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The features of slack I like that traditional irc lacks * Sms 2 factor authentication * Historical logs * instant search * Offline messages * The client is

The features of slack I like that traditional irc lacks * Sms 2 factor authentication * Historical logs * instant search * Offline messages * The client isn't called "BitchX" It's replaced IRC at my work because our own irc servers were cert based which is a pain to set up, but mostly because you don't miss things when you're offline, it's easy to get new starters and non tech people (especially developers) on board, and the history functionality is seemless.

drc0 10y ago
do you really expect people to read chat backlogs and be on track?
- avh02 10y ago
  no, but I expect to read messages sent while my laptop was on standby.
mugsie 10y ago
* Sms 2 factor authentication - Yup, slack has IRC beat there * Historical logs - Eh, that is increadibly easy for an IS/IT team to set up and run. * instant search - As ^ * Offline messages - It is called an IRC bouncer - again easy to set up and run * The client isn't called "BitchX" - mIRC, XChat, irssi, weechat, KiwiIRC, the list goes on. Not using IRC because you don't like the name of one client out of probably hundreds short sighted. (and you know you can connect to slack from BitchX right?) I grant it is not perfect, and for some use cases just paying the money to slack is worth it, but IRC can have most of these features.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  How many IT hours does it take to set all that up? And a nice phone client? Seems cheaper to pay slack a few bucks...
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Really? I set up an IRC in a couple of hours. Why pay slack a few bucks over years when you can pay a decent admin a couple hours worth of work? (I do admit I've not seen a good IRC phone client)
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      So IRC is giving me a subset of Slack features, at the expense of 1) IT team to set it up 2) IT team to maintain it when it breaks 3) Servers to run it on. And give up features such as a nice phone client? What size of company are you? A 5 person company can use slack for free or ~$480 per year. You are going to have trouble getting all 3 of the above for less than that price. And even if you do equal the price, you, as you admitted, lose features like a nice mobile client. If you are a 200 person company you can make a better argument on the price front, but then you have kinds of new things like legal discovery requirements. Those will add much time and complexity to your IRC setup. And you still are missing lots of Slack features. IRC has never been that great. It works. It's a free standard. It's not great.
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        1) You don't need a team, just a subset of an existing team. One person can do it. 2) Same as above. The time-sink in that is quite minimal. 3) We just run it on an existing mail server. No additional server required. I agree it could heavily depend on the size of the company, but I'd argue bigger companies have an even greater incentive to keep things on their own servers, and probably more resources for doing so. I can't account for any of the other slack features as I've never used it, so I'll have to take your word for it.
  - mugsie 10y ago
    Depending on your size, a "few bucks" is actually a substantial amount of money, and even a inefficient IT dept hours would be a drop in the ocean compared to it. There are a few decent phone clients, and KiwiIRC is fairly responsive from what I remember.
amelius 10y ago
But if you are in multiple teams, you need to have multiple slack accounts.
- empath75 10y ago
  I don't think that's really a problem. The client handles it really nicely.
  - mugsie 10y ago
    not really. channels from other teams are hidden, and you can't tell if there is a message in a channel you care about, or a random / general channel, without swapping to that team. Its a pretty terrible design.

drc0 10y ago

do you really expect people to read chat backlogs and be on track?

avh02 10y ago
no, but I expect to read messages sent while my laptop was on standby.

mugsie 10y ago

* Sms 2 factor authentication - Yup, slack has IRC beat there * Historical logs - Eh, that is increadibly easy for an IS/IT team to set up and run. * instant search - As ^ * Offline messages - It is called an IRC bouncer - again easy to set up and run * The client isn't called "BitchX" - mIRC, XChat, irssi, weechat, KiwiIRC, the list goes on. Not using IRC because you don't like the name of one client out of probably hundreds short sighted. (and you know you can connect to slack from BitchX right?) I grant it is not perfect, and for some use cases just paying the money to slack is worth it, but IRC can have most of these features.

brianwawok 10y ago
How many IT hours does it take to set all that up? And a nice phone client? Seems cheaper to pay slack a few bucks...
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Really? I set up an IRC in a couple of hours. Why pay slack a few bucks over years when you can pay a decent admin a couple hours worth of work? (I do admit I've not seen a good IRC phone client)
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    So IRC is giving me a subset of Slack features, at the expense of 1) IT team to set it up 2) IT team to maintain it when it breaks 3) Servers to run it on. And give up features such as a nice phone client? What size of company are you? A 5 person company can use slack for free or ~$480 per year. You are going to have trouble getting all 3 of the above for less than that price. And even if you do equal the price, you, as you admitted, lose features like a nice mobile client. If you are a 200 person company you can make a better argument on the price front, but then you have kinds of new things like legal discovery requirements. Those will add much time and complexity to your IRC setup. And you still are missing lots of Slack features. IRC has never been that great. It works. It's a free standard. It's not great.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      1) You don't need a team, just a subset of an existing team. One person can do it. 2) Same as above. The time-sink in that is quite minimal. 3) We just run it on an existing mail server. No additional server required. I agree it could heavily depend on the size of the company, but I'd argue bigger companies have an even greater incentive to keep things on their own servers, and probably more resources for doing so. I can't account for any of the other slack features as I've never used it, so I'll have to take your word for it.
- mugsie 10y ago
  Depending on your size, a "few bucks" is actually a substantial amount of money, and even a inefficient IT dept hours would be a drop in the ocean compared to it. There are a few decent phone clients, and KiwiIRC is fairly responsive from what I remember.

amelius 10y ago

But if you are in multiple teams, you need to have multiple slack accounts.

empath75 10y ago
I don't think that's really a problem. The client handles it really nicely.
- mugsie 10y ago
  not really. channels from other teams are hidden, and you can't tell if there is a message in a channel you care about, or a random / general channel, without swapping to that team. Its a pretty terrible design.