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I love IRC but it is clearly not "as simple as it gets". Every non-technical person I've tried to introduce it to glazes over by the second or third /command, i

by dTal 7y ago

I love IRC but it is clearly not "as simple as it gets". Every non-technical person I've tried to introduce it to glazes over by the second or third /command, if they even get past "you need to pick an IRC network". Meanwhile they're all happily chatting away on WhatsApp.

bluedino 7y ago
Some people consider vi a simple editor...
- farisjarrah 7y ago
  Does simple have to equal easy? An abacus is very simple, but its not easy to do advanced mathematics on it without prior training.
  - kstrauser 7y ago
    > Does simple have to equal easy? laughs in Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
    - raverbashing 7y ago
      laughs even harder in lightweight directory access protocol
      - falcolas 7y ago
        screams and runs away
      - bashinator 7y ago
        Any protocol with the words "lightweight" or "simple" in the name, is not. Looking at you, SNMP.
        kstrauser 7y ago
        The protocols themselves are lightweight or simple, but using them may not be. Imagine that your protocol for choosing dinner with your SO is: You: What would you like: Them: I don't care. There, simple! Getting some useful information out of that is an exercise left for the reader.
        bashinator 7y ago
        Wonderful analogy - thank you for that.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - ci5er 7y ago
      Well, it used to be. Before they discovered headers...
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    if we're talking about it in the context of widespread user adoption then yes. At least it's a large part of it. It's not really helpful when people try to describe IRC as easy simply because it resembles text based paradigms that developers are familiar with.
  - x3haloed 7y ago
    I think the missing subtlety here is simple design vs. simple to use or simple to learn. Vim is very simple in design, but not at all simple to learn.
- imron 7y ago
  Many people (myself included) consider vi to be a powerful editor. I've not heard many who would call it simple though.
  - fernandotakai 7y ago
    yup. it's extremely powerful, super customizable (when it comes to vim/neovim), but simple? never. i would never recommend vim to a someone that is just beginning when vscode is right there.
    - boomlinde 7y ago
      I think the point is that there is a sense in which you can say that something is simple that pertains to complexity rather than ease of use. Vim is arguably simple in neither of these senses, but most Vi clones are much less complex than Vim or NeoVim.
Aengeuad 7y ago
Is somebody that is taking the time to learn Rust really going to struggle with a handful of commands though? Day to day I never need more than /join, /part, /msg, or the occasional /quit, and I'm using a terminal based client, some phone/web clients I've used don't require any commands.
- detaro 7y ago
  Mozilla's chat is not just for developers.
  - Aengeuad 7y ago
    Nor is IRC, which is what prompted me to reply. I made a mistake though, nobody else in the comment chain was talking about Rust or developers. I had read a comment in another part of the thread which linked to Mozilla's forums [0] which mentioned more people in the developers channels on the Matrix instance, which I had mistakenly assumed was part of this comment chain, hence the question relating to developers. [0] https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-mozilla-were-live/54424 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-moz... >The number of participants in our primary development channels has already exceeded their counterparts on IRC at their most active [...]
- bitwize 7y ago
  Professional developers mostly use Macs these days, and won't touch anything that doesn't have a nice UI that does exactly what they expect. Anything that looks too textual or "computer-code-y" that's not related to what they're working on, they will stay away from. Case in point: virtually no one uses Emacs. Even Vim is diminishing; most devs now use Visual Studio Code.
  - dvdgsng 7y ago
    > Professional developers mostly use Macs these days > most devs now use Visual Studio Code. You seem to live in some other world than I ...
  - 7y ago
zmix 7y ago
From the menu: Favorites -> irc.mozilla.org connecting to irc.mozilla.org... /join #channel (or have it set up to auto-join a named channels) bla bla bla /part (or simply just (Q)uit from the menu) If you did not (Q)uit from the menu yet, either do it or /quit If you preset some autoconnects and autojoins, there is no need to know any of the commands.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  But now I have to know presets, and if my presets are lost also commands.
  - zmix 7y ago
    Just try a modern graphical IRC client. It's all menu/GUI driven. You have a list, often preset with all the IRC servers, worldwide. Just choose the one you want and add it to "Favorites". There, list all channels, search the ones, that cover your topic (via text input box) and add them to "Autojoins" or "Favorites". The preset gets created automatically, either globally or per network. In other lingo, it's called: an application's preferences.
- 6510 7y ago
  you had to be registered
  - zmix 7y ago
    No need to register on many IRC networks. I do not need to be registered on Freenode (though, I am).
blotter_paper 7y ago
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/ https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/ Hickley argues that simple != easy. "Easy" is inherently subjective, and only tells us how easy something is for the actor attempting that thing; if you know more about a domain, things related to that domain become easier. If you knew how to tie knot A and I knew how to tie knot B, we would both find our respective knots easier. "Simple" is more objective, insofar as anything can be. We could judge the complexity of knots in a rope based on how many times the rope turns over on itself, and that complexity would not be dependant on your knowledge of particular knots. In principle we should be able to agree on which knot is more complex even if we still have an easier time tying the ones we are familiar with. Of course you can mount an argument that simple is used as a synonym of easy, because it often is, but I like the idea of simple being the opposite of "complex" and "complex" meaning "many-folded" rather than "difficult."
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  Fair point, but in this case it's really easy that users want, not necessarily "simple". Going back to the points made earlier in this thread, IRC is a lot simpler than WhatsApp, but WhatsApp has a much larger user base because it's easier to use.
- dTal 7y ago
  Perhaps, but it's a complete sidetrack. In the context of this discussion, "simple" was indeed being used as a shorthand for "accessible": > Finally, this is going to be more accessible to more users to Mozilla since now they are using Matrix. > I disagree, IRC is as simple as it gets. This might discourage some people from joining.

by dTal 7y ago

bluedino 7y ago

Some people consider vi a simple editor...

farisjarrah 7y ago
Does simple have to equal easy? An abacus is very simple, but its not easy to do advanced mathematics on it without prior training.
- kstrauser 7y ago
  > Does simple have to equal easy? laughs in Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    laughs even harder in lightweight directory access protocol
    - falcolas 7y ago
      screams and runs away
    - bashinator 7y ago
      Any protocol with the words "lightweight" or "simple" in the name, is not. Looking at you, SNMP.
      - kstrauser 7y ago
        The protocols themselves are lightweight or simple, but using them may not be. Imagine that your protocol for choosing dinner with your SO is: You: What would you like: Them: I don't care. There, simple! Getting some useful information out of that is an exercise left for the reader.
        bashinator 7y ago
        Wonderful analogy - thank you for that.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - ci5er 7y ago
    Well, it used to be. Before they discovered headers...
- Barrin92 7y ago
  if we're talking about it in the context of widespread user adoption then yes. At least it's a large part of it. It's not really helpful when people try to describe IRC as easy simply because it resembles text based paradigms that developers are familiar with.
- x3haloed 7y ago
  I think the missing subtlety here is simple design vs. simple to use or simple to learn. Vim is very simple in design, but not at all simple to learn.
imron 7y ago
Many people (myself included) consider vi to be a powerful editor. I've not heard many who would call it simple though.
- fernandotakai 7y ago
  yup. it's extremely powerful, super customizable (when it comes to vim/neovim), but simple? never. i would never recommend vim to a someone that is just beginning when vscode is right there.
  - boomlinde 7y ago
    I think the point is that there is a sense in which you can say that something is simple that pertains to complexity rather than ease of use. Vim is arguably simple in neither of these senses, but most Vi clones are much less complex than Vim or NeoVim.

Aengeuad 7y ago

Is somebody that is taking the time to learn Rust really going to struggle with a handful of commands though? Day to day I never need more than /join, /part, /msg, or the occasional /quit, and I'm using a terminal based client, some phone/web clients I've used don't require any commands.

detaro 7y ago
Mozilla's chat is not just for developers.
- Aengeuad 7y ago
  Nor is IRC, which is what prompted me to reply. I made a mistake though, nobody else in the comment chain was talking about Rust or developers. I had read a comment in another part of the thread which linked to Mozilla's forums [0] which mentioned more people in the developers channels on the Matrix instance, which I had mistakenly assumed was part of this comment chain, hence the question relating to developers. [0] https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-mozilla-were-live/54424 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-moz... >The number of participants in our primary development channels has already exceeded their counterparts on IRC at their most active [...]
bitwize 7y ago
Professional developers mostly use Macs these days, and won't touch anything that doesn't have a nice UI that does exactly what they expect. Anything that looks too textual or "computer-code-y" that's not related to what they're working on, they will stay away from. Case in point: virtually no one uses Emacs. Even Vim is diminishing; most devs now use Visual Studio Code.
- dvdgsng 7y ago
  > Professional developers mostly use Macs these days > most devs now use Visual Studio Code. You seem to live in some other world than I ...
- 7y ago

zmix 7y ago

From the menu: Favorites -> irc.mozilla.org connecting to irc.mozilla.org... /join #channel (or have it set up to auto-join a named channels) bla bla bla /part (or simply just (Q)uit from the menu) If you did not (Q)uit from the menu yet, either do it or /quit If you preset some autoconnects and autojoins, there is no need to know any of the commands.

cptskippy 7y ago
But now I have to know presets, and if my presets are lost also commands.
- zmix 7y ago
  Just try a modern graphical IRC client. It's all menu/GUI driven. You have a list, often preset with all the IRC servers, worldwide. Just choose the one you want and add it to "Favorites". There, list all channels, search the ones, that cover your topic (via text input box) and add them to "Autojoins" or "Favorites". The preset gets created automatically, either globally or per network. In other lingo, it's called: an application's preferences.
6510 7y ago
you had to be registered
- zmix 7y ago
  No need to register on many IRC networks. I do not need to be registered on Freenode (though, I am).

blotter_paper 7y ago

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/ https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/ Hickley argues that simple != easy. "Easy" is inherently subjective, and only tells us how easy something is for the actor attempting that thing; if you know more about a domain, things related to that domain become easier. If you knew how to tie knot A and I knew how to tie knot B, we would both find our respective knots easier. "Simple" is more objective, insofar as anything can be. We could judge the complexity of knots in a rope based on how many times the rope turns over on itself, and that complexity would not be dependant on your knowledge of particular knots. In principle we should be able to agree on which knot is more complex even if we still have an easier time tying the ones we are familiar with. Of course you can mount an argument that simple is used as a synonym of easy, because it often is, but I like the idea of simple being the opposite of "complex" and "complex" meaning "many-folded" rather than "difficult."

Ajedi32 7y ago
Fair point, but in this case it's really easy that users want, not necessarily "simple". Going back to the points made earlier in this thread, IRC is a lot simpler than WhatsApp, but WhatsApp has a much larger user base because it's easier to use.
dTal 7y ago
Perhaps, but it's a complete sidetrack. In the context of this discussion, "simple" was indeed being used as a shorthand for "accessible": > Finally, this is going to be more accessible to more users to Mozilla since now they are using Matrix. > I disagree, IRC is as simple as it gets. This might discourage some people from joining.