use Gmail, but a ton of tech people do. Something like Mattermost is rather harmless, since less critical than email.) For what it's worth, Mattermost also package native desktop applications for Linux, Mac, Windows and iOS/Android. The desktop ones are basically a wrapper around a standalone browser. Has better native desktop notifications integration.
- cm3 10y ago
  I much prefer that I can choose my client, be it pidgin, emacs, mutt, irssi, thunderbird, you name it. Web interfaces are limited in functionality, give me little control how my client works, and I'm at the whim of a server operator. Mutt or Gnus or irssi haven't changed drastically, but a web interface can change without an option for you to restore the previous version. That's a huge problem with the deployment model of web apps, especially for power users. Like I wrote above, I'm not a real IRC user because it doesn't support async messaging well, and I was curious if there was a viable xmpp-like async mode. I love email and xmpp because they works like git in that I can use it offline as well. Please don't argue that everything is 24/7 connected due to IoT or something like that as an explanation why offline mode has no use today. Async messaging has other advantages, like drafting a response and pondering about the details over one or more days. That said, realtime chat has its place, but with distributed teams it's most practical to use distributed async messaging for the normal case and fall back to realtime protocols when you need a live conversation. I consider live communication to be the same as calling someone on the phone and disrupting their workflow or failing to reach them due to being unavailable at the moment. Don't get me wrong, IRC and monitoring chat rooms works for many developers, but that doesn't mean it must work for me as well. We're not all the same after all. When I use live comms, it's on-demand, like a phone call.
  - mgbmtl 10y ago
    I 100% agree. I wasn't sure if you meant reliable as in security, uptime, etc. So reliable as in "stable UI/experience". I'm also a heavy mutt and irssi user. I think their UI stability is more an issue on how application authors deal with change/improvements, but I agree there's probably a technical factor where libncurses offers less flexibility than HTML/CSS does, so web apps are much more likely to change often.

For obvious reasons I don't consider web clients a reliable solution, but it's a practical alternative when away from your desk.

by cm3 10y ago

For obvious reasons I don't consider web clients a reliable solution, but it's a practical alternative when away from your desk.

mgbmtl 10y ago

Considering a lot of people use Gmail for email, I would be curious as to why you consider web clients to be unreliable. (I don't use Gmail, but a ton of tech people do. Something like Mattermost is rather harmless, since less critical than email.) For what it's worth, Mattermost also package native desktop applications for Linux, Mac, Windows and iOS/Android. The desktop ones are basically a wrapper around a standalone browser. Has better native desktop notifications integration.

cm3 10y ago
I much prefer that I can choose my client, be it pidgin, emacs, mutt, irssi, thunderbird, you name it. Web interfaces are limited in functionality, give me little control how my client works, and I'm at the whim of a server operator. Mutt or Gnus or irssi haven't changed drastically, but a web interface can change without an option for you to restore the previous version. That's a huge problem with the deployment model of web apps, especially for power users. Like I wrote above, I'm not a real IRC user because it doesn't support async messaging well, and I was curious if there was a viable xmpp-like async mode. I love email and xmpp because they works like git in that I can use it offline as well. Please don't argue that everything is 24/7 connected due to IoT or something like that as an explanation why offline mode has no use today. Async messaging has other advantages, like drafting a response and pondering about the details over one or more days. That said, realtime chat has its place, but with distributed teams it's most practical to use distributed async messaging for the normal case and fall back to realtime protocols when you need a live conversation. I consider live communication to be the same as calling someone on the phone and disrupting their workflow or failing to reach them due to being unavailable at the moment. Don't get me wrong, IRC and monitoring chat rooms works for many developers, but that doesn't mean it must work for me as well. We're not all the same after all. When I use live comms, it's on-demand, like a phone call.
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  I 100% agree. I wasn't sure if you meant reliable as in security, uptime, etc. So reliable as in "stable UI/experience". I'm also a heavy mutt and irssi user. I think their UI stability is more an issue on how application authors deal with change/improvements, but I agree there's probably a technical factor where libncurses offers less flexibility than HTML/CSS does, so web apps are much more likely to change often.