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Comment by k_sze | Hacker News Reader

For me, a major pain point about IRC is that I, as a user, need to use a bouncer in order to not miss messages. And even then, you still risk missing some messages if the bouncer needs to disconnect from the IRC server (e.g. due to updates to the bouncer software or to the hosting OS).

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I personally see that as a feature because you can then specify what triggers you want recorded. eg just your nick? What about other phrases like an unusual hobby you might have? etc

Slack and other services have this without the bouncer

Slack doesn't support triggers in nearly as sophisticated way as IRC bounces can (believe me, I've tried).

I wasn't intended to compare IRC to Slack but since you've started us down this rabbit hole: I'd take IRC over Slack any day. Sure Slack is more "modern" and it can - in theory - do anything IRC can do. However IRC is more easily extendible and in a more versatile way. To be honest there's nothing Slack does that you couldn't also do in IRC - albeit some features might require a more modern IRC client than the terminal ones us geeks often harp on about (disclaimer: I've written tools for both IRC and Slack).

The problem with IRC faces isn't a technological one - it's just a mixture of NIH (not invented here) syndrome and capitalists wanting to make money from reinventing public domain tools as proprietary solutions with expensive subscriptions. Not that I have a problem with people wanting to make money - quite the opposite in fact - but I do take issue with people who say "this can't be done in X which is why Y exists" when the real reason is financially motivated rather than any technological shortcoming.

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