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Author Topic: Where have we settled in terms of IRC  (Read 6911 times)

Martin_fr

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #15 on: September 23, 2021, 04:51:24 am »
Then my understanding was probably flawed by the mention of "asking questions on IRC". Which made me assume, that some knowledgeable or expert user would need to be present.

However if that come down to really simple questions that may not even be knowledge based, but instead rely on opinion or similar... Then I can see how it works, as mostly anyone can answer.

That is use IRC instead of talking to the wall.... :)

My tuppence worth...




EDIT: Btw, seems IRC is good for the two penny stuff. And the forum seems best when the monkey is on the table. ;)
« Last Edit: September 23, 2021, 04:56:58 am by Martin_fr »

Marc

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #16 on: September 23, 2021, 10:29:52 am »
In the early days of Lazarus Paul, Micha and I used IRC a lot to coordinate graphics development or the win32 development. At that time I was the European evening on line and Paul the Russian evening so we covered a pretty big part of a day.
In such case the questions asked got pretty quick answered.

When you are partially online, I prefer the forum, since you can give a response in your own time. Disadvantage is that you don't have an immediate answer. For what I'm coding now I sometimes wished I could contact the devels of some 3td party lib through IRC, but in most cases, some googling helped too.

Marc

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Martin_fr

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #17 on: September 23, 2021, 01:31:46 pm »
In the early days of Lazarus Paul, Micha and I used IRC a lot to coordinate graphics development or the win32 development. At that time I was the European evening on line and Paul the Russian evening so we covered a pretty big part of a day.
In such case the questions asked got pretty quick answered.
But that sounds more like a private chat. So you could have a bell (or even just notice any movement in the irc window). So you can do your work, and interrupt if you get pinged.
That makes sense, but seems to differ from what is being asked for.

But if you have a large community, then there would potentially be a constant flow of new irc messages. If you read them all, then that means you wont do anything else. I.e. you do IRC team (instead of other entertainment).
So then IRC (if as desired, with large community) is more an entertainment thing, than a question/answer information exchange?


Joanna

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #18 on: September 24, 2021, 03:38:39 am »
You can’t move an interesting conversation in forum to private messages when it contains more than 2 people. With irc it’s very easy to create a new temporary channel to move a conversation to if it is interfering with the main channel. On the forum this is not possible except my making a new thread which would be permanent and clutter the forum.

My casual questions in irc require the opinions of experts and lately there is a shortage of people who can answer my questions in irc. For instance nobody in irc can tell me how to control the colors of the tcheckcombobox dropdown which is missing an ondraw event. Nobody at all.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2021, 03:44:23 am by Joanna »
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skalogryz

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #19 on: September 24, 2021, 05:55:42 am »
on the forum the history of the conversation is better traced. (IIRC chat don't have links to follow and are hard to dig through)
...Not to mention the history of attachments and code samples...
And this is very important in technical discussions. (Quite often forum might inspire a contents for the documentation and/or wiki)

and the ability to edit typos is absolutely amazing :)

Marc

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #20 on: September 24, 2021, 10:48:04 am »
In the early days of Lazarus Paul, Micha and I used IRC a lot to coordinate graphics development or the win32 development. At that time I was the European evening on line and Paul the Russian evening so we covered a pretty big part of a day.
In such case the questions asked got pretty quick answered.
But that sounds more like a private chat. So you could have a bell (or even just notice any movement in the irc window). So you can do your work, and interrupt if you get pinged.
That makes sense, but seems to differ from what is being asked for.

It sure was, most communication was on a private chat. As a side effect, we could answer the (public) channel questions.
If I look at my current work activities, not much changed, the only difference is that most communication is done through WhatsApp or Zoom chat.

Quote
But if you have a large community, then there would potentially be a constant flow of new irc messages. If you read them all, then that means you wont do anything else. I.e. you do IRC team (instead of other entertainment).
So then IRC (if as desired, with large community) is more an entertainment thing, than a question/answer information exchange?

If you have a large community, you also have a large group of ppl knowing an answer. However with the recent freenode actions, the community decreased, so it's quiet now.

Marc
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Joanna

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #21 on: September 24, 2021, 03:21:48 pm »
I really don’t understand why some people have so many hang ups about moving from freenode to Libera . After new owner erased the databases it was more than obvious that it was time to move.

Irc has links and some clients offer a scroll back history but yes it’s clunky the conversations are enjoyed as they happen and end when people need to leave, often because it’s their bedtime.

So called modern apps are often spyware and dictate what client you have to use and often demand a phone number, which can be used for all sorts of undesirable things. Irc is far superior for people who value privacy and/or have a slow internet connection as I do.

One thing that’s kind of strange about irc lately is people who show up as guests and don’t bother to register and then demand that someone answer a question right away and then disappear and are never seen again. I don’t know who they are but it kind of feels like they are Coming there just to laugh at how inactive the #lazarus channel is.
 If I’m there I try to talk to them but they are kind of strange. Recently one of them kept demanding to know how to use the middle mouse button to paste in Cuda text app. I don’t know if he was trolling or not.

There is nothing wrong with IRC it just needs some active people who are knowledgeable in pascal. Even if people were only in irc semi afk for a few hours a day it would help a lot to improve the image of the projects.

I feel bad when someone asks a legitimate pascal related question in irc  and can’t get an answer.
I try to help but I am not an expert and I have to explain to them that most people who use pascal REFUSE to come to the irc channel. It’s embarrassing and awkward.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2021, 03:37:12 pm by Joanna »
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trev

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #22 on: September 25, 2021, 12:51:46 am »
Quote
IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users (from 1 million to about 400,000 in 2021) and half of its channels (from half a million in 2003 to under 200,000 in 2021).

It is a fading technology. It's called progress.

I used to use IRC back in the day. Now I prefer to use Fora for the many reasons that have been done to death previously. So, yes, you could say that I refuse to use the clunky, old, outdated, unpopulated IRC. You are, of course, free to continue to do so while it exists.

As for being awkward and embarrassed when unable to answer someone's question, feel free to refer said lost souls to the Fora where they are bound to find/get at least one answer if not many more. You'll no longer need to be awkward and embarrassed :-)

Joanna

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Re: Where have we settled in terms of IRC
« Reply #23 on: September 25, 2021, 02:52:45 am »
I do send them to forum. I don’t find irc that hard to use the irc client, it does all the logging in for me. As for unpopulated that could be solved by people simply coming to irc and talking.
There is a concerted effort to get people to leave irc and move to other chat platforms where their data can be harvested and sold and their privacy invaded.That’s not progress from my standpoint.
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