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Speaking of IRC and the Gulf War, I remember reading somewhere that the US Army was using IRC and at one point it was used to coordinate airstrikes. I don't hav
by atdt 6y ago
Speaking of IRC and the Gulf War, I remember reading somewhere that the US Army was using IRC and at one point it was used to coordinate airstrikes. I don't have a source for this, and it certainly sounds fantastical, but maybe someone here could corroborate it (or refute it decisively).
- desktopninja 6y agoI recall the same. It was so long ago but it came from a reputable site. A quick search brought up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5147321
- msla 6y agoClickable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5147321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5147321
- Donald 6y agohttps://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a465828.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a465828.pdf IRC is still used, and some communities have switched to XMPP.
- na85 6y agoIRC was used quite extensively among NATO militaries (to the point that I've seen mIRC referred to as "Military Internet Relay Chat", lol) but they've begun migrating away from it towards XMPP solutions such as JCHAT[0] which IMHO has a very poor UX but unfortunately IRC stagnated and doesn't work on mobile devices very well. [0] https://npc.ncia.nato.int/Pages/Product-Delivery.aspx https://npc.ncia.nato.int/Pages/Product-Delivery.aspx
- superkuh 6y agoYou have this backwards. It's mobile phone computers that have become less capable than even 30 year old normal computers in terms of UI and networking capabilities. This is understandable since a mobile phone is so small in volume and wireless, but it's true regardless.
- na85 6y ago>You have this backwards. No, I don't. Mobile phones are immensely more capable than computers 30 years ago, but IRC doesn't handle transient connections well. When your phone goes to sleep the connection drops. Sometimes when you change cell towers the connection drops. Modern users expect a slack-/discord-like "always in the channel" experience, with push notifications, which IRC does not provide.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LinuxBender 6y agoFWIW you can make IRC stateless with a web front-end like TheLounge [1] or Convos [2]. Sessions are maintained on the server side in reddis. [1] - https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge [2] - https://github.com/convos-chat/convos https://github.com/convos-chat/convos
- na85 6y agoSure, or you can run a bnc like we used to in the old days. If the only way to use IRC in an ergonomic fashion these days is to sign up for a third party service like the lounge or a shell account, it's not really a good look for IRC.
- superkuh 6y agoOr you could just leave your IRC client open. But phones are not capable of doing that simple task. Unlike computers phone computers have to rely on third party services because of their deficiencies.
- na85 6y ago>Or you could just leave your IRC client open. Modern users expect multi-device sync. If I'm signed into discord or slack on my PC and on my phone, I get push notifications in both places, even if my PC is off. Leaving my IRC client running, even with irssi-relay or similar, is not a solution. I like IRC too, but it's become obsolete because it failed to adapt to the expectations of modern users.