[PLUG] Why folks using IRC are against "cool" and "new" features?

[Tejas Sanap]

On Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 03:33:49PM +0530, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 4, 2019, 15:08 Vishal Rao <vishalrao at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > IRC is kind of "stateless", right? Meaning you have to stay logged in to
> > not miss any messages? If I log out and log back in later on, I miss all
> > the messages that were posted in the interim? That is the main reason I
> > stopped using IRC and prefer email mailing lists or online forum discussion
> > platforms or things like Slack where you can see the messages even if you
> > log out and log back in later on.
Or, you can use a terminal-based IRC client like irssi or weechat and log in
on a server using tmux. Next time, tmux attach and tmux detach. Simple. 
You never have to log out.

> There's IRC bouncers which can be configured to enable the kind of
> "presence" which you point out. Those are usually additional services -
> either to be paid for, or, configured. Email continues to be a resilient
The main takeaway from the whole IRC/ZNC vs. Slack coversation, or rather
any software solution on Linux vs. On Mac/Windows, is that in the latter
case things "just work". Whereas, in the former case, you require a bit
of tweaking and hacking. This is the point where things go sour for many
users. As enthusiasts, we love a new challenge and throw ourselves at
it. But, a normal user only wants to do his work.

To be honest, I have given this topic a lot of thought, and the only way
to convince people to go with FOSS/Linux solutions, is to show them in
person how to do things.

As an example, I would suggest setting up "polybar". It's a custom
status bar that many people use alongside their minimalistic window
managers (like i3 or dwm). If, one wished to approach this task on their
own, it is highly likely that they would give up. But, if someone has
access to an in-depth and at the same time, easy tutorial such as [1]
and [2]... It will be a different story.

> Slack and others don't lend themselves well to highly threaded or, long
> form conversations. List software such as Mailman are also adding
> enhancements which cater to some of the requirements around ease of
> conversations.
There are a lot of interesting features in ZNC. For example, it will
automatically (and, temporarily) detach from an "inactive" channel. Or,
it allows for maintaining seperate buffers, channel-list for different
devices. But, such features, are rarely advertised. 
I maybe wrong here, but, as a "Linux Users Group" we should be helping
such projects "bridge the gap" between normal users and themselves.
Like, I know so many college "CS/IT" courses where students use vi/vim
as their editors, but the students never leave the "INSERT" mode. I
mean, that's just sad.

[1]: https://youtu.be/7RNgpvBMua0
[2]: https://youtu.be/OIjwl0MjfBA

-- 
Tejas Sanap.
(whereistejas on Freenode)
https://whereistejas.me