4 ms·

> The biggest complaint I have with IRC is its assumption of synchronous communication. But that's like complaining that the assumption of water is that it is

by drbig 2y ago

> The biggest complaint I have with IRC is its assumption of synchronous communication. But that's like complaining that the assumption of water is that it is wet. _Chat_ by definition is right here right now. It is not mail, pager, bulletin board, forum, or... water. And indeed we have "persistent proxies" but we call them bouncers[1] and they have plugins and stuff all figured out in the _thirty plus years_ IRC has been around. IRC does one thing and does it well enough to be older than all the social media, and to outlive it too. Making your own bot[2] is easy, and "persistence" can also be done by having... wait for it... public logs[3]! And yeah I use Discord too, it's fine while it lasts. On IRC networks since... 1997, and still here and most useful. 1: https://wiki.znc.in/ZNC https://wiki.znc.in/ZNC 2: https://github.com/drbig/catabot https://github.com/drbig/catabot 3: https://github.com/drbig/chatlogger https://github.com/drbig/chatlogger

unsignedint 2y ago
That's why I said, "Ultimately, it depends on your use case, but IRC's assumptions don't work for me or my peers." If it works for you, great. It doesn't for me. (Believe me, I used to use it a lot back then.) For one thing, I chat with people not just to chat, but to communicate effectively. IRC simply doesn't provide the functionality that aligns with my use cases. It doesn't meet the expectations I have for such systems right out of the box. Creating and maintaining bots or workarounds just to communicate effectively isn't high on my list of priorities, given everything else I have to do.
- drbig 2y ago
  Fair enough. So less about chat but more about async-first exchange. Sounds like e-mail?
  - unsignedint 2y ago
    Right, and another factor is that I often have to communicate with people in different time zones, sometimes with a 16-17 hour difference. It's nice to have that seamless transition between synchronous and asynchronous communication.

by drbig 2y ago

unsignedint 2y ago

That's why I said, "Ultimately, it depends on your use case, but IRC's assumptions don't work for me or my peers." If it works for you, great. It doesn't for me. (Believe me, I used to use it a lot back then.) For one thing, I chat with people not just to chat, but to communicate effectively. IRC simply doesn't provide the functionality that aligns with my use cases. It doesn't meet the expectations I have for such systems right out of the box. Creating and maintaining bots or workarounds just to communicate effectively isn't high on my list of priorities, given everything else I have to do.

drbig 2y ago
Fair enough. So less about chat but more about async-first exchange. Sounds like e-mail?
- unsignedint 2y ago
  Right, and another factor is that I often have to communicate with people in different time zones, sometimes with a 16-17 hour difference. It's nice to have that seamless transition between synchronous and asynchronous communication.