Thread: No more IRC
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Unread 26 Jul 2017, 21:32   #24
Mzyxptlk
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Re: No more IRC

I'm an IRC user like you, Pit. I'm a programmer like you. Consider the possibility that the particular abnormalities that make us like and enjoy IRC may not be shared by everyone. The key word in Munkee's post is 'approachable'.

I still remember that when I first tried to connect to an IRC server, it didn't work for a while, and then suddenly it did. Maybe that's on me, but I had been familiar with computers for well over a decade by that point and I never figured out what I did wrong, or even what I changed to do it right.

Coincidentally, the other day I spent some time guiding someone through their very first IRC setup, and few things expose the... I don't want to say 'problems', but imperfections, surely, of our medium than getting someone brand new to it settled in. IRC is an invention from long enough ago that modern humans no longer know what key words to look for, even if they are tech-savvy enough to click through the options to look for likely candidates. Getting to where you want to go is non-obvious (servers, networks, channels). Doing anything other than just typing lines of text is non-obvious (textual commands!?). When the technology fails in some way, making sure you get back to where you were is non-obvious (perform). And what the hell is an 'identd' anyway'?

Technically speaking, you're not wrong when you say the things Munkee mentions are mostly possible with IRC. Just, you know, way out of reach of your average user: set up a bouncer on your server, write a detailed perform for the various networks you're connected to, write a quick script for file uploads right there from the client, and no one ever calls anyone. Easy peasy.

This post is not a rant against IRC and it certainly isn't a love letter to shiny, but limited, closed and proprietary facsimiles of the last couple of years. But IRC is not perfect, and anyone who's done any amount of tech support for less-savvy friends should be able to identify its major flaws.
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Last edited by Mzyxptlk; 26 Jul 2017 at 23:14. Reason: Typo
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