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Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by chipperyman573 on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:34PM (#11300448)
Slack is IRC, it just is a really nice interface that makes it easy to automate and makes it easy to share files/code/etc.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by jonathankoren on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:38PM (#11300485)
That's Slack's main feature. Well that and gifs. IRC on the other hand is James has left the channel. Bill has left the channel. Samantha has joined the channel. Samantha has left the channel. filled with worthless status updates Martha has gone idle that make it Bill has joined the channel. terribly easy to Bill has changed the channel topic to "ZOMG! Ponies!" miss things Martha has become active Martha has left the channel.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by cookiecaper on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:41PM (#11300504)
Messages just like that show up in Slack whenever someone joins or parts the channel, changes the topic, etc. Not sure this is a valid complaint.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by navait on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:47PM (#11300559)
Well, in Slack, you don't leave by disconnecting, so that lowers the volume of people joining/quitting because they moved their laptop.

It doesn't help that IRC tends to get used in places where massive amounts of users are expected. I feel some of the newbie clients should just hide by default join/quit spam.

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by rarepostinlurkr on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @05:48PM (#11300950)
You can turn all of those notices off; I've not seen those sorts of updates in channel for years & years.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by jonathankoren on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @06:12PM (#11301075)
True, but most clients have it on by default.

Also on public IRC you tend to have a channels of 80 people, all idle.

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by atomical on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:36PM (#11300472)
Slack is not IRC. The gap between them is so huge that they are distinct. Push notifications and message sync are key features.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by cookiecaper on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:35PM (#11300463)
I mean, it's not actually IRC, even though it could've been. It's a custom server that speaks a custom protocol, as far as I know.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by tribaal on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:37PM (#11300476)
Oh, TIL.

So I can point my run-off-the-mill IRC client to a slack server and partake in cat pictures exchanging and almost-NSFW-but-not-quite with my fellow coworkers, yes?

Otherwise whatever it uses inside its walled garden is completely irrelevant I'm afraid.

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by detaro on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:42PM (#11300516)
They have an IRC bridge you can connect your IRC client to. It probably can't do all the things (because IRC has no way of expressing them, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't spend too much effort on it), but it works.
Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by wan23 on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:43PM (#11300523)
You actually can use a regular IRC client with Slack. Though obviously anything that isn't supported natively by IRC comes through as a URL or encoded somehow.

https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connectin...