
Ask HN: Best IRC channels? - dakrisht
What are the best IRC channels for developers, security, networks, programming, general tech discussion, data science, etc. Just looking for some recco&#x27;s.
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dserban
There is one particular use of IRC channels that is insanely useful, that I'd
like to share.

On various programming language channels, there are ad-hoc expression
evaluation bots that experienced people use to guide newcomers through the
intricacies of the language. If you're new to Haskell, for example, what you
can do is grab the logs for the past 3 years, grep for "> " (used to invoke
the evaluator) and you have instant insight into how an experienced
Haskeller's mind works. It can speed up your learning by a factor of 10
compared to reading papers / blogs / formal tutorials. I know because it did
this for me.

~~~
agumonkey
excerpt of #haskell quality of life
[https://gist.github.com/quchen/5280339](https://gist.github.com/quchen/5280339)

~~~
emhart
"< quchen> Haskell is invariant under gender. Really!"

Some great stuff in there :)

~~~
quchen
I think merijn got the highscore in the conversation though :-P

~~~
pdpi
I think the whole channel joining in on the "we're going to troll you back by
being super nice" is the real winner.

~~~
agumonkey
And turning half-trolls into students like an Aikido move.

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rmc
Tangentally related: #gaygeeks on FreeNodes. Tired of being the old LGBT
person amoung you geeky friends? Tired of being the only geeky person amoung
your LGBT friends?

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StevePerkins
I don't know that there are too many interesting "abstract" IRC communities,
beyond those Freenode channels specific to a given programming language or
technology.

I leave a connection to Freenode running while I'm at work, in a few channels
related to my job... so that during builds, or other short bursts of idle
time, I can glace over and see if there are any questions I can answer.
Likewise, I throw out a quick question of my own every now and then, when I'm
afraid it's too subjective in nature to avoid being closed by StackOverflow-
lawyers.

I've lost interest in general chat, outside of specific questions and answers.
From what I've seen, the nicer communities are the newer channels. Ironically,
they degrade over time as their underlying technology matures. You would think
that channels like #clojure and #go-nuts would be populated by immature
hipsters, while ##java would be made up of 40-something corporate types.
However, I've found that those first two channels are welcoming and
thoughtful, with interesting discussion always taking place... whereas ##java
(even its mods) frequently sound like pre-teens yelling profanity at each
other on XBox Live.

~~~
judk
As has been extensively documented, the mainstream kills discussion
communities. Being hard to find is a proxy for an intelligence filter. And
ones without moderation (such as IRC) suffer the worst.

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uniclaude
This is going to be borderline off-topic as it's not general for developers.

I have to mention #clojure on freenode for being an incredibly welcoming IRC
channel. The discussions you will see can be very interesting, and the
community is more than often willing to help. Living in Japan, I was worried
about the timezones being an issue, but there seems to be people from
different parts of the world on the channel, making it very nice.

~~~
john2x
Second on #clojure. Although I've noticed it got a bit 'crowded' the last
couple of months. It sucks for me since now my questions often get drowned. :P

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unpointfulness
Personally, I never found IRC to be a helpful tool for learning new things
from unfamiliar people.

To me, IRC has always been a "grapevine" tool, where etiquette, social pecking
orders and gossip are shared amongst a smallish close-knit social circle. IRC
always feels more like a social scene, and a distraction.

If anything, perhaps an IRC channel is useful for managing fluid, rapidly
changing situations, where you might need an up-to-date, live information
source, to use in immediate decision making (hence, why bot net command and
control tends to be integrated into IRC programs), but, otherwise, chat logs
from IRC usually read like a disorganized array of participant's various
scattered streams of consciousness.

Are you looking for reading material, or a hangout?

~~~
mfjordvald
On the flip side hanging out in #nginx taught me so much. I started helping
out other people. Started a blog to write about common topics which caused me
to write a book about nginx and currently planning another one. Ultimately IRC
is a tool and like most other tools it is what you make of it. Become a
contributor to channels and you will learn so much.

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yuvipanda
#wikipedia-en is a channel where english wikipedia editors and admins hang
out, and it is fun watching their discussions. #wikimedia-dev is where most of
Mediawiki development happens these days, so that is nice too. #wikimedia-
opearations is fun too once you ignore the icinga bot spam - not often do you
get to see a world class ops team operate that transparently :)

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john2x
I've found #bash to be full of very helpful people. They don't get tired at
all of being asked common bash questions. On most channels, if you ask a
common question, they tell you to RTFM. But not on #bash. They still tell you
to RTFM, but nicely, and usually _after_ they give you an actual answer.
Especially that greybot guy.

~~~
icco
+1. Bash people are great.

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frankwiles
I've recently been using SaltStack and have found #saltstack on Freenode to be
very welcoming and helpful which is nice. Often you go into a channel and it's
a ghost town or out right hostile to relatively simple questions. I think OSS
projects in general could learn a bit of "marketing" in this regard, if your
IRC channels are toxic, I immediately think your community as a whole may be
toxic.

~~~
Jedd
I'll second this -- #salt is a welcoming channel full of informed and helpful
types. Similarly #mynt. Heck, I'd suggest that almost any free software
project where at least one of the primary developers loiters would be an
answer to your question.

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girvo
I hang out on Freenode, in #nimrod, ##php, #elementary-dev and a couple of
others.

I'd love to know some good security ones to idle in; I've got a bit of
experience in it and am trying to expand it some more, and would love a place
to ask questions regarding web security and the like.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
##security (Freenode) is the channel to go.

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Tenoke
Nowadays, I mainly hang out on irc because of the #lesswrong channel on
freenode. There is plenty of intelligent discussion, HN readers and no real
topic.

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spacemanmatt
The #postgresql community on freenode has won me over many times for being
mature, and absolutely competent over their domain. Solid stuff.

~~~
drob
Agreed. One can learn a lot of practical postgres from camping out in there.

It's also where I found out about a handy tool for demystifying EXPLAIN
output: [http://explain.depesz.com/](http://explain.depesz.com/)

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jokoon
just connect to some popular network like freenode, and retrieve the channel
list, and sort by users.

#ubuntu 1701 #archlinux 1695 #bitcoin 1602 #debian 1492 ##linux 1360 #python
1349 #freenode 1304 #haskell 1200 #Node.js 1186 #dogecoin 1120 #gentoo 1091
#git 1047 #puppet 956 ##javascript 941 #vim 936 #python-unregistered #go-nuts
893 #android 889 #bash 858 #ruby 847 #jquery 750 #postgresql 747 #litecoin 711
##math 701 #bitcoin-otc 700 #emacs 700 #openstack 697 #docker 693 #clojure 679
#perl 653 #mysql 646 ##networking 642 #angularjs 621 ##security 611 #defocus
599 ##php 596 ##electronics 595 #nginx 584 #cisco 582 #digitalocean 569

~~~
mparlane
And then pick the channels with the least users.

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diminoten
##programming on freenode is terrible. Don't go there.

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Kudos
#startups on Freenode was mentioned here before, I think.

~~~
perryh2
The last time I checked, that channel has almost nothing to do with startups.

~~~
Kliment
Nope, but it's entirely full of HN readers.

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level09
Usually I join topic-specific channels, got tons of answers in #django ,
#javascript, #drupal, #flask, #python, #celery, #nodejs etc ..

Those are on freenode, there are channels for software users (e.g: photoshop)
but on a different servers.

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flexd
I have always found a bunch of nice people with a lot of knowledge in the
various programming and tech channels on Freenode, like #twisted and #pocoo

#debian on EFNet also has a great bunch of people.

~~~
DiabloD3
The official #debian is on OFTC, not EFNet.

~~~
flexd
I did not know that, but the guys on EFNet are still awesome :-)

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portmanteaufu
#rust on irc.mozilla.org. They're a super helpful bunch.

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xsquare
#programming-language-you-really-like and #distro-you-really-like on Freenode
I guess...

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d99kris
Is there a #hn or #hackernews?

~~~
dmunoz
Not that I know of. One should really be started, as the suggestion given is
usually #startups on Freenode, and I didn't last 5 minutes in that room.
Really poor experience from the start. Not that sharing #hn around is going to
result in a better room, but it would be great to have some faster
conversation around stories posted on HN, among other topics. I know I have
had my mind changed, or at least challenged, regarding some of my beliefs from
discussion here.

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brihat
Freenode #emacs, ##linux, #nimrod, #julia and #d.

Nimrod's gang (including Araq) are very friendly and welcoming.

#julia and #d are very quiet though (except for the bots).

And #emacs -- well, that one channel which is lenient towards off-topic chats!

~~~
bulte-rs
No... #emacs is not lenient... It's just that everything is applicable to
Emacs and vice-verse. ;-)

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loser777
An approach that seems to work well for me is to use IRC as a way to
communicate with groups people that mostly I know in person and share a common
interest with. That way, I'm able to avoid a social pecking order or having to
be "initiated" into a group. You may already be in one of these groups
already, though the medium isn't necessarily always IRC--think Skype (text)
chats groups with a subset of regulars.

Remember, you can always drag others along with you and start your own
channel.

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cjstewart88
You're welcome to join #nirc, it's a channel originally created for
[https://github.com/cjstewart88/nirc](https://github.com/cjstewart88/nirc) but
its since turned into a hangout for old coworkers and friends. We are all
developers. Sometimes we are helping each other and other times we are talking
about random shit... or in the event someone has a nirc question, we talk
about that!

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EnderMB
I'm a bit late to the party, but I've found ##csharp to be a fantastic
channel, Very rarely do I not get a great and thoughtful response back to any
issues I've had. They're also incredibly helpful when it comes to general .NET
questions, which tend to get asked in ##csharp because ##asp.net is usually
dead.

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hedwall
I really enjou #infra-talk on FreeNode, sysadminy stuff without ties to any
specific product or tool.

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Zolomon
I hang out on #gamedev@irc.afternet.org, very talented people help each other
out there.

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emhart
#lp101 on ...I think?...EFNet was the hotbed of locksport/mechanical security
discussion and research for quite a while. I was amazed by some of the results
of IRC-based collaboration in that community.

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Hoozt
#linux, #ruby, #rubyonrails, #bitcoin, #javascript, #nginx, #ubuntu,
#rubymotion ... to name a few I visit. They are all on the Freenode network.

~~~
gmcwhirter
More or less the same for me...

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X41
#installgentoo on irc.installgentoo.com

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jayflux
#web on freenode for web development

~~~
Killswitch
What up Jayflux, #web is good place full of helpful people regarding all
around web development topics.

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chris11
#postgresql and #qgis on freenode can both be really helpful when you are
running into problems.

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fmanippo
For various tech subjects, servers, bsd, etc. #baot on irc.rizon.net is my go-
to.

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progamler
Networks, #networker in ircnet and #ix in /irc.terahertz.net

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TamDenholm
One that i run is www.chatwebdev.com webby types mainly UK based.

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maqr
I'd recommend #iphonedev on Freenode for anything iOS.

~~~
allsystemsgo
I haven't had great experiences there personally. The conversations aren't the
most enlightening and there's a lot of ripping on new developers asking
obvious questions. I'm a decent developer at this point, but early on, asking
questions in there wasn't pleasant. I'm a big proponent of encouraging new
developers of asking lots of questions and those that discourage it are really
not helping the community.

That said, it's not all bad. I still hop in every now and then.

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jonsterling
Lots of good discussion on ##hott and #agda...

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airnomad
#irssi on freenode, really helpful people

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chadfowler
#shitfire!!! (on freenode). ;)

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MileyCyrax
#wizardchan on irc.rizon.net

~~~
lcasela
A+ website

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lcasela
#lounge @ entropynet

~~~
chosafine
irc.entropynet.net is the server, as for some unknown reason they didn't think
entropy.net was a good idea.

~~~
DefunctKernel
It was already registered?

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soapdog
irc.mozilla.org has a lot of cool channels

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emily_b
#web

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incidence
#defocus / ##defocus

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dogepro
#marketmakers

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hernan604
HACKED!

