10 ms·

IRC and Emacs all the things

189 points by preek 7y ago

kleiba 7y ago
Good ol' C-x M-c M-butterfly...
Arathorn 7y ago
could also Matrix and Emacs all the things, just sayin’ https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el :)
- mxuribe 7y ago
  My prediction is that at some point in the future, those folks who have historically loved IRC (and there's nothing wrong with that!), will eventually begin to prefer matrix as opposed to, say, slack, mattermost, etc. Not necessarily for tech superiority, but for what I'll call the coziness factor; they'll just feel cozy using some matrix client, as they felt comfy using an ol' irc client. (Yes, yes, i know there are numerous existing irc-bridging apps/services natively supported by matrix protocol. ;-) Disclosure: I used to love irc in the 90s, then stopped using it in the 2000s (aughts?), and now am a superfan of matrix.
  - rabidrat 7y ago
    I don't care what chat network I use, as long as I can use weechat.
- preek 7y ago
  OP here. You've guessed what we're using the last couple of weeks. So far, I like it! It's come a long way. I've tried it a couple of times, but now even the web client works reasonably well. And yes, of course - alphapapa software is always the best option!(; P.S.: Nice nick! After waiting 20 years, I just watched the trilogy (extended version) with my wife last week. It's been a blast and it aged really well.
  - memling 7y ago
    > After waiting 20 years, I just watched the trilogy (extended version) with my wife last week. It's been a blast and it aged really well. If you're a fan of makings-of, you'll love the extras on these DVDs. There is some seriously interesting work they did on CGI, AI, motion capture, 3-D scanning, et c.
    - preek 7y ago
      Thank you very much for the pointer! We will certainly have a good time watching the extras^^
- vector_spaces 7y ago
  I love the idea of a Matrix emacs client, but it doesn't support E2EE and probably won't ever, so it's a non-starter for me.
  - hpfr 7y ago
    Luckily, the good folks at Matrix have thought of the client support issue: https://github.com/matrix-org/pantalaimon https://github.com/matrix-org/pantalaimon
    - rrix2 7y ago
      I can confirm that it takes a bit of elbowing around, but you can get matrix-client.el to work with pantalaimon in its current state. extending the client to "know" it needs to talk to localhost rather than the server half is most of the stuff I had to hack on to make it work.
    - gergelypolonkai 7y ago
      I just wrote a post about setting up matrix-client.el with Pantalaimon: https://gergely.polonkai.eu/2020/03/09/chatting-on-matrix-with-e2ee-from-emacs/ https://gergely.polonkai.eu/2020/03/09/chatting-on-matrix-wi...
- jasonzemos 7y ago
  It's cool to see Matrix work inside emacs but I think the spirit of the OP alludes to putting a little emacs in Matrix too. Composing messages in that band-aid at the bottom of Riot is a great example of a stress-inducing UX. Some venues around Matrix deserve high quality content and it's difficult to encourage that when people write and proof posts through the peephole.
mxuribe 7y ago
This is brilliant! Not so much for use of emacs or libpurple or bitlebee specifically for that matter (which are all fine)...Rather, what i find to be the coolest is the whole... "I'm gonna use my preferred text editor to interact with the world" approach! Some might say that this reduces outside systems into nothing more than an API-sort of layer, but honestly, I really like that; it helps with learning curves, general adoption, etc. Kudos!
- Kaze404 7y ago
  I agree. The joy in using emacs for (mostly) everything is my configurations and workflow translate nicely into other contexts as well. For example, all my evil mode (vim) config, custom keybinds and extensions are available whether I'm writing code, emails or chat messages.
- preek 7y ago
  Op here. First, let me say: Thank you for the kind words You're spot on! I'm using Emacs for todos, project management, meeting minutes, quotes, invoices, accounting, mails, chat, programming, configuration management, slides, documentation and so much more. As long as the task is primarily based around consuming or producing text, it's incredible how much more performance a solid foundation yields. In case anyone is curious, here's my config: https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/ https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/
  - nemosaltat 7y ago
    I initially read this as the Spanish word “todos,” which translates as “everything.” The rest of the comment goes on to support my initial interpretation. I love it when things work out that way.
  - chrisweekly 7y ago
    Hey @preek, thanks for sharing, your emacs config is amazing
Naac 7y ago
For a more feature-full emacs IRC experience, I would recommend Circe[0]. It even supports showing images inline like slack. If IRC in emacs is not your cup of tea, I would recommend the web client/web server The Lounge[1], which as far as I'm concerned gives people everything they want out of slack, in IRC, but doesn't lock you down to a proprietary protocol. [0] https://github.com/jorgenschaefer/circe https://github.com/jorgenschaefer/circe [1] https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge
- preek 7y ago
  Op here. Thanks for linking to Circe. I didn't know about that and will happily check it out. thelounge also does look really nice! Having said that, the IRC client ERC which I'm using works well with regards to inline images. Here's my config for that: https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/#irc https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/#irc
u801e 7y ago
The contrast level they used for the text in the article makes it too difficult to read.
- clarry 7y ago
  I can recommend Firefox: https://i.imgur.com/7f6ZofW.png https://i.imgur.com/7f6ZofW.png
- kencausey 7y ago
  Surely everyone knows about Reader mode by now? More seriously, is something like Firefox's Reader mode available as a plugin to Safari? I can confirm that it is for Chrome.
  - hibbelig 7y ago
    Safari has it built in.
    - kencausey 7y ago
      OK, thanks. I am a bit of a broken record in regards to recommending the use of Reader mode. This is more fuel to my madness.
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    Reader mode availability is no excuse for inaccessible web design.
  - u801e 7y ago
    > Surely everyone knows about Reader mode by now? Possibly, but why do we need the feature when the website could simply use black text on a white background? When websites start doing things like this or not displaying static text when javascript is disabled, then I just skip over it.
  - pabs3 7y ago
    Browsers should make Reader mode the default.
dfboyd 7y ago
Slack is working hard to prevent this kind of interoperability; the incentive for them is to push ahead on features, and being abstract-able behind bitlbee or libpurple impairs that. They have deprecated the API token (called a "Legacy Token" on their site) that bitlbee uses, and there's a sunset date of May 5 2020.
- tyrust 7y ago
  They used to run an IRC relay, too, but got rid of it years ago.
  - usr1106 7y ago
    And XMPP. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/09/slack_cuts_ties_to_irc_and_xmpp/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/09/slack_cuts_ties_to_...
  - theelous3 7y ago
    Yeah, that was a frustrating day for me. I went from running all of my IM through my IRC client, to being forced in to a combination of my IRC client and the slack desktop native app, to eventually giving up on slack altogether as it was heavy and finicky, providing nothing more (for me) than any simple IM client. I firmly believe we're just in a bad place on the whole in terms of IM/voip systems for personal use and org use. Nothing is really good enough. The only ones that live up to expectations are mumble and IRC - the absolute no-nonsense of them leaves expectations low and exceeds them. Had slack taken a more open route and stopped being so org focused it had the potential to do really well (in the "good ecosystem" sense, not in the financial sense as clearly they're doing fine.) Nothing bridges the gap between personal social use, informal org use (gaming, loose projects), and actual org use. How is it that mumble and teamspeak etc. are still far superior voip clients to literally all other offerings, including the well funded and supposedly mature discord which should be excelling here. Only thing mumble/ts can't do is replace voip telco systems, which in fairness nothing else does either. Slack can't do voip for shit, discord can't even do notifications, irc can only manage offline message history if you're highly tech savvy or pay for it, whatsapp requires a phone with an active connecion and is clumbsy for ephemeral groups (telegram is fairly similar), gitter doesn't even come in to the picture, matrix has the shittiest public servers in the history of technology, xmpp is esoteric gobbeldygook. The whole space is a mess.
iLemming 7y ago
> Not having a general text editor at your disposal for when you have to input/manage loads of text is like being a carpenter and only having a hammer in the toolbox. Once I learned Emacs to the sufficient level, I felt that. Today, I can't even imagine typing any text in anything else but Emacs. Having all the tools you need at your disposal - spellchecking, thesaurus, dictionary, word lookup, translation, etc., feels extremely empowering. My work machine is a Mac. I have written this¹, mainly to integrate with Emacs. Whenever I need to type anything longer than four words, in any program, I use that. The idea is simple - to copy existing text, call emacsclient, it invokes a function that opens a buffer and pastes the text into it. Then you edit the text in Emacs, press dedicated key-sequence - it grabs the text, switches back to the program, pastes the text back in there. It works surprisingly well. I can for example, open Browser Dev Tools; invoke Emacs; switch to js-mode, have all the bells and whistles: syntax-highlighting, autocomplete, etc.; write some javascript; finish editing and it would paste the code back into the Dev Tools console. Sometimes I use Linux with EXWM. When I first discovered it, I got very excited. Not because now I could manage all windows through Emacs, but mostly because EXWM can "translate" and "simulate" the keys. So, for example, you can use same key-sequences that you use on Mac, but they'd translate into Linux native keys. There's no "context switching", you don't need to re-adapt to the keys all the time. It took me a few hours to learn EXWM and configure it, next day I wrote exwm-edit² Emacs package. Being able to write any kind of text in your favorite editor is truly liberating. I highly recommend trying. Be warned though - it's impossible to live without that later. The only reason I don't much use Windows these days - because I haven't yet figured out the way of doing this in Windows. Someday I will. --- ¹ https://github.com/agzam/spacehammer https://github.com/agzam/spacehammer ² https://github.com/agzam/exwm-edit https://github.com/agzam/exwm-edit
- _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  I legitimately don't know how people can code without using some emacs or vim commands. Even the simplest stuff like M-f/M-b or C-a/C-e are so ingrained in how I use a computer. Do people genuinely not use them? Do they just navigate with the mouse and arrow keys? I suppose there's alternatives like Cmd-<left> and Cmd-<right> or Alt-<left> and Alt-<right>.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
defanor 7y ago
I'm using a similar setup and for similar reasons, particularly for XMPP, but finding it hard to recommend to others because of the awkward bits involved (and because not everyone uses/prefers Emacs, of course). It's mostly okay for basic textual messages over a stable connection, though even then an IRC client is likely to split outgoing messages assuming an IRC message length limit. But when it comes to anything more advanced (e.g., file transfer), less visible (e.g., proper connection closing), or requiring a more advanced UI, it leads to compromises at multiple stages: similarly to just bridging protocols in general, but with addition of bitlbee/libpurple API restrictions. Sometimes I wonder whether the situation would be better with specialized CLI IM clients running inside Emacs's shell mode: it works well for telnet MUDs, at least.
maurits 7y ago
Every 6 months or so I do the vim<->sublime<->emacs dance. I really want to like emacs and really believe in its central tenants. Its not that it is hard, but I just can't get over the fact that it seems to not work very well. Buggy, slow, bewildering documentation, fresh installs that are broken, it all wears me down.
- iLemming 7y ago
  It certainly may appear to be broken all the time. But that's the price you pay for using the vast Emacs ecosystem. Emacs over the decades has accumulated an incredible amount of things - built-in and third-party packages, different ways to work on various platforms, protocols, screen-sizes, languages, etc. There are tons of code written in Emacs-lisp on Github alone. None of them, not a single developer contributed to Emacs ecosystem, has ever gotten paid, except for a few, small, voluntary donations. Almost all of that work is done by individual contributors. If you think about it, Emacs, to a certain degree, defies any logic - the way how it's concocted shouldn't work at all. Yet, it does, and some features of it done is a particular, astonishingly clever way, that no other IDE or editor has ever successfully replicated them. To become a serious Emacs user, one has to either choose to be austere and handpick the packages to use or has to become really good in debugging the problems when they arise. Learn Emacs lisp, learn how to use built-in profiler, "toggle-debug-on" functions, learn how to investigate slow/failing startup, how Emacs loads packages, and you can update things with no fear. Yes, sometimes things break (show me a software product with no bugs), but for me, it never takes longer than a few minutes to either find a fix or a workaround. From my perspective - Emacs is very stable.
zzo38computer 7y ago
I might recommend that people who have set up Discord or Slack or Matrix or whatever should set up their own IRC server to bridge with it, rather than the end user setting up their own.

189 points by preek 7y ago

Good ol' C-x M-c M-butterfly...

could also Matrix and Emacs all the things, just sayin’ https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el :)

mxuribe 7y ago
My prediction is that at some point in the future, those folks who have historically loved IRC (and there's nothing wrong with that!), will eventually begin to prefer matrix as opposed to, say, slack, mattermost, etc. Not necessarily for tech superiority, but for what I'll call the coziness factor; they'll just feel cozy using some matrix client, as they felt comfy using an ol' irc client. (Yes, yes, i know there are numerous existing irc-bridging apps/services natively supported by matrix protocol. ;-) Disclosure: I used to love irc in the 90s, then stopped using it in the 2000s (aughts?), and now am a superfan of matrix.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  I don't care what chat network I use, as long as I can use weechat.
preek 7y ago
OP here. You've guessed what we're using the last couple of weeks. So far, I like it! It's come a long way. I've tried it a couple of times, but now even the web client works reasonably well. And yes, of course - alphapapa software is always the best option!(; P.S.: Nice nick! After waiting 20 years, I just watched the trilogy (extended version) with my wife last week. It's been a blast and it aged really well.
- memling 7y ago
  > After waiting 20 years, I just watched the trilogy (extended version) with my wife last week. It's been a blast and it aged really well. If you're a fan of makings-of, you'll love the extras on these DVDs. There is some seriously interesting work they did on CGI, AI, motion capture, 3-D scanning, et c.
  - preek 7y ago
    Thank you very much for the pointer! We will certainly have a good time watching the extras^^
vector_spaces 7y ago
I love the idea of a Matrix emacs client, but it doesn't support E2EE and probably won't ever, so it's a non-starter for me.
- hpfr 7y ago
  Luckily, the good folks at Matrix have thought of the client support issue: https://github.com/matrix-org/pantalaimon https://github.com/matrix-org/pantalaimon
  - rrix2 7y ago
    I can confirm that it takes a bit of elbowing around, but you can get matrix-client.el to work with pantalaimon in its current state. extending the client to "know" it needs to talk to localhost rather than the server half is most of the stuff I had to hack on to make it work.
  - gergelypolonkai 7y ago
    I just wrote a post about setting up matrix-client.el with Pantalaimon: https://gergely.polonkai.eu/2020/03/09/chatting-on-matrix-with-e2ee-from-emacs/ https://gergely.polonkai.eu/2020/03/09/chatting-on-matrix-wi...
jasonzemos 7y ago
It's cool to see Matrix work inside emacs but I think the spirit of the OP alludes to putting a little emacs in Matrix too. Composing messages in that band-aid at the bottom of Riot is a great example of a stress-inducing UX. Some venues around Matrix deserve high quality content and it's difficult to encourage that when people write and proof posts through the peephole.

mxuribe 7y ago

This is brilliant! Not so much for use of emacs or libpurple or bitlebee specifically for that matter (which are all fine)...Rather, what i find to be the coolest is the whole... "I'm gonna use my preferred text editor to interact with the world" approach! Some might say that this reduces outside systems into nothing more than an API-sort of layer, but honestly, I really like that; it helps with learning curves, general adoption, etc. Kudos!

Kaze404 7y ago
I agree. The joy in using emacs for (mostly) everything is my configurations and workflow translate nicely into other contexts as well. For example, all my evil mode (vim) config, custom keybinds and extensions are available whether I'm writing code, emails or chat messages.
preek 7y ago
Op here. First, let me say: Thank you for the kind words You're spot on! I'm using Emacs for todos, project management, meeting minutes, quotes, invoices, accounting, mails, chat, programming, configuration management, slides, documentation and so much more. As long as the task is primarily based around consuming or producing text, it's incredible how much more performance a solid foundation yields. In case anyone is curious, here's my config: https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/ https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/
- nemosaltat 7y ago
  I initially read this as the Spanish word “todos,” which translates as “everything.” The rest of the comment goes on to support my initial interpretation. I love it when things work out that way.
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  Hey @preek, thanks for sharing, your emacs config is amazing

Naac 7y ago

For a more feature-full emacs IRC experience, I would recommend Circe[0]. It even supports showing images inline like slack. If IRC in emacs is not your cup of tea, I would recommend the web client/web server The Lounge[1], which as far as I'm concerned gives people everything they want out of slack, in IRC, but doesn't lock you down to a proprietary protocol. [0] https://github.com/jorgenschaefer/circe https://github.com/jorgenschaefer/circe [1] https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge

preek 7y ago
Op here. Thanks for linking to Circe. I didn't know about that and will happily check it out. thelounge also does look really nice! Having said that, the IRC client ERC which I'm using works well with regards to inline images. Here's my config for that: https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/#irc https://github.com/munen/emacs.d/#irc

u801e 7y ago

The contrast level they used for the text in the article makes it too difficult to read.

clarry 7y ago
I can recommend Firefox: https://i.imgur.com/7f6ZofW.png https://i.imgur.com/7f6ZofW.png
kencausey 7y ago
Surely everyone knows about Reader mode by now? More seriously, is something like Firefox's Reader mode available as a plugin to Safari? I can confirm that it is for Chrome.
- hibbelig 7y ago
  Safari has it built in.
  - kencausey 7y ago
    OK, thanks. I am a bit of a broken record in regards to recommending the use of Reader mode. This is more fuel to my madness.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Reader mode availability is no excuse for inaccessible web design.
- u801e 7y ago
  > Surely everyone knows about Reader mode by now? Possibly, but why do we need the feature when the website could simply use black text on a white background? When websites start doing things like this or not displaying static text when javascript is disabled, then I just skip over it.
- pabs3 7y ago
  Browsers should make Reader mode the default.

dfboyd 7y ago

Slack is working hard to prevent this kind of interoperability; the incentive for them is to push ahead on features, and being abstract-able behind bitlbee or libpurple impairs that. They have deprecated the API token (called a "Legacy Token" on their site) that bitlbee uses, and there's a sunset date of May 5 2020.

tyrust 7y ago
They used to run an IRC relay, too, but got rid of it years ago.
- usr1106 7y ago
  And XMPP. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/09/slack_cuts_ties_to_irc_and_xmpp/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/09/slack_cuts_ties_to_...
- theelous3 7y ago
  Yeah, that was a frustrating day for me. I went from running all of my IM through my IRC client, to being forced in to a combination of my IRC client and the slack desktop native app, to eventually giving up on slack altogether as it was heavy and finicky, providing nothing more (for me) than any simple IM client. I firmly believe we're just in a bad place on the whole in terms of IM/voip systems for personal use and org use. Nothing is really good enough. The only ones that live up to expectations are mumble and IRC - the absolute no-nonsense of them leaves expectations low and exceeds them. Had slack taken a more open route and stopped being so org focused it had the potential to do really well (in the "good ecosystem" sense, not in the financial sense as clearly they're doing fine.) Nothing bridges the gap between personal social use, informal org use (gaming, loose projects), and actual org use. How is it that mumble and teamspeak etc. are still far superior voip clients to literally all other offerings, including the well funded and supposedly mature discord which should be excelling here. Only thing mumble/ts can't do is replace voip telco systems, which in fairness nothing else does either. Slack can't do voip for shit, discord can't even do notifications, irc can only manage offline message history if you're highly tech savvy or pay for it, whatsapp requires a phone with an active connecion and is clumbsy for ephemeral groups (telegram is fairly similar), gitter doesn't even come in to the picture, matrix has the shittiest public servers in the history of technology, xmpp is esoteric gobbeldygook. The whole space is a mess.

iLemming 7y ago

> Not having a general text editor at your disposal for when you have to input/manage loads of text is like being a carpenter and only having a hammer in the toolbox. Once I learned Emacs to the sufficient level, I felt that. Today, I can't even imagine typing any text in anything else but Emacs. Having all the tools you need at your disposal - spellchecking, thesaurus, dictionary, word lookup, translation, etc., feels extremely empowering. My work machine is a Mac. I have written this¹, mainly to integrate with Emacs. Whenever I need to type anything longer than four words, in any program, I use that. The idea is simple - to copy existing text, call emacsclient, it invokes a function that opens a buffer and pastes the text into it. Then you edit the text in Emacs, press dedicated key-sequence - it grabs the text, switches back to the program, pastes the text back in there. It works surprisingly well. I can for example, open Browser Dev Tools; invoke Emacs; switch to js-mode, have all the bells and whistles: syntax-highlighting, autocomplete, etc.; write some javascript; finish editing and it would paste the code back into the Dev Tools console. Sometimes I use Linux with EXWM. When I first discovered it, I got very excited. Not because now I could manage all windows through Emacs, but mostly because EXWM can "translate" and "simulate" the keys. So, for example, you can use same key-sequences that you use on Mac, but they'd translate into Linux native keys. There's no "context switching", you don't need to re-adapt to the keys all the time. It took me a few hours to learn EXWM and configure it, next day I wrote exwm-edit² Emacs package. Being able to write any kind of text in your favorite editor is truly liberating. I highly recommend trying. Be warned though - it's impossible to live without that later. The only reason I don't much use Windows these days - because I haven't yet figured out the way of doing this in Windows. Someday I will. --- ¹ https://github.com/agzam/spacehammer https://github.com/agzam/spacehammer ² https://github.com/agzam/exwm-edit https://github.com/agzam/exwm-edit

_hardwaregeek 7y ago
I legitimately don't know how people can code without using some emacs or vim commands. Even the simplest stuff like M-f/M-b or C-a/C-e are so ingrained in how I use a computer. Do people genuinely not use them? Do they just navigate with the mouse and arrow keys? I suppose there's alternatives like Cmd-<left> and Cmd-<right> or Alt-<left> and Alt-<right>.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

defanor 7y ago

I'm using a similar setup and for similar reasons, particularly for XMPP, but finding it hard to recommend to others because of the awkward bits involved (and because not everyone uses/prefers Emacs, of course). It's mostly okay for basic textual messages over a stable connection, though even then an IRC client is likely to split outgoing messages assuming an IRC message length limit. But when it comes to anything more advanced (e.g., file transfer), less visible (e.g., proper connection closing), or requiring a more advanced UI, it leads to compromises at multiple stages: similarly to just bridging protocols in general, but with addition of bitlbee/libpurple API restrictions. Sometimes I wonder whether the situation would be better with specialized CLI IM clients running inside Emacs's shell mode: it works well for telnet MUDs, at least.

maurits 7y ago

Every 6 months or so I do the vim<->sublime<->emacs dance. I really want to like emacs and really believe in its central tenants. Its not that it is hard, but I just can't get over the fact that it seems to not work very well. Buggy, slow, bewildering documentation, fresh installs that are broken, it all wears me down.

iLemming 7y ago
It certainly may appear to be broken all the time. But that's the price you pay for using the vast Emacs ecosystem. Emacs over the decades has accumulated an incredible amount of things - built-in and third-party packages, different ways to work on various platforms, protocols, screen-sizes, languages, etc. There are tons of code written in Emacs-lisp on Github alone. None of them, not a single developer contributed to Emacs ecosystem, has ever gotten paid, except for a few, small, voluntary donations. Almost all of that work is done by individual contributors. If you think about it, Emacs, to a certain degree, defies any logic - the way how it's concocted shouldn't work at all. Yet, it does, and some features of it done is a particular, astonishingly clever way, that no other IDE or editor has ever successfully replicated them. To become a serious Emacs user, one has to either choose to be austere and handpick the packages to use or has to become really good in debugging the problems when they arise. Learn Emacs lisp, learn how to use built-in profiler, "toggle-debug-on" functions, learn how to investigate slow/failing startup, how Emacs loads packages, and you can update things with no fear. Yes, sometimes things break (show me a software product with no bugs), but for me, it never takes longer than a few minutes to either find a fix or a workaround. From my perspective - Emacs is very stable.

zzo38computer 7y ago

I might recommend that people who have set up Discord or Slack or Matrix or whatever should set up their own IRC server to bridge with it, rather than the end user setting up their own.