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Not even for companies, IRC IMO would be much better, the only issue is, as always, you need someone responsible for the infrastructure: not only servers, but s

Not even for companies, IRC IMO would be much better, the only issue is, as always, you need someone responsible for the infrastructure: not only servers, but scripting for Jira/Dropbox/NameYourCurrentTrendyPlatform integration. -No single point of failure. -No dependency on a different company for a vital points of your business. -No private info stored on a 3rd party system, in a different state and potentially a different country (legal nightmare to ask for damages). -Distributed system. Local servers give lower lag for multisite companies, internet access outage means netsplit, not inability to communicate. -Already existing indexing and searching features if desired. -Many bots to automate/notify/interact with insane amounts of stuff. -Thousands of IRC clients, with enormous customizing features, for every conceivable platform, that do as much and even more than all these "this is how communication should be" solutions. -Bridging IRC to XMPP/Sametime/etc plugins/apps to interoperate with other companies. I can sort of understand Slack for a small company, but if you have your own server infrastructure, no, I can't.

swombat 12y ago
Setting up the system you describe above to work as well as say, Hipchat, with notifications by email and push notifications to iOS and Android clients, @mentions, reliability, etc, is certainly doable. If you have someone who's basically a competent geek, they can probably do that in a few days to get it all working perfectly. Once set up this sort of stuff tends to be fairly robust, so it probably won't take more than 1 days a month to maintain, deal with inevitable issues, etc. If you have absolutely nothing better to do with your time, it's a great idea to do this yourself. For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up IRC servers, there's HipChat and Slack.
- davidw 12y ago
  > For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up IRC servers, there's HipChat and Slack For something purely internal for a company, that makes sense to me. It's the public, 'general interest' kinds of things where I'd avoid building on something proprietary if possible. Seems like a good place to mention, on Freenode: * #startups - pretty informal and sometimes a lot of noise with little signal, but occasionally something good, too. * #bootstrappers - a channel I'm trying to get going. Not much there yet!
- Uberphallus 12y ago
  That phrase is heavily dangerous. > For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up IRC servers, there's HipChat and Slack. For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up <insert company IT infrastructure> there's this <insert proprietary platform>. I've heard that before from people who don't blink to have their own Gitlab/Bugzilla/Jenkins/Whatever. It's overly short sighted to dedicate resources for development support IT infrastructure, but consider resources for development communication a waste of time.
  - detaro 12y ago
    I agree on the dangers, but I don't think they are easily comparable. GitLab/Jenkins/... are a match for the hosted alternatives, whereas I couldn't name a system that matches Hipchat or Slack without spending a lot more time on setup and customization.
    - Uberphallus 12y ago
      At least you can deploy a HipChat server in your own boxes, Slack is a no-go for many environments, yet still used because of a good client interface combined with a cult-like following. I've found Openfire + Spark IM to be a reasonable alternative sitting between the customizable and the convenient, and it's open source.
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    They're not considering resources for communication a waste of time. They just feel there's a better use for them, considering there is Slack and HipChat which do everything they want and are very simple to set up.
    - kedean 12y ago
      This is also a different case than jenkins/gitlab/etc, because communication of this sort doesn't need to be permanent. Unless some dev wants to use a different client, there's not really any limitations from using a proprietary platform. It's not like a few years down the road you'll want the 2014 chat logs, and even so it's not like IRC would give that to you.
- EGreg 12y ago
  So why not just start a company that sets it up once and maintains it for tons of companies? Like github. Less lock-in with IRC, since it's all can be standard protocols and open source. The company can then move it in-house later. For that matter I always wondered why someone can't do the same with git and watching files, instead of proprietary clients like dropbox.
  - Uberphallus 12y ago
    > For that matter I always wondered why someone can't do the same with git and watching files, instead of proprietary clients like dropbox. You might want to have a look at git-annex (assistant or otherwise, I use both) http://git-annex.branchable.com/ http://git-annex.branchable.com/
pain 12y ago
You describe the foundations of https://www.matrix.org https://www.matrix.org
- Uberphallus 12y ago
  Yes, as much as I love IRC, it's aging, and a new, up to date standard for decentralized/federated messaging with new technologies is very welcome to arrive, especially after the XMPP protocol/federation deprecation by the once biggest providers, Google and Facebook.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
simplyluke 12y ago
Also slack/hipchat are much friendlier to non-technical users than IRC is, which is something I think gets lost in many discussions about the two.
techpeace 12y ago
I don't feel like even attempting to try to hack together what Flowdock gives me on top of IRC. That would involve far too much of my time, and I'd rather have a team of very smart engineers dedicated to keeping it secure, running, and feature-rich, rather than relying on my time to do any of those things. I use an IDE, rather than trying to cobble an IDE together in Vim, for the same reason. > I can sort of understand Slack for a small company, but if you have your own server infrastructure, no, I can't. This seems to be based on the assumption that IRC is anywhere near as feature-rich as a web-based chat client, but it isn't. If you could point me to an OS X IRC client that isn't absolutely terrible (and please do, I'd really love one), I'd be happy to give it a shot, but even with all of the above perceived advantages of IRC, Flowdock still wins for me. Every team I've worked on that's switched to it has had a marked uptick in productivity.
andreyf 12y ago
Can IRC notify my phone when I have a new message without having a persistent connection to the server while the phone is locked?
s73v3r 12y ago
Slack is a turnkey solution. And 90% of people don't care about the custom clients (I still haven't found a good IRC client for Windows that doesn't look like it belongs on Windows 95).
ChiperSoft 12y ago
I think IRC suffers from a public image issue due to poor UX. I had someone tell me the other day that the reason they think Slack is better than IRC is because the chat is prettier, as if that isn't completely user replaceable. It also has a higher barrier of entry, since you have to find and likely install a client, find a server to connect that client to, and know what channels to join in order to find conversation (assuming your IT policy isn't blocking IRC ports, and the irc server doesn't require ident auth). Most IRC client UIs are still inspired by irssi, high in utility and information density, but low in glamor. Monospaced fonts are typically the default. Slack doesn't require any of these things, you click a button on a website, enter your name, and are put right into general chat. The UI is carefully designed and aesthetically pleasing. Since entire groups are topic specific, you don't have to go looking for the specific room you want. Slack removes the burden of choice. There's not enough being done to resolve this problem for IRC. IrcCloud has tried to solve the client problem, putting it all in a browser, eliminating the networking aspect, and making the UI as pleasing as they can, but there's nothing to be done for the discovery issue that doesn't also hamstring IRC power users.

swombat 12y ago

Setting up the system you describe above to work as well as say, Hipchat, with notifications by email and push notifications to iOS and Android clients, @mentions, reliability, etc, is certainly doable. If you have someone who's basically a competent geek, they can probably do that in a few days to get it all working perfectly. Once set up this sort of stuff tends to be fairly robust, so it probably won't take more than 1 days a month to maintain, deal with inevitable issues, etc. If you have absolutely nothing better to do with your time, it's a great idea to do this yourself. For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up IRC servers, there's HipChat and Slack.

davidw 12y ago
> For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up IRC servers, there's HipChat and Slack For something purely internal for a company, that makes sense to me. It's the public, 'general interest' kinds of things where I'd avoid building on something proprietary if possible. Seems like a good place to mention, on Freenode: * #startups - pretty informal and sometimes a lot of noise with little signal, but occasionally something good, too. * #bootstrappers - a channel I'm trying to get going. Not much there yet!
Uberphallus 12y ago
That phrase is heavily dangerous. > For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up IRC servers, there's HipChat and Slack. For the rest of us who are actually trying to grow businesses rather than set up <insert company IT infrastructure> there's this <insert proprietary platform>. I've heard that before from people who don't blink to have their own Gitlab/Bugzilla/Jenkins/Whatever. It's overly short sighted to dedicate resources for development support IT infrastructure, but consider resources for development communication a waste of time.
- detaro 12y ago
  I agree on the dangers, but I don't think they are easily comparable. GitLab/Jenkins/... are a match for the hosted alternatives, whereas I couldn't name a system that matches Hipchat or Slack without spending a lot more time on setup and customization.
  - Uberphallus 12y ago
    At least you can deploy a HipChat server in your own boxes, Slack is a no-go for many environments, yet still used because of a good client interface combined with a cult-like following. I've found Openfire + Spark IM to be a reasonable alternative sitting between the customizable and the convenient, and it's open source.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  They're not considering resources for communication a waste of time. They just feel there's a better use for them, considering there is Slack and HipChat which do everything they want and are very simple to set up.
  - kedean 12y ago
    This is also a different case than jenkins/gitlab/etc, because communication of this sort doesn't need to be permanent. Unless some dev wants to use a different client, there's not really any limitations from using a proprietary platform. It's not like a few years down the road you'll want the 2014 chat logs, and even so it's not like IRC would give that to you.
EGreg 12y ago
So why not just start a company that sets it up once and maintains it for tons of companies? Like github. Less lock-in with IRC, since it's all can be standard protocols and open source. The company can then move it in-house later. For that matter I always wondered why someone can't do the same with git and watching files, instead of proprietary clients like dropbox.
- Uberphallus 12y ago
  > For that matter I always wondered why someone can't do the same with git and watching files, instead of proprietary clients like dropbox. You might want to have a look at git-annex (assistant or otherwise, I use both) http://git-annex.branchable.com/ http://git-annex.branchable.com/

pain 12y ago

You describe the foundations of https://www.matrix.org https://www.matrix.org

Uberphallus 12y ago
Yes, as much as I love IRC, it's aging, and a new, up to date standard for decentralized/federated messaging with new technologies is very welcome to arrive, especially after the XMPP protocol/federation deprecation by the once biggest providers, Google and Facebook.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

simplyluke 12y ago

Also slack/hipchat are much friendlier to non-technical users than IRC is, which is something I think gets lost in many discussions about the two.

techpeace 12y ago

I don't feel like even attempting to try to hack together what Flowdock gives me on top of IRC. That would involve far too much of my time, and I'd rather have a team of very smart engineers dedicated to keeping it secure, running, and feature-rich, rather than relying on my time to do any of those things. I use an IDE, rather than trying to cobble an IDE together in Vim, for the same reason. > I can sort of understand Slack for a small company, but if you have your own server infrastructure, no, I can't. This seems to be based on the assumption that IRC is anywhere near as feature-rich as a web-based chat client, but it isn't. If you could point me to an OS X IRC client that isn't absolutely terrible (and please do, I'd really love one), I'd be happy to give it a shot, but even with all of the above perceived advantages of IRC, Flowdock still wins for me. Every team I've worked on that's switched to it has had a marked uptick in productivity.

andreyf 12y ago

Can IRC notify my phone when I have a new message without having a persistent connection to the server while the phone is locked?

s73v3r 12y ago

Slack is a turnkey solution. And 90% of people don't care about the custom clients (I still haven't found a good IRC client for Windows that doesn't look like it belongs on Windows 95).

ChiperSoft 12y ago

I think IRC suffers from a public image issue due to poor UX. I had someone tell me the other day that the reason they think Slack is better than IRC is because the chat is prettier, as if that isn't completely user replaceable. It also has a higher barrier of entry, since you have to find and likely install a client, find a server to connect that client to, and know what channels to join in order to find conversation (assuming your IT policy isn't blocking IRC ports, and the irc server doesn't require ident auth). Most IRC client UIs are still inspired by irssi, high in utility and information density, but low in glamor. Monospaced fonts are typically the default. Slack doesn't require any of these things, you click a button on a website, enter your name, and are put right into general chat. The UI is carefully designed and aesthetically pleasing. Since entire groups are topic specific, you don't have to go looking for the specific room you want. Slack removes the burden of choice. There's not enough being done to resolve this problem for IRC. IrcCloud has tried to solve the client problem, putting it all in a browser, eliminating the networking aspect, and making the UI as pleasing as they can, but there's nothing to be done for the discovery issue that doesn't also hamstring IRC power users.