5 ms·

IRC had uptime in the scale of decades. Why are our 2018 solutions so fragile?

by sdf43543t345 8y ago

microcolonel 8y ago
Because they're single-source, single-point-of-failure (in the case of Slack), and very very very complex.
bonyt 8y ago
I mean, most IRC networks at least have netsplits from time to time.
Waterluvian 8y ago
I recall net splits happening all the time so I'm not sure that ircs uptime was a practical real world "decades".
orf 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit
- mirages 8y ago
  Anybody knows why the netsplit was written *.net *.split Why those stars and dots ?
  - whafro 8y ago
    I believe it's an effort to show a netsplit in the traditional form (server1, server2) without placing blame on a particular server. Back when I IRCd regularly (and perhaps this is still the case today), certain servers would get a reputation for splitting more than others, and I think this network (and/or its ircd) decided to mask it without breaking the general format.
  - nexxer 8y ago
    It's to avoid showing the server names to the public on some IRC networks for various reasons including security through (some) obscurity.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vertex-four 8y ago
IRC netsplits quite a bit, breaking ongoing conversations until it’s recovered, to be fair.
- danmg 8y ago
  Small ircds that you would run for a single team don't split because it's a single server. Large networks can have the servers go up and down, and it's still not a big deal because of redundancy. DNS round-robin entries mean you don't even have to know the other servers on the network. In 2018 netsplits caused by down links are fairly rare. If you wait six months you might see one.
  - vertex-four 8y ago
    And if you run a small single-point ircd, at some point, the server or it’s internet connection will fail, and you’re in the same position as when Slack fails. There’s nothing that gets around technical failure. Either you have a single server that’s going to die at some point due to sheer entropy, or you have a somewhat complex distributed system with the tradeoffs you desire that might fail anyway.
    - danmg 8y ago
      The downtime would be for a network connection failure and not because your 'fearless' NoSQL container didn't work as expected. If a transient networking problem like this is a big deal for you, you can easily add either more nodes or move the node to a place with more reliable networking.
      - vertex-four 8y ago
        Or because the IRCd written in 90s-style C++ by some people who honestly don’t know what they’re doing segfaulted, or because you accidentally K-lined 0.0.0.0/32, or because you accidentally filled up the disk with logs because the server’s maintainer was fired and nobody remembers how the system works, or the latest system update borked something, or a failure to update the system allowed someone to attack your network, or the really hacky mechanism you use to enable auth against Active Directory broke or allowed a disabled user to log in, or... There’s a lot more that can go wrong than that a database falls over. In my experience, IRC servers fall over all the time - it’s just that nobody really cares because their clients just connect to the next server in the list and people resume their conversations a minute later after figuring out what messages actually reached their destination. Paying IRCCloud to manage an IRC server for you is a reasonable option, but I wouldn’t do it because I think it’s going to be more available, but because I like IRC and believe it provides the functionality I need.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Major IRC networks had uptime on the scale of minutes, in my experience…
rarec 8y ago
The power of centralization! If I can't have it, you can't either! I wouldn't say it's fragile, though. Just like normal IT work, people only pay attention when it isn't working.
nathanaldensr 8y ago
Given how much more robust Slack is than IRC as far as features go, it's probably not fragile. The closer a piece of software is to the network layer, the more stable it tends to be, just due to the internet's robustness.
shawn 8y ago
sdf43543t345 has quit the server (Net split)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
efficax 8y ago
Eh, IRC networks split and individual servers went down all the time. But yes, there rarely was a complete EFNet outage even if sometimes there were 2 versions of the same channel going at once. That being said although I like some slacks fancy features I do wish a distributed alternative could catch on.
dswalter 8y ago
Native emoji support, aesthetically pleasing front-ends, and clear product direction are some of the main positives I see, even if the combination of php on the backend and electron on the frontend aren't the most sophisticated technical components in history. I prefer decentralized and open things, but a cohesive vision can sometimes provide a better user experience across a more restricted set of functionality than an army of hackers, each solving their own problems.
- rkeene2 8y ago
  Native emoji support, pretty front-ends, and clear product direction are possibilities on-top of IRC (or XMPP) since their absence isn't a core part of IRC (or XMPP) -- it's just not a good way to make a profit it if you don't lock down the network and act as the gatekeeper of the interface. Slack's API is fairly open though and it's not a huge hurdle to interact with it. I built an IRC<->Slack gateway that bridges the differences fairly well ( https://slack.tcl-lang.org/ https://slack.tcl-lang.org/ , you know, if Slack were working).
- hs86 8y ago
  Have you tried IRCCloud? Their web based front-end is as nice as Slack's but it still works with decentralized IRC servers. They also manage the client's state (unread messages) better than regular IRC bouncers.
- detaro 8y ago
  Emoji seem to work just fine on IRC nowadays, what do you mean by "native" support? The shortcodes? The fact that there's official clients you can entirely rely on supporting it?
- mynewtb 8y ago
  Offline messaging, mobile clients, push notifications, history, search, rich text formatting, message editing, file transfer, etc etc etc
  - rkuykendall-com 8y ago
    ..., inline images, display names, deleting messages, editing messages, reactions, avatars, multi-user private messages, etc etc etc
Angostura 8y ago
Really? It maybe up, but Netsplits occur all the time.
digitalsin 8y ago
writing entire stacks in javascript, probably

IRC had uptime in the scale of decades. Why are our 2018 solutions so fragile?

microcolonel 8y ago

Because they're single-source, single-point-of-failure (in the case of Slack), and very very very complex.

bonyt 8y ago

I mean, most IRC networks at least have netsplits from time to time.

Waterluvian 8y ago

I recall net splits happening all the time so I'm not sure that ircs uptime was a practical real world "decades".

orf 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit

mirages 8y ago
Anybody knows why the netsplit was written *.net *.split Why those stars and dots ?
- whafro 8y ago
  I believe it's an effort to show a netsplit in the traditional form (server1, server2) without placing blame on a particular server. Back when I IRCd regularly (and perhaps this is still the case today), certain servers would get a reputation for splitting more than others, and I think this network (and/or its ircd) decided to mask it without breaking the general format.
- nexxer 8y ago
  It's to avoid showing the server names to the public on some IRC networks for various reasons including security through (some) obscurity.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vertex-four 8y ago

IRC netsplits quite a bit, breaking ongoing conversations until it’s recovered, to be fair.

danmg 8y ago
Small ircds that you would run for a single team don't split because it's a single server. Large networks can have the servers go up and down, and it's still not a big deal because of redundancy. DNS round-robin entries mean you don't even have to know the other servers on the network. In 2018 netsplits caused by down links are fairly rare. If you wait six months you might see one.
- vertex-four 8y ago
  And if you run a small single-point ircd, at some point, the server or it’s internet connection will fail, and you’re in the same position as when Slack fails. There’s nothing that gets around technical failure. Either you have a single server that’s going to die at some point due to sheer entropy, or you have a somewhat complex distributed system with the tradeoffs you desire that might fail anyway.
  - danmg 8y ago
    The downtime would be for a network connection failure and not because your 'fearless' NoSQL container didn't work as expected. If a transient networking problem like this is a big deal for you, you can easily add either more nodes or move the node to a place with more reliable networking.
    - vertex-four 8y ago
      Or because the IRCd written in 90s-style C++ by some people who honestly don’t know what they’re doing segfaulted, or because you accidentally K-lined 0.0.0.0/32, or because you accidentally filled up the disk with logs because the server’s maintainer was fired and nobody remembers how the system works, or the latest system update borked something, or a failure to update the system allowed someone to attack your network, or the really hacky mechanism you use to enable auth against Active Directory broke or allowed a disabled user to log in, or... There’s a lot more that can go wrong than that a database falls over. In my experience, IRC servers fall over all the time - it’s just that nobody really cares because their clients just connect to the next server in the list and people resume their conversations a minute later after figuring out what messages actually reached their destination. Paying IRCCloud to manage an IRC server for you is a reasonable option, but I wouldn’t do it because I think it’s going to be more available, but because I like IRC and believe it provides the functionality I need.

matthewmacleod 8y ago

Major IRC networks had uptime on the scale of minutes, in my experience…

rarec 8y ago

The power of centralization! If I can't have it, you can't either! I wouldn't say it's fragile, though. Just like normal IT work, people only pay attention when it isn't working.

nathanaldensr 8y ago

Given how much more robust Slack is than IRC as far as features go, it's probably not fragile. The closer a piece of software is to the network layer, the more stable it tends to be, just due to the internet's robustness.

shawn 8y ago

sdf43543t345 has quit the server (Net split)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

efficax 8y ago

Eh, IRC networks split and individual servers went down all the time. But yes, there rarely was a complete EFNet outage even if sometimes there were 2 versions of the same channel going at once. That being said although I like some slacks fancy features I do wish a distributed alternative could catch on.

dswalter 8y ago

Native emoji support, aesthetically pleasing front-ends, and clear product direction are some of the main positives I see, even if the combination of php on the backend and electron on the frontend aren't the most sophisticated technical components in history. I prefer decentralized and open things, but a cohesive vision can sometimes provide a better user experience across a more restricted set of functionality than an army of hackers, each solving their own problems.

rkeene2 8y ago
Native emoji support, pretty front-ends, and clear product direction are possibilities on-top of IRC (or XMPP) since their absence isn't a core part of IRC (or XMPP) -- it's just not a good way to make a profit it if you don't lock down the network and act as the gatekeeper of the interface. Slack's API is fairly open though and it's not a huge hurdle to interact with it. I built an IRC<->Slack gateway that bridges the differences fairly well ( https://slack.tcl-lang.org/ https://slack.tcl-lang.org/ , you know, if Slack were working).
hs86 8y ago
Have you tried IRCCloud? Their web based front-end is as nice as Slack's but it still works with decentralized IRC servers. They also manage the client's state (unread messages) better than regular IRC bouncers.
detaro 8y ago
Emoji seem to work just fine on IRC nowadays, what do you mean by "native" support? The shortcodes? The fact that there's official clients you can entirely rely on supporting it?
mynewtb 8y ago
Offline messaging, mobile clients, push notifications, history, search, rich text formatting, message editing, file transfer, etc etc etc
- rkuykendall-com 8y ago
  ..., inline images, display names, deleting messages, editing messages, reactions, avatars, multi-user private messages, etc etc etc

Angostura 8y ago

Really? It maybe up, but Netsplits occur all the time.

digitalsin 8y ago

writing entire stacks in javascript, probably