4 ms·

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' wh

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.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    Can you use another client? https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...
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.

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.
- IanCal 10y ago
  Can you use another client? https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...

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.