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In every industry that I have worked in, there has always been a battle between using the latest innovative technology to improve everyone's job, and holding ba

In every industry that I have worked in, there has always been a battle between using the latest innovative technology to improve everyone's job, and holding back to ensure that nothing breaks. I've always been an advocated of the latter and it appears that some industries may not be ready to start using slack. Take Ginkgo Bioworks, for example. Sure, being able to open a door through slack because you don't have your keycard is convenient, but this introduces a few security holes and likely makes the whole keycard system useless. Also, there doesn't seem to be any mention of the need for data security in the article, but it should be noted that slack does not use end-to-end encryption, so they can read everything your organization shares. And, even if they are a trustworthy third-party, they have been hacked before (http://www.businessinsider.com/slacks-security-breach-may-be-worse-than-its-letting-on-2015-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/slacks-security-breach-may-be...), so it's worth noting.

eschaton 10y ago
How is browser-based chat like Slack "the latest innovative technology?" It's just IRC or Zephyr, but accessed via a browser. It's not something people didn't have in the early 1990s. Hell, it's not substantially different than AOL or Yahoo chat rooms either, except that it's so heavyweight you couldn't even think about accessing it from systems that accessed those just fine.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Many people including me say this but people do not want to see it. It is even worse tham IRC imho as the clients are slow and wonky, they just 'look better' which is perception. They did their marketing very well indeed.
  - vehementi 10y ago
    Slow, wonky, heavyweight clients are not a factor in productivity. If it takes an extra 1 second to send/display a message, it doesn't matter. The communication is close enough to real time. The tradeoffs (which are being massively and hilariously exaggerated here) are worth it because anyone can easily use it from anywhere without having to stay connected or set up logging systems etc.
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      You are obviously on solid internet. I am almost never and then Slack is unusable because of those performance issues; they are enlarged 100x because of performance. If my connection is wonky and I have a window of less than a second to pass my message in and get messages back, that 1s wait for the client is what makes it exactly unsusable. Wechat and Whatsapp understand this; Slack assumes only people in highly connected cities use it, which ofcourse is normally the case. But that does not make it's problem less real for a lot of people around the world. Most of China for example. And losing messages, which actually happens when I have bad connections, is a problem; a) i have to type them multiple times and that takes me out of concentration b) i assume that my colleagues read something while they never got it. Large issues indeed.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Are you full time remote working on this internet connection? Seems like perhaps you need to upgrade your connection vs demand everyone switch tools to support your 3rd world internet connection? Do you get mad if people email you attachments too?
        tluyben2 10y ago
        I don't get mad nor am demanding anything from anyone. I don't think it hurts anyone if programmers would make connections more fault tolerant. And I don't have a choice; there is no 'upgrade' in most cases. But nice that you don't have that issue.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        And your employer is OK with you working remote on a flakey internet connection? I can't say I would hire someone remote that can't get past a 99% or so uptime... if their internet is that bad, they would need to move to come into the office or find another position. This isn't trying to be some kind of espousing my values on someone, but it seems a basic requirement to work remote. 99% of programming jobs have an office. If your net is not stable, those seem a better fit.
  - bryanrasmussen 10y ago
    As a person who as a general rule does not care very much about how something looks and only how it functions I am still open to the idea that for a large part of the population the appearance of a thing can have an effect as great as its functionality on their ability to use that thing.
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      I agree with you. Just saying I do not have that does not mean I strive to make thins look and work better as I know it works for other people. Not that I think Slack is that brilliant UX wise, I can see why people like it more than ancient chat clients. However when productivity, again, for me, comes in, peformance is highly important.
- ec109685 10y ago
  Why do you keep saying browser based? Comparing to AOL and Yahoo is just silly — neither solution offered a way to create private lists of channels and users within a particular Team.
  - eschaton 10y ago
    I say "browser-based" because Slack, HipChat, et al are chat platforms you need to use a browser — or something that embeds a browser, like their official apps — to access. They may have gateways to standard protocols like IRC, but those are gateways, need to be enabled on a per-project basis, and may even be extra cost features. If you don't see why I'm comparing something like Slack to AOL chat rooms and Yahoo Chat, perhaps you don't understand what Slack is as well as you think you do. The fact that you can set up an instance for a team or organization isn't what's important in the comparison, it's the scalability of the service and the degree of client resources used.
- afarrell 10y ago
  IRC has the serious downside that it doesn't allow multi-line comments. Zephyr is fine but still takes a lot longer to learn how to use, especially if you want to set up a screen session as most people who still use it in my social circle do.
- johnhenry 10y ago
  I should have used quotes. When I said "the latest innovative technology", I meant it somewhat sarcastically. Nonetheless, there are people/companies/industries to whom it does seem completely new and innovative. I'm worried for them because they are awestruck at how "cool" it is and how it allows them to do work better, but they fail to realize the possible ramifications of using a product that's new to them.
- lisivka 10y ago
  You missed the point. Slack found a way to monetize IRC. That is innovation.
  - amelius 10y ago
    Yes, perhaps in a business sense, not in a technical one. (Slack even disallows the use of one account for multiple teams, so they are conveniently circumventing the sharding problem, so no technical innovation even there).

eschaton 10y ago

How is browser-based chat like Slack "the latest innovative technology?" It's just IRC or Zephyr, but accessed via a browser. It's not something people didn't have in the early 1990s. Hell, it's not substantially different than AOL or Yahoo chat rooms either, except that it's so heavyweight you couldn't even think about accessing it from systems that accessed those just fine.

tluyben2 10y ago
Many people including me say this but people do not want to see it. It is even worse tham IRC imho as the clients are slow and wonky, they just 'look better' which is perception. They did their marketing very well indeed.
- vehementi 10y ago
  Slow, wonky, heavyweight clients are not a factor in productivity. If it takes an extra 1 second to send/display a message, it doesn't matter. The communication is close enough to real time. The tradeoffs (which are being massively and hilariously exaggerated here) are worth it because anyone can easily use it from anywhere without having to stay connected or set up logging systems etc.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    You are obviously on solid internet. I am almost never and then Slack is unusable because of those performance issues; they are enlarged 100x because of performance. If my connection is wonky and I have a window of less than a second to pass my message in and get messages back, that 1s wait for the client is what makes it exactly unsusable. Wechat and Whatsapp understand this; Slack assumes only people in highly connected cities use it, which ofcourse is normally the case. But that does not make it's problem less real for a lot of people around the world. Most of China for example. And losing messages, which actually happens when I have bad connections, is a problem; a) i have to type them multiple times and that takes me out of concentration b) i assume that my colleagues read something while they never got it. Large issues indeed.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Are you full time remote working on this internet connection? Seems like perhaps you need to upgrade your connection vs demand everyone switch tools to support your 3rd world internet connection? Do you get mad if people email you attachments too?
      - tluyben2 10y ago
        I don't get mad nor am demanding anything from anyone. I don't think it hurts anyone if programmers would make connections more fault tolerant. And I don't have a choice; there is no 'upgrade' in most cases. But nice that you don't have that issue.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        And your employer is OK with you working remote on a flakey internet connection? I can't say I would hire someone remote that can't get past a 99% or so uptime... if their internet is that bad, they would need to move to come into the office or find another position. This isn't trying to be some kind of espousing my values on someone, but it seems a basic requirement to work remote. 99% of programming jobs have an office. If your net is not stable, those seem a better fit.
- bryanrasmussen 10y ago
  As a person who as a general rule does not care very much about how something looks and only how it functions I am still open to the idea that for a large part of the population the appearance of a thing can have an effect as great as its functionality on their ability to use that thing.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    I agree with you. Just saying I do not have that does not mean I strive to make thins look and work better as I know it works for other people. Not that I think Slack is that brilliant UX wise, I can see why people like it more than ancient chat clients. However when productivity, again, for me, comes in, peformance is highly important.
ec109685 10y ago
Why do you keep saying browser based? Comparing to AOL and Yahoo is just silly — neither solution offered a way to create private lists of channels and users within a particular Team.
- eschaton 10y ago
  I say "browser-based" because Slack, HipChat, et al are chat platforms you need to use a browser — or something that embeds a browser, like their official apps — to access. They may have gateways to standard protocols like IRC, but those are gateways, need to be enabled on a per-project basis, and may even be extra cost features. If you don't see why I'm comparing something like Slack to AOL chat rooms and Yahoo Chat, perhaps you don't understand what Slack is as well as you think you do. The fact that you can set up an instance for a team or organization isn't what's important in the comparison, it's the scalability of the service and the degree of client resources used.
afarrell 10y ago
IRC has the serious downside that it doesn't allow multi-line comments. Zephyr is fine but still takes a lot longer to learn how to use, especially if you want to set up a screen session as most people who still use it in my social circle do.
johnhenry 10y ago
I should have used quotes. When I said "the latest innovative technology", I meant it somewhat sarcastically. Nonetheless, there are people/companies/industries to whom it does seem completely new and innovative. I'm worried for them because they are awestruck at how "cool" it is and how it allows them to do work better, but they fail to realize the possible ramifications of using a product that's new to them.
lisivka 10y ago
You missed the point. Slack found a way to monetize IRC. That is innovation.
- amelius 10y ago
  Yes, perhaps in a business sense, not in a technical one. (Slack even disallows the use of one account for multiple teams, so they are conveniently circumventing the sharding problem, so no technical innovation even there).