Comment by joks

15 days ago

IRC does not support group voice & video calls, which is one of the primary features of Discord (and previously Skype, from which everyone migrated to Discord in the first place)

8 comments

joks

Reply
ibejoeb  15 days ago

It's a viable system for the many open source software projects that collaborate over chat. Expo, Typescript, and Effect are relatively large examples. I'll participate there if available and I get locked out. Otherwise, I'll just use the stuff without contributing, no problem.

  • lynndotpy  15 days ago

    IRC exposes your IP and you can't even access history unless you're willing to self-host your own bouncer, which costs time, money, and risk even if you already know how to do it, which most people don't. Being IRC only will exclude a lot of people who want to contribute to your project while also adding a lot of friction to the mere act of sharing screenshots, which is problematic if you have any software which renders to something not text.

    I grew up on IRC and still use it, I have my own bouncer set up, etc. But the devs on Discord and not IRC probably aren't the devs with the skillset and resources to host their own server and bouncer. IRC just isn't in the running to fill the Discord shaped hole.

    • encom  14 days ago

      >IRC exposes your IP

      That hasn't been true for decades, and even if it was, it sounds like Hollywood's idea of a problem.

      >IRC only will exclude a lot of people

      If they can't figure out how to point a client to an IRC server, their contribution is worthless. It's the most trivial barrier to entry possible.

      >sharing screenshots

      Print screen > paste to image host > share link. Not hard.

      I get that the Discord experience is slick, if you're willing to give up any sort of privacy or confidentiality. IRC is lightweight and simple, and its shortcomings can be worked around without too much effort. Discord is bloated, malicious, evil - I will gladly suffer some inconveniences of IRC.

      1 reply →

    • dijit  15 days ago

      I haven't used an IRC server implementation in 20 years that doesn't do host masking. (IE; cloaking of client IP addresses).

      That said, I'm biased as I have been running an IRC community for 22 years or so... but I prefer to have video/voice in it's own system. (mumble/jitsi)

    • MarsIronPI  13 days ago

      Someday the big-name networks will support IRCv3 ChatHistory and all will become well with the world.