While it's a bit annoying I never saw the problem with this. The article sounds like the author will give their full attention to the chat application after re

While it's a bit annoying I never saw the problem with this. The article sounds like the author will give their full attention to the chat application after replying "hello" until they receive another message. You can just switch yourself to nonblocking mode and handle other events and wait until epoll marks this chat readable again, or if you don't have any sort notifications turned on, just check back when you have a second. Worst case, the person at the other end wastes their time, not you. If it takes you an hour, their bad. But chances are they turn to something else in the meantime and don't stare at the chat window for hours on end. Would be kinda bad if you were on vacation and accidentally left your chat client running.