5 ms·

> trivial to build The point was it isn't built, where as there's auto completion support for emojis which wouldn't even need that "trivial" software. That's i

by ktta 10y ago

> trivial to build The point was it isn't built, where as there's auto completion support for emojis which wouldn't even need that "trivial" software. That's in the matrix's sdk. If it's so trivial, please, build for the IRC community. I use hexchat on my desktop and weechat on the server. Would you mind building me one if it is trivial? > That's irrelevant. You claimed that the simplicity of the IRC protocol was something unobtainable with those features. That's what I am disputing. Fine, I concede. But I'm surprised you're still going for this. I tried out a bunch of different IRC applications and couldn't find search in any. Oh well. > It's precisely about whether it's possible. You claimed that simple protocols for chat were not compatible with the features you listed. My argument was about the ecosystem and the applications and the contributors worked on those applications. You can extend any protocol to worked with other servers and your own extensions to work with your own version of the server code. If IRC protocol is so amazing, then do you have a reason why it is constantly changed? I've seen it adopted to XMPP, Jabber and others. No sane person today will use the default IRC protocol in an application they intend to keep proprietary. Discussing what's possible is a waste of time because any feature can be built given time and effort. The point is how easy and how maintainable/stable. More importantly, is it available now? >I agree that IRC was never intended to be run in a browser and doesn't run in a browser well. But that is irrelevant. I don't understand your logic. Why isn't something running well in a browser irrelevant? Do you expect everyone to use the command line or native applications all the time? > "We should all use slack because simple standardised protocols can't do X, Y and Z" is FUD. Huh. Well I wonder why there are sizable OSS communities moving to Slack. What's your take on this? > So I don't think that IRC is being held back by an inability to implement things Then why aren't we seeing the features that are in Slack in any IRC client? It's obvious people want the features in slack. Session persistence is an important feature for people in most OSS projects I've seen using slack. > What are you talking about? I haven't said anything of the sort. Oh come on. Your response to many of my points was basically 'it's possible', but not about if it is available today. If I were a non-technical user, what should I do if I want those features? I would just move to slack if there's nothing better than IRC out there. >Very, very few OSS projects have moved to slack It's true that many OSS projects didn't move to slack, but that's just because of inertia. Maybe we just look at different OSS projects, but many of what I see use slack, and the numbers aren't going down. Slack itself talked about how there are lots of OSS projects choosing slack and it's straining them . Here's an article about OSS usage of slack[1]. Note how OSS projects are trying to mimic slack, not IRC. There's a reason for that, and you're conveniently ignoring that. Here's a discussion where you can see many people talking about the shortcomings of slack and why how IRC is failing them.[2] To name a couple large OSS projects which moved to slack Wordpress - https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io/community/ https://kubernetes.io/community/ There are bunch which I personally use, like Monero and Golem project. The problem is that the total number is rapidly increasing. >a protocol that has been successful for a long time, is open, is inherently distributed and which there are many clients on many platforms for, while going 'look at how awesome [thing nobody uses] is!!' No one is arguing about it's openness or success in the past. Just that it's time to move on. >Also the majority of IRC users aren't using freenode and the use of IRC by OSS is a tiny portion of the total use of IRC. IRC is in use for a very, very long time. No doubt. But you must be joking if you compare that you use of slack. There are so many people and companies (who could've used IRC by hosting it themselves) that it eclipses the use of IRC. [1]:https://www.wired.com/2016/03/open-source-devs-racing-build-better-versions-slack/ https://www.wired.com/2016/03/open-source-devs-racing-build-... [2]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486541

milesrout 10y ago
Slack is a widely used product, but its use is tiny compared to IRC. IRC isn't just tech people, it's very widely used by a really huge, diverse range of people. Your original comment said 'the days of simplistic IRC protocols are gone' and then you gave a bunch of features with the implication that simple protocols can't handle those features. I simply explained why those features are absolutely implementable over simple protocols, and also why IRC isn't actually a simple protocol - DCC is an example of something not at all simple in IRC. I didn't say that IRC itself, in its current incarnation, solves those problems. Ultimately you're basically saying 'I want a couple of features and because slack provides them, I'm going to justify my use of slack by comparing slack to the least featureful chat thing out there: IRC'. IRC's strengths aren't its features, it's its openness, familiarity, hackability, conceptual simplicity and community control. In fact, the things people that like IRC dislike most about it are the few parts that aren't open, hackable, simple or controlled by the community. I don't particularly like IRC as a protocol. Maybe its time has come, maybe the replacement will be called 'IRCv3' or 'IRCv4' or called something else. Whether that replacement is called 'IRC' is not important. What is important is that it remains open (in spirit and in practice), hackable, simple and controlled by the community. Slack replaces a distributed, network-failure-proof system (IRC) with a centralised, corporate-controlled, paid, closed, proprietary solution. That's the worst possible collection of properties. Yeah you can search messages, yes it has a nice user interface, but that's about it. >The point was it isn't built, where as there's auto completion support for emojis which wouldn't even need that "trivial" software. That's in the matrix's sdk. If it's so trivial, please, build for the IRC community. I use hexchat on my desktop and weechat on the server. Would you mind building me one if it is trivial? I can't tell if this is a joke. This is literally: 1. map names to emojis 2. autocompleting input field on those names 3. append a couple of bytes to a string This is 100% purely a user interface feature, it has nothing at all to do with the server or the protocol. You could implement this for literally any chat client that supported UTF-8 quite easily. https://blog.irccloud.com/emoji/ https://blog.irccloud.com/emoji/
- ktta 10y ago
  > it's very widely used by a really huge, diverse range of people. Well you must be around cooler people than I am. Today, if someone wants to start a group chat with persistence (I'm surprised you seem to think this is useless), without having to bother with setting up their own server, IRC will not be on that list. But there is a large group that wants this, and its increasing, because people don't want to bother with a bouncer. > Your original comment said 'the days of simplistic IRC protocols are gone' and then you gave a bunch of features with the implication that simple protocols can't handle those features. This is a bit similar to FORTRAN's situation. FORTRAN can still do the things C++ can still do, but you don't see people using FORTRAN. IRC is a simple protocol and is simple, until it has it be used for increasingly complex features and also being adopted for the web requires all sorts of proxies and workarounds. > I didn't say that IRC itself, in its current incarnation, solves those problems. What are you saying then? You said people can use IRC now for all the features I talked about, but then now you changed your stance. Then what solves those problems? I think Matrix solves those problems, so what do you think is a better alternative? Does it have a community comparable to matrix? Say so and I will switch right now. The guys working being matrix know what they're doing. HTTP transport isn't the fastest, but it is simple to implement for a web developer. And with more and more people preferring in-browser clients, I saw HTTP as a good choice. > Ultimately you're basically saying 'I want a couple of features and because slack provides them, I'm going to justify my use of slack by comparing slack to the least featureful chat thing out there: IRC'. IRC's strengths aren't its features, it's its openness, familiarity, hackability, conceptual simplicity and community control. In fact, the things people that like IRC dislike most about it are the few parts that aren't open, hackable, simple or controlled by the community. Are you aware of what my first comment you replied to was about? I was replying to someone talking about how Matrix is a 'bad protocol for business', further saying: >I don't think you're very familiar with chat protocols if you think it's even remotely suitable as a replacement for IRC. I never recommended slack. Completely against that actually, and I'm rooting for matrix. > I don't particularly like IRC as a protocol. Maybe its time has come, maybe the replacement will be called 'IRCv3' or 'IRCv4' or called something else. Whether that replacement is called 'IRC' is not important. What is important is that it remains open (in spirit and in practice), hackable, simple and controlled by the community. Slack replaces a distributed, network-failure-proof system (IRC) with a centralised, corporate-controlled, paid, closed, proprietary solution. That's the worst possible collection of properties. Yeah you can search messages, yes it has a nice user interface, but that's about it. Holy cow. I've been linking to matrix and Riot links, how did you still think I'm talking about slack? I was talking about how slack is getting the mindshare of OSS communities and that's not good. >I can't tell if this is a joke. No I assure you it's not. You linked to a single web client. That's not the same support for emoji's as matrix's.Those are emocodes, and on the big list of supporting clients here[1], I see only IRCCloud (which is the same web client you linked me to) implementing it. No other IRC clients does this. > This is 100% purely a user interface feature That's why I listed the clients I use - Hexchat and weechat. Please share the easy code that can add those features to them. While you're at it, licensing it with a FSF approved license would be much appreciated. [1]: https://www.webpagefx.com/tools/emoji-cheat-sheet/ https://www.webpagefx.com/tools/emoji-cheat-sheet/

by ktta 10y ago

milesrout 10y ago

Slack is a widely used product, but its use is tiny compared to IRC. IRC isn't just tech people, it's very widely used by a really huge, diverse range of people. Your original comment said 'the days of simplistic IRC protocols are gone' and then you gave a bunch of features with the implication that simple protocols can't handle those features. I simply explained why those features are absolutely implementable over simple protocols, and also why IRC isn't actually a simple protocol - DCC is an example of something not at all simple in IRC. I didn't say that IRC itself, in its current incarnation, solves those problems. Ultimately you're basically saying 'I want a couple of features and because slack provides them, I'm going to justify my use of slack by comparing slack to the least featureful chat thing out there: IRC'. IRC's strengths aren't its features, it's its openness, familiarity, hackability, conceptual simplicity and community control. In fact, the things people that like IRC dislike most about it are the few parts that aren't open, hackable, simple or controlled by the community. I don't particularly like IRC as a protocol. Maybe its time has come, maybe the replacement will be called 'IRCv3' or 'IRCv4' or called something else. Whether that replacement is called 'IRC' is not important. What is important is that it remains open (in spirit and in practice), hackable, simple and controlled by the community. Slack replaces a distributed, network-failure-proof system (IRC) with a centralised, corporate-controlled, paid, closed, proprietary solution. That's the worst possible collection of properties. Yeah you can search messages, yes it has a nice user interface, but that's about it. >The point was it isn't built, where as there's auto completion support for emojis which wouldn't even need that "trivial" software. That's in the matrix's sdk. If it's so trivial, please, build for the IRC community. I use hexchat on my desktop and weechat on the server. Would you mind building me one if it is trivial? I can't tell if this is a joke. This is literally: 1. map names to emojis 2. autocompleting input field on those names 3. append a couple of bytes to a string This is 100% purely a user interface feature, it has nothing at all to do with the server or the protocol. You could implement this for literally any chat client that supported UTF-8 quite easily. https://blog.irccloud.com/emoji/ https://blog.irccloud.com/emoji/

ktta 10y ago
> it's very widely used by a really huge, diverse range of people. Well you must be around cooler people than I am. Today, if someone wants to start a group chat with persistence (I'm surprised you seem to think this is useless), without having to bother with setting up their own server, IRC will not be on that list. But there is a large group that wants this, and its increasing, because people don't want to bother with a bouncer. > Your original comment said 'the days of simplistic IRC protocols are gone' and then you gave a bunch of features with the implication that simple protocols can't handle those features. This is a bit similar to FORTRAN's situation. FORTRAN can still do the things C++ can still do, but you don't see people using FORTRAN. IRC is a simple protocol and is simple, until it has it be used for increasingly complex features and also being adopted for the web requires all sorts of proxies and workarounds. > I didn't say that IRC itself, in its current incarnation, solves those problems. What are you saying then? You said people can use IRC now for all the features I talked about, but then now you changed your stance. Then what solves those problems? I think Matrix solves those problems, so what do you think is a better alternative? Does it have a community comparable to matrix? Say so and I will switch right now. The guys working being matrix know what they're doing. HTTP transport isn't the fastest, but it is simple to implement for a web developer. And with more and more people preferring in-browser clients, I saw HTTP as a good choice. > Ultimately you're basically saying 'I want a couple of features and because slack provides them, I'm going to justify my use of slack by comparing slack to the least featureful chat thing out there: IRC'. IRC's strengths aren't its features, it's its openness, familiarity, hackability, conceptual simplicity and community control. In fact, the things people that like IRC dislike most about it are the few parts that aren't open, hackable, simple or controlled by the community. Are you aware of what my first comment you replied to was about? I was replying to someone talking about how Matrix is a 'bad protocol for business', further saying: >I don't think you're very familiar with chat protocols if you think it's even remotely suitable as a replacement for IRC. I never recommended slack. Completely against that actually, and I'm rooting for matrix. > I don't particularly like IRC as a protocol. Maybe its time has come, maybe the replacement will be called 'IRCv3' or 'IRCv4' or called something else. Whether that replacement is called 'IRC' is not important. What is important is that it remains open (in spirit and in practice), hackable, simple and controlled by the community. Slack replaces a distributed, network-failure-proof system (IRC) with a centralised, corporate-controlled, paid, closed, proprietary solution. That's the worst possible collection of properties. Yeah you can search messages, yes it has a nice user interface, but that's about it. Holy cow. I've been linking to matrix and Riot links, how did you still think I'm talking about slack? I was talking about how slack is getting the mindshare of OSS communities and that's not good. >I can't tell if this is a joke. No I assure you it's not. You linked to a single web client. That's not the same support for emoji's as matrix's.Those are emocodes, and on the big list of supporting clients here[1], I see only IRCCloud (which is the same web client you linked me to) implementing it. No other IRC clients does this. > This is 100% purely a user interface feature That's why I listed the clients I use - Hexchat and weechat. Please share the easy code that can add those features to them. While you're at it, licensing it with a FSF approved license would be much appreciated. [1]: https://www.webpagefx.com/tools/emoji-cheat-sheet/ https://www.webpagefx.com/tools/emoji-cheat-sheet/