
Ask HN: Does anyone still use IRC? - Infomus
If so could you recommend any good Server/Channels.
======
jbooth
Whatever OSS projects you use have channels on freenode. Keep those open all
day and lurk, you'll be amazed how much you learn from osmosis. If someone
comes by with an easy question, answer it and you'll have social karma to get
help from others when you need it.

~~~
jasonkester
You mean you actually keep a chat window open all day long? Isn't that
ridiculously distracting?

I check my email twice a day, and HN the same. Anything else that could
potentially distract me from what I'm doing gets turned off. I couldn't
imagine giving random strangers the ability to intrude into my train of
thought whenever they wanted.

~~~
notmyname
I use an IRC bouncer to stay logged in to the IRC servers. I connect to the
bouncer, which replays anything I missed on the IRC server while I'm not
logged in to the bouncer.

~~~
rufugee
Can you share the name of the bouncer? Sounds like nice functionality...

~~~
notmyname
I use znc running on a slice. (<http://en.znc.in/wiki/ZNC>)

I've also heard of Bip (<http://bip.t1r.net/>), but I've never used it.

~~~
slowpoison
What exactly is "running on a slice"?

~~~
wrs
Slice = virtual server at <http://www.slicehost.com/>

------
JangoSteve
There's about 190* of us HN'ers in the #startups channel right now.
<http://ircstartups.pbworks.com/>

*Maybe we're not all HN'ers, but darn close.

~~~
BJakopovic
how many are active? IRC is usually full of many decent sized rooms with
limited chat and mostly inactive users

~~~
mechanical_fish
This is a _feature_. Most of the people on an IRC channel are lurkers. And the
channels are very quiet so that people can hear you when you do speak. Believe
me, I wish they were _quieter_ , because even as they are they tend to be too
distracting for me to lurk there while working.

It does seem creepy. Our company's salespeople laugh at the programmers
because we really love to gather in one physical room, then sit silently next
to each other typing on laptops and communicating largely via Jabber chat and
IRC, _even though we are two feet away from each other_. If you've never tried
to concentrate on programming this seems like alien behavior, but it actually
makes a lot of sense, for the same reason that it makes sense for all the
Drupal devs to sit in one IRC channel but almost never speak.

If you crave more chat, join more channels in parallel.

~~~
city41
The ability to send code snippets and URLs alone makes chatting this way worth
it.

~~~
m_myers
And the ability to store and refer to it later.

------
mindcrime
Yep. Freenode IRC. I lurk on about 25 channels, ranging from the local Linux
User's Group channel, to the #startups channel (which draws a lot of HN'ers)
to the channels for several programming languages I use, etc.

IRC is definitely alive and well, especially on Freenode.

------
notmyname
IRC is an indispensable part of my work. The team I'm on uses a private server
for team discussions (works great when someone is working remotely), and we
also are in a few public channels on freenode. On freenode, I'm in #openstack
to talk about cloud object storage infrastructure, #eventlet to learn more
about it, and #cloudfiles for Rackspace product-specific questions. #openstack
has been pretty active in the last couple of weeks (since we released the
code) and has been pretty good for helping people who are learning about the
systems. Internally, I can't imagine not using IRC. If I choose to work
remotely, or if I'm working odd hours, it becomes a very important tool to
keep up with what the other devs are doing.

To stay in the channel when I'm not online, I use an IRC bouncer (znc running
on a slice, for me). When I log back in on my computer, I have the
conversation I "missed" played back for me. I know other people that use irssi
in a screen session to accomplish something similar.

~~~
cont4gious
we do the same thing. We have a few remote developers, so we set up our own
private server.

I use XChat on Ubuntu, and it is perfect for my limited usage.

------
wanderr
We use Freenode, #grooveshark is an open channel for random techie users who
want to talk directly to developers (or each other), and people working on 3rd
party extensions/add ons to Grooveshark.

We have other internal invite-only channels for coordinating with external
developers on internal projects. We also have github spamming a channel now
whenever changes to a repo that a lot of people are coordinating on get
pushed.

The #redis channel saved our asses at least once when Pieter Noordhuis wrote a
script to help us with a particular issue we were having. :) And the #facebook
channel has been a useful resource as well.

I was wondering if anyone here uses IRCcat:
<http://www.metabrew.com/article/how-we-use-irc-at-lastfm> I know flickr also
uses it and it seems like it would be insanely useful to have notifications
about all kinds of things going into various channels. I know flickr also uses
it: <http://velocityconference.blip.tv/file/2284377/>

Haven't spent much time working on it but so far the bot gets kicked for
flooding immediately. May only be a problem because we're using freenode for
testing. Long term want to run our own IRC server, but for testing it was
easier to just use freenode...

------
zokier
imho great deal of IRC's greatness comes from irssi, an awesome client for it.
It has a learning curve though, especially if you are not familiar with screen
(or tmux). While you can run it locally, it really shines when you run it in a
server inside a screen session, connected via ssh.

Each phone I have had in the past 5 years has had a ssh client available, so I
could just attach to my session and have the exactly same client available
wherever I go.

I use irc mainly to keep in touch with old friends. I'm also running a small
non-profit, and we use irc extensively in internal communications. And
occasionally I go to a projects channel on freenode if I happen to have a
question or something, the people tend to be quite useful (as long as you ask
smart questions and be polite). Lurked some time at ##c++, from which I feel
that I learned a lot from.

~~~
sandGorgon
which IRC server do you guys use ?

I have long wanted to set up an private IRC server for our workplace, but got
lost in the zillions of complicated IRC server setups.

Do you use it over VPN .... or have you set it up to use some kind of
authentication ? It would be great if you could help.

~~~
sophacles
Jabber servers works really well for workplaces... they have chat rooms and
private communications.

~~~
p858snake
So does I.R.C.

------
phicou
We (developers and sysadmins) use it at the big corporation where I work.
Keeping irssi open in screen (GNU screen) means I can connect remotely from
anywhere with a single session, and it doesn't appear when I'm focused on
something else in a different screen session. Each project gets its own
channel. It's way better for collaboration than having to match schedules for
each little question.

It's also very helpful for asking specific questions about OSS projects, as
mentioned. The people actually developing projects hang out in IRC, not at
StackOverflow.

------
spudlyo
I hang out on a private IRC server with about 15 folks, mostly old friends of
mine working in various parts of the industry. It's primarily a place to talk
about geeky topics and complain about work.

~~~
joezydeco
Same here. We've had a private channel running for over a decade now and as
people move to new jobs and shuffle around, the channel is always home.

We've even built a bot to capture URLs and tweet them to a private handle so
people can check out sites after work or while away from the channel.

To the person asking if IRC is distracting, it's a LOT less distracting than
the hipster that sits next to me and is constantly checking his smartphone
every time an SMS comes in. Pavlov would roll over in his grave.

------
phaylon
I telecommute, and most of my day-to-day conversations go over IRC. My IRC
client has ~50 open windows at the moment, but less than half of them are
actual Open Source channels, many of them are direct queries with the user.
And thanks to screen, I never log off and don't miss discussions, someone
trying to get in touch, commit and release messages to -dev channels, and so
on.

If it suits one's style, it's an easy and nice way to stay linked to one or
more communities.

------
plq
irc is still the only way to meet "the guy on the street" online. that's
mainly why it still survives, despite its quirks.

i don't know what you mean by "good" server/channels, but let me say this:

back when irc was _the_ chatting medium, all the low-iq trolls that today are
on the web were on irc. so the channels were ruled by a very strict
dictatorship. you needed to be very lucky (or meet with real-world friends) to
have a decent chat.

now that the trolls and other offenders largely moved out to the http space, i
think irc has gotten its "underground" status back. this means you'll most
probably find whatever you're after inside large networks. for example, if you
want to know a quick fact about norway, go to #norway in undernet and shoot.
somebody will reply. you need a python tip, #python in freenode is where some
python gurus hang out.

i personally admire freenode for having managed to establish the "showing op
status is not polite" netiquette. you can see channels with hundreds of users
where not one op has shown up for ages. that was not easy to imagine not so
long ago :)

------
mhd
People with tiling window managers seem to IRC a lot.

~~~
ehsanul
A recommendation on a good console-based IRC client that doesn't use the alt-
key for any shortcuts (interferes with my XMonad setup)?

~~~
sophacles
Just curious, why not have the windows key be your primary meta for XMonad? In
general I try and use that key for my WM shortcuts since most apps don't use
it.

~~~
ehsanul
Because it's slightly less convenient for my thumb to reach, and just feels
unnatural: it causes an ever-so-slight strain as I try to keep my fingers on
the keyboard's home row. Yes, I can be pretty finicky sometimes. I know I'd
probably get used to it if I tried, but it's rare for me to need alt for
applications.

------
abstractbill
Answering the question directly, enough people still use IRC that axod has
built a sustainable business from a web-based IRC client (mibbit.com).

~~~
brianpan
That seems like a pretty indirect answer to me. ;)

------
moxiemk1
At the company where I work (a web startup with 100 and some odd employees,
half of which are the engineers) EVERYONE uses IRC. The engineers, yes, all
the teams have their own channels, general channels, etc.

But so do the support staff, the business folks, marketing, etc. Its amazing.

~~~
jroes
Where do you work? That's awesome.

I've always thought IRC would be a great platform for internal communication.

How many times do we open up our typically single person-to-person IM clients
to figure out where to eat lunch?

How distracting is your IM client compared to IRC?

I suspect some of the younger companies with money to burn use Campfire to
fill these kinds of needs.

------
thingie
Of course. Mostly for private communication with friends and with BitlBee
gateway. But it seems that many OSS project have freenode channels, that are
very active, and not only that. There's very active #haskell channel on
freenode, #xmonad, there are various fedora channels, there's an unofficial
channel for students of the faculty where I study now, even channels like
#lgbtreddit.

I don't see any decline of IRC use in any foreseeable future.

------
wohali
Presently I'm in 12 channels on 7 servers. IRC fills a need for "semi-
synchronous" communication in group form for me. part crowdsourcing, part
water cooler gossip, it's entertaining and educational. It's real-time enough
to satisfy the feeling that, as a teleworker, someone else is there, but not
so real-time that I must devote my full attention (like a phone or video
chat).

The big benefit to IRC for me is its ease of setup (apt-get install ircd-
hybrid), end-to-end ownership of the communication protocol and infrastructure
(ability to ensure privacy and anonymity, if necessary or expected), ease of
extension and long-term stability. Or, put another way, "my server, my client,
our channel, my friends, our bots." good times.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the (former?) long-time ircd-hybrid developers. I
started a PhD thesis on education through IRC studying its social dynamics,
but am considering dropping the effort.

------
masomenos
I dip my toes into IRC now and again, but keep getting frustrated by the
learning curve. Yes, I get the basics of joining channels and chatting. I can
see that there's a ton of efficiencies IRC power users have figured out that I
haven't.

Any good resources out there for climbing the learning curve to journeyman
IRCer?

------
dualboot
I have run my own irc server and been connected for over 10 years essentially
in one way or another.

Most of my online friends gather there and idle / jump into chat when it's
going on.

It's been one of the most pleasant constants in my digital life. An unmatched
technology for keeping in touch with geographically challenged friends.

------
rdoherty
irc.mozilla.org, it's a mainstay for most discussions and coordination for all
our projects (IT, webdev, firefox, etc).

#webdev, #firefox, #amo (addons.mozilla.org), #labs

Over half our employees and all our volunteers are remote, so IRC is how we
stay in touch for the most part.

------
treed
#kernel-panic on freenode for good Linux and tons of other good discussion.
Been there for years. Active right now with 34 people. But pretty much every
major FOSS project has an IRC channel, usually on freenode. Every programming
language, framework, etc. is represented there. I get tons of good help there
and help others as well. IRC is definitely very much alive. I rue the advent
of modern one-on-one IM as it really ruins teamwork. A few months ago we threw
up our own openfire jabber server and required everyone in the company to be
present and it has really boosted awareness of what is going on and replaced
the "hallway conversations" we were missing from our distributed development
environment.

------
GeneralMaximus
There's a whole bunch of us active on #hackers-india (irc.oftc.net). Drop in
sometime :)

------
jherdman
Yup. My company uses it amongst the devs to stay in touch. I also lurk on
#nodejs.

------
neilk
IRC is one of the primary communication tools for Wikipedia and its sister
projects. The community is so distributed, coordinating meetings using UTC
time becomes second nature.

There are dozens and dozens of channels. This page attempts to track just some
of them.

<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Channels>

And even the non-technical staffers at the Wikimedia Foundation hold "office
hours" on IRC from time to time.

<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours>

------
mike-cardwell
I use bitlbee to gate all of my IM networks to a single IRC channel which I
then point X-Chat at. I also ocassionaly jump onto freenode to get real time
support for various open source packages.

~~~
moobot
Another user of Bitlbee here. It goes hand in hand with using irssi and a
bouncer to maintain an always-on presence that I can take with me anywhere I
go.

------
devin
Hell yes. If you don't use IRC you're missing out.

I hang out wherever I'm learning stuff (#clojure atm), and keep logs of many
channels so I can search them later.

------
b14ck
If you're looking for a good tech community / channel to hang out in, I can
recommend two. These channels are best suited for programmer / coder types who
enjoy hanging out and chatting about tech stuff.

irc.darkscience.org/#darkscience irc.oftc.net/#neverfear

And their respective websites:

<http://darkscience.org/> <http://neverfear.org/>

------
briandoll
We've had a lot of great support requests and chats with customers on IRC
(Freenode, #newrelic).

Like others have mentioned, it's great to have a few rooms open for
projects/services you care about, where you can check in every so often and
read the backlog. While some rooms are archived, I've never read them that
way, but keeping IRC idling in the background can be a great way to keep tabs
on things.

------
jawee
I hang out on 3 networks. I am on Freenode for a few different projects I
support and associated chat channels that I've been at for years. I am on
StarLink, a small network, for the two channels associated with Alpha & Omega
Ministries. I am on EFNet for one specific channel of a website.

I also use a local bitlebee server for instant messaging.

All in irssi with screen on a local server in my house.

------
dannytatom
Yeah, but I try to limit it to 10 channels for as to not get overwhelmed (I
have a habit of wanting to check every time something new is said, plus I need
room for bitlbee sessions).

I mostly idle on local user groups and language/framework-specific channels. I
rarely say anything, but just keeping an eye on the conversations has taught
me a lot of stuff I wouldn't have known otherwise.

------
joeyh
Another often overlooked use for IRC is as a side channel during events. In
conferences, we'll all be in a room, on IRC commenting on talks. During the BP
oil spill, a channel (#theoildrum) had 500+ people, including some with
oilfield experience, discussing the live ROV feeds, as well as scanning to
find lots of ROV feeds that were not visible to the general public.

------
raffi
#startups on Freenode. I use IRC for collaborating with my colleagues (we're a
distributed company). EFNet.

shameless plug:

Check out jIRCii. <http://jircii.dashnine.org>. It runs on OS X, Windows, and
Linux. It's (in my opinion) the perfect blend of mIRC and BitchX. It's
scriptable too with over 70 scripts contributed.

------
ThomPete
Freenode, Notably #Startups but also the different subject areas (JavaScript,
CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Jquery etc)

------
x0t
I was pretty active in the suse project with bug testing and whatnot for a
while, so that got me on freenode. I lurk about 15 channels there.

I'm on two private networks with about 5 channels between them and I lurk on
Undernet out of nostalgia. I'll hit up Efnet if I'm looking for security
related topics.

------
bphogan
I use IRC every day. I use it to work with others on opensource projects and
many of my past interns and I use it to stay in touch daily, creating a very
helpful network. My current interns can get help from not only ne, but people
who used to work for me. It's a great networking tool.

------
lukeqsee
I'm in #slicehost on Freenode most of the day. If you want smart people +
plenty of humor, come on over.

------
kmet
#startups on freenode and a small private channel with 10 or so friends on
IRCNet. LimeChat powered!

------
earnubs
At my previous company we had an IRC room for the devs (and whoever else
wanted to join) which had a bot that reported on updates to certain feeds
within the company, it was pretty useful and it's not distracting at all. I
used irssi+screen, the bot was a Supybot.

------
ovi256
At my previous workplace, a web devshop, we had a company channel where
everyone hanged, even the CEO (when he could). Plus project-channels where we
could discuss details of each project, and where we invited clients and
partners that used IRC.

------
eapen
I just got on the #reddit channel @ irc.freenode.net the other day and learnt
quite a bit (about profits in the medical marijuana industry) by just hanging
out there. I actually got on IRC to see if there really was anyone who still
used IRC.

------
akulbe
IRC is one of the best ways to communicate. There's a lot to learn, and a lot
to be taught.

Sometimes the best experience can be had by just reading what other people
write.

For example... Erica Sadun is in #iphonedev and #ipaddev on Freenode. Know who
she is? :)

------
enduser
I recommend running <http://www.bitlbee.org/> and using irssi not only for IRC
but for IM as well. For IRC I get a lot out of #pocoo on Freenode and use a
private company ircd.

------
wiredfutureman
Yes, you can find me on #gllug (Greater London Linux User Group), #amahi (Home
Server), #greyhole (folder duplication a la WHS but using Samba) all on
irc.freenode.net

And of course irc.quakenet.org #|HSO| and #fidelitas :)

------
roder
I spend most of my time idling in #riak on irc.freenode.net

I use an IRC bouncer too.

------
agentultra
I use IRC all day long. Every day.

Freenode. If you're into perl, they have an IRC server of their own.

I have been working remotely for the past year or so and we use it to keep the
team in touch with one another.

~~~
mst
IRC network actually - irc.perl.org is 6 servers, four of them on Shadowcat's
hardware, the others donated by individual members of the perl community.

~~~
LeonidasXIV
Yet #perl6 is on freenode.

~~~
draegtun
I assume there is also other perl activity on freenode because it comes high
on the IRC stats at <http://langpop.com>

------
1010011010
Every day at work. I can't recommend any channels to you though.

------
johngunderman
Freenode is excellent. As far as channels, these are the ones that I
particularly like:

    
    
      ##programming
      ##compsci (a bit quiet of a channel)
      #emacs
      #haskell

------
some1else
IRCnet used to be fun to spend the teenage days. (late nineties and the
beginning of century, hehe)

EFNet has tremendous communities devoted to music

Freenode is go-to for open-source software chatrooms.

------
eel
I lurk on Freenode on various project and language channels.

------
danielha
Our company uses #disqus on freenode (private) for development and general
chatter.

I'd like to change the channel for internal chat and use #disqus for public
use though.

------
Goladus
irc is very helpful when interacting with people who don't speak English as
their first language, or have a very thick, difficult-to-understand accent.

------
philcrissman
Yes.

#rubymn (Minnesota ftw)

#railsbridge (if you're interested in ruby on rails; the
<http://railsbridge.com> community)

------
nphase
I am currently idling on:

freenode/gearman

freenode/memcached

freenode/drizzle

freenode/mongodb

freenode/mysql

freenode/phpc

freenode/hiphop-php

freenode/facebook

freenode/twitterapi

freenode/jquery

YMMV.

------
jdefr89
I am always idle on IRC, still love it

------
frytaz
I run irssi on screen all the time

------
slashclee
Look at all these comments! Clearly the answer is "nope, nobody uses IRC
anymore" ;)

------
barnaby
Totally. I help out on the #ubuntu channel, and get help on the #python
channel.

I avoid #politics

------
swah
I open Colloquy to get help or to see what the cool guys are talking about.

------
jzawodn
Of course.

------
thu
Yes, for instance, a lot of haskellers are on #haskell on freenode.

------
chuhnk
Freenode baby Freenode

------
megamark16
On Freenode: #django, #startups, #python, etc.

------
chanux
The habit was fading. Thanks for reminding.

------
Sukotto
Not on iPhone they aren't :-(

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1561306>

~~~
mitjak
Wrong link?

~~~
Sukotto
yes. I meant to post the one about the Rooms IRC client for iPhone getting
approved for the AppStore then getting pulled minutes later.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1560753>

Ironic, and possible relevant.

Personally I do not use IRC. My work blocks it unless I want to court a
reprimand by finding those few servers with non-standard port numbers.

At home, I'm too busy with wife and kids, and whatnot to spend any real time
chatting. Most of my online activities are batched to only occur once or twice
a day which pretty much precludes irc.

~~~
geoffpado
Uh, there's still Colloquy (<http://colloquy.mobi>), a port of the most-
popular Mac client to iPhone. So it's not like Apple has banned IRC in
general.

------
WilliamLP
Does World of Warcraft count?:)

------
joelesler
Hell yeah. All day every day.

------
melito
freenode for channels about opensource projects undernet for goofing off

------
hm2k
#webdev on EFnet

------
mufumbo
on freenode: #android-dev #webos-internals

------
hackermom
STILL use IRC? IRC is in heavier use today than ever before! Not only has the
amount of networks (and servers per network) exploded the past 10 years, but
so has also the global amount of users per network and IRC as a whole.

------
alnayyir
I pretty much live on freenode in all the dev channels, but I keep the
terminal on a fairly isolated place so that I don't get distracted. Keep a
shell on my linode, /lastlog to check to see if anybody was lookin' for me.

------
wookiehangover
freenode #jquery is pretty much the place to be

