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I wrote a Zork bot[0] for IRC a few days ago, and really started wondering why the tech community more or less gave up on IRC, especially businesses. Instead of

I wrote a Zork bot[0] for IRC a few days ago, and really started wondering why the tech community more or less gave up on IRC, especially businesses. Instead of a free, open source, reliable, distributed multiuser chat we now have the walled gardens of Facebook, Hipchat and similar services. It's sad that we can now, essentially, not do much more on the net than we did 20 years ago, but now it has ads and spies on you. [0]: https://github.com/rogerbraun/frotzbot https://github.com/rogerbraun/frotzbot

eddieroger 12y ago
The audience for the Internet changed. IRC was great when everyone on the 'net was tech savvy, but look at what happened when people were able to pick between AOL and direct dial-up connections. Facebook is so simple my grandmother could figure it out, but even with decent clients like Colloquy, I wouldn't expect her to find her way around IRC. As for the Enterprise, HipChat and the like, especially when served via SaaS, offers more than just a chat server - server management, auditing, easy user setup, integrations to other tools. For what it's worth, I agree that it's a shame that we are barely better off than we were 20 years ago, but I'm willing to accept that if it means widening the audience of the Internet for everyone. You shouldn't need a CS degree to surf the world's information.
- rogerbraun 12y ago
  Yeah, I can, of course, see how the modern alternatives are easier to use. I'm just sad that, instead of making simple IRC clients, nicer frontends for newsgroups, easier mailing lists, we now have ad-hoc solutions that are mainly meant to keep you locked into their system.
- pmoriarty 12y ago
  Needing a CS degree to use an IRC client is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
  - eddieroger 12y ago
    Today, it's probably somewhat of a stretch. Twenty years ago, no, I don't think so.
    - caf 12y ago
      I can assure you that 20 years ago there were plenty of teenagers who hadn't even finished high school that were on IRC, not to mention large numbers of students in non-CS degrees.
- zanny 12y ago
  More like peoples computers just don't come with IRC. A lot of modern IRC clients (I use konversation) are basically: Open program. Automatically connect to freenode / quakenet / other major networks, sometimes even intelligently enough to try to reserve the username or users contact info nickname. Hit a join channel button, or just get prompted the first time to name a channel. Ommit #, it works fine. It also gives you a picker of servers, defaulting to freenode in konversations case. Join a channel and chat. But there is no means to notify users this exists, or how it works, or how to get on it. There is no money to be made in getting everyone on IRC.
phoboslab 12y ago
Persistence and syncing for non-nerds. A few years ago, I tried to convince my colleagues (they're more designers than programmers) to use IRC for informal communication. Using IRC was (and still is) a no-brainer for me. My desktop PC runs all day, so I'm in IRC all day. But for them, joining IRC meant opening their laptops, starting their client and then pinging out 15 minutes later when their laptop went to standby. When they were in IRC, they had this urge to really be there in IRC. I.e. monitoring it, reading everything, responding in seconds, excusing themselves when they had to go to the bathroom, and finally, finding excuses to close their IRC client again. I have a totally different mode of operation with IRC, where it's OK to have the client open and not respond for hours or at all if you don't fell like it. I guess it's something you have to learn. Installing BNCs solved some of the issues, but not all. Also, installing a BNC is not something your average designer-type nerd today wants to deal with. So we ended up with KickOff for a while, but it never really worked reliably. We're now on Slack and quite happy, but I still want to try some of the various IRC "cloud" services; mainly those for self hosting.
- rakoo 12y ago
  > Persistence and syncing for non-nerds. Also, lack of addressability. IRC is primarily targeted towards channels while all the needs of current IM systems are targeted towards one-to-one messaging. Possible with IRC, but you have to jump through hoops.
  - k__ 12y ago
    Well, the group-chats of whatsapp seem to be quite hip with the youth.
- donniezazen 12y ago
  Well said. I have been trying out ZNC for a few days. It wasn't really a fun to setup ZNC. There are things that I just don't understand. ZNC comes with a bunch of modules that you could use to extend its functionality. It is really hard for me to understand those when I am new to both Bouncers and IRC. Then there are no standards. ZNC uses a username but IRC doesn't really have a concept of username. It is usually Channel, Nick, and password. IRC also has concepts like Ident which are hard for general users to understand. I have setup ZNC but the setup is not complete yet. I am not well aware of history of XMPP and IRC. I wonder if lack of interest in the organizations that control these protocols have lead to numerous versions of them that there are today. Slack has an IRC gateway and Facebook uses XMPP. Both of these protocols are widely used but have becomes too different from the core concept.
doomlaser 12y ago
A lot of companies still use irc for intrabusiness communication, though Slack is becoming increasingly popular. I've worked for several startups that conducted business in an official private irc channel. It's especially useful for communicating with remote workers. Interestingly, Twitch uses irc in its backend to power all of the realtime chat that accompanies its streams.
powdahound 12y ago
I guess it depends how you define "walled garden", but HipChat is built on top of XMPP: http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/64377-xmpp-jabber-support-details http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/64377-xmpp-ja.... Facebook chat used to be as well, though I'm not sure if it is these days.
- qznc 12y ago
  If it where no walled garden, then I could reach the chat rooms at conf.hipchat.com from e.g. my gmail account. As the linked page says "Our server is not federated and will not let you send or receive messages with users on other networks."

eddieroger 12y ago

The audience for the Internet changed. IRC was great when everyone on the 'net was tech savvy, but look at what happened when people were able to pick between AOL and direct dial-up connections. Facebook is so simple my grandmother could figure it out, but even with decent clients like Colloquy, I wouldn't expect her to find her way around IRC. As for the Enterprise, HipChat and the like, especially when served via SaaS, offers more than just a chat server - server management, auditing, easy user setup, integrations to other tools. For what it's worth, I agree that it's a shame that we are barely better off than we were 20 years ago, but I'm willing to accept that if it means widening the audience of the Internet for everyone. You shouldn't need a CS degree to surf the world's information.

rogerbraun 12y ago
Yeah, I can, of course, see how the modern alternatives are easier to use. I'm just sad that, instead of making simple IRC clients, nicer frontends for newsgroups, easier mailing lists, we now have ad-hoc solutions that are mainly meant to keep you locked into their system.
pmoriarty 12y ago
Needing a CS degree to use an IRC client is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
- eddieroger 12y ago
  Today, it's probably somewhat of a stretch. Twenty years ago, no, I don't think so.
  - caf 12y ago
    I can assure you that 20 years ago there were plenty of teenagers who hadn't even finished high school that were on IRC, not to mention large numbers of students in non-CS degrees.
zanny 12y ago
More like peoples computers just don't come with IRC. A lot of modern IRC clients (I use konversation) are basically: Open program. Automatically connect to freenode / quakenet / other major networks, sometimes even intelligently enough to try to reserve the username or users contact info nickname. Hit a join channel button, or just get prompted the first time to name a channel. Ommit #, it works fine. It also gives you a picker of servers, defaulting to freenode in konversations case. Join a channel and chat. But there is no means to notify users this exists, or how it works, or how to get on it. There is no money to be made in getting everyone on IRC.

phoboslab 12y ago

Persistence and syncing for non-nerds. A few years ago, I tried to convince my colleagues (they're more designers than programmers) to use IRC for informal communication. Using IRC was (and still is) a no-brainer for me. My desktop PC runs all day, so I'm in IRC all day. But for them, joining IRC meant opening their laptops, starting their client and then pinging out 15 minutes later when their laptop went to standby. When they were in IRC, they had this urge to really be there in IRC. I.e. monitoring it, reading everything, responding in seconds, excusing themselves when they had to go to the bathroom, and finally, finding excuses to close their IRC client again. I have a totally different mode of operation with IRC, where it's OK to have the client open and not respond for hours or at all if you don't fell like it. I guess it's something you have to learn. Installing BNCs solved some of the issues, but not all. Also, installing a BNC is not something your average designer-type nerd today wants to deal with. So we ended up with KickOff for a while, but it never really worked reliably. We're now on Slack and quite happy, but I still want to try some of the various IRC "cloud" services; mainly those for self hosting.

rakoo 12y ago
> Persistence and syncing for non-nerds. Also, lack of addressability. IRC is primarily targeted towards channels while all the needs of current IM systems are targeted towards one-to-one messaging. Possible with IRC, but you have to jump through hoops.
- k__ 12y ago
  Well, the group-chats of whatsapp seem to be quite hip with the youth.
donniezazen 12y ago
Well said. I have been trying out ZNC for a few days. It wasn't really a fun to setup ZNC. There are things that I just don't understand. ZNC comes with a bunch of modules that you could use to extend its functionality. It is really hard for me to understand those when I am new to both Bouncers and IRC. Then there are no standards. ZNC uses a username but IRC doesn't really have a concept of username. It is usually Channel, Nick, and password. IRC also has concepts like Ident which are hard for general users to understand. I have setup ZNC but the setup is not complete yet. I am not well aware of history of XMPP and IRC. I wonder if lack of interest in the organizations that control these protocols have lead to numerous versions of them that there are today. Slack has an IRC gateway and Facebook uses XMPP. Both of these protocols are widely used but have becomes too different from the core concept.

doomlaser 12y ago

A lot of companies still use irc for intrabusiness communication, though Slack is becoming increasingly popular. I've worked for several startups that conducted business in an official private irc channel. It's especially useful for communicating with remote workers. Interestingly, Twitch uses irc in its backend to power all of the realtime chat that accompanies its streams.

powdahound 12y ago

I guess it depends how you define "walled garden", but HipChat is built on top of XMPP: http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/64377-xmpp-jabber-support-details http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/64377-xmpp-ja.... Facebook chat used to be as well, though I'm not sure if it is these days.

qznc 12y ago
If it where no walled garden, then I could reach the chat rooms at conf.hipchat.com from e.g. my gmail account. As the linked page says "Our server is not federated and will not let you send or receive messages with users on other networks."