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Obviously you can create IRC integrations for anything. But how many are installable with one click, like Slack integrations are? Having to write custom impleme
by untog 7y ago
Obviously you can create IRC integrations for anything. But how many are installable with one click, like Slack integrations are? Having to write custom implementations is yet another extra task and point of failure compared to just paying someone to manage it all for you.
- pmlnr 7y agoanother "but". First "but it doesn't scale". Now "but integrations". There will always be another "but", and there will always be a link on the internet showing that it's been done already. "but shiny web gui" - https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ "but mobile app" - https://github.com/MCMrARM/revolution-irc https://github.com/MCMrARM/revolution-irc "but it's complicated" - https://www.mirc.com/ https://www.mirc.com/ since 1995 IRC does have limits. Some. One is that to make it "modern" it needs a bouncer - that said znc is spectacularly simple to set up with it's web interface. Integrations were never one of those limits. Just google IRC bots.
- untog 7y ago> another "but" That's my entire point. It's death by a thousand cuts. Now I'm responsible for an IRC server, a web frontend, a mobile app and a bouncer. The OP said "just run an IRC server". There is no "Slack or just an IRC server". There's "Slack or a number of connected, interdependent services you need to maintain". I'm not saying it can't be done, or that it isn't the right answer for some people, but it's also a lot more work (and thus, expense) than just paying for Slack. It absolutely makes sense that people do it.
- pmlnr 7y agoWhy is paying another company better than getting employees and paying them the same or even less money?! When did this madness start?
- untog 7y agoIn what world is it going to be "the same or even less money" to hire one or two sysadmins on a full-time basis than paying for a Slack subscription?
- pmlnr 7y agoI don't know how large your company is, but with 10k+ employees, it's suddenly a reasonable option.
- untog 7y agoWith that many employees you're signing up for Slack's enterprise tier, and you can bet they price it so that they come out the right side of this cost/benefit calculation for a lot of companies.
- pmlnr 7y agoI have seen those numbers. You could easily afford paying sysadmins with those numbers.
- foxylion 7y agoBut managing an IRC server cluster for 10.000+ users is no simple task. Paying experts in their field (chat tools in this case) is most of the time the most reliable and cheapest variant. You must also include that Slack has plenty of features that are not available in IRC and mean the productivity is not as good.
- jbverschoor 7y agoSince when is running any service for a number of people something people compare with running google? 30 years ago, efnet was (apparently) 35k users.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoHow do you make it possible for people to view the IRC channel history when they were disconnected? I know you can have a bot that saves a log, but can it be made seamless? I think it's really sad how the world has migrated away from an open protocol to a closed one, but I remember IRC having some very real annoyances, well beyond stuff like integrations.
- pmlnr 7y agoThe answer is in at the bottom of my previous entry. It's called an IRC bouncer.
- LinuxBender 7y agobouncer, or web client that persists chats, like TheLounge or Convos.