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Comment by iam-TJ | Hacker News Reader

One aspect I don't see mentioned much, if at all, is that the "C" in "IRC" stands for "chat", and that, to me, has always equated to in-real-life chats.

If I'm not present when friends are chatting I don't get to replay what they were saying before I arrived, or after I leave.

I think that is the fundamental disjoint - features are attributed to IRC that were not intended, and then attempts to bolt them on through services, bouncers, or whatever, is never going to create a seamless rich experience that many seem to want.

For me, IRC has always been the avenue for mostly throwaway, real-time at-this-moment off-the-top-of-my-head stream-of-consciousness discussion, with Usenet or forums and email mailing lists for more long-running considered and logged discussions.

I've never been impressed or attracted to products that try to force the two styles together.

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This is what people use voice chat for. Text chat is meant to be async.

Disagree. 15+ years ago, people used IRC in real time, to chat and hangout online. Async chat sucks, plus we had forums for that kind of thing.

More recently, I've contributed to a number of open source projects that have live chat meetings on IRC. We kept logs of those meetings, but live chat is totally the point.

I disagree when considered in the context of what we use IRC for 'traditionally' - hundreds of people able to share logical information, code, URLs, and more particularly on a very low bandwidth medium.

Can't do that in voice chat.

In the usual case of IRC channels the contributors are in the minority and so it can take the form of a voyeuristic learning experience for the passive bystanders - and very highly educational most of the time.

I can’t think of a single use where I need ultra low data transfer and can’t accept chat backlogs. It’s no wonder IRC usage is in constant decline when that is the target user.

The low data transfer bit is probably mostly irrelevant these days, though I would imagine that it would be useful for people with minimal mobile data plans.

As for chat backlogs, your client can log communications while you are online. Some people find that more desirable since they always know who they are speaking to. That is especially important since anyone can join an open channel at any time. If something that you found interesting came up on a channel you frequented, but while you were not in the channel, someone would copy it from their scrollback buffer for you (often without your even asking).

That being said, I doubt those two criteria define the target audience. As the author notes, IRC is great because its simplicity offers a great deal of flexibility. Anyone could make an IRC client or bot with minimal effort. Even for those who do not write software, it is advantagous. There were many IRC clients because of that, meaning one could choose a client that reflects their needs and tastes. The problem is that most people want something that is easier to use, and for most people that means they don't want to deal with choosing a client nor do they want to deal with setting up their client (notably, selecting a server).

> It’s no wonder IRC usage is in constant decline when that is the target user.

You're not the audience for it then. But don't think that you represent everyone. Ya don't.

> ext chat is meant to be async.

Not necessarily.

An SMS, sure. Because that's more of a message than a chat.

IRC, that's strictly chat and that doesn't have to persist. I can duck into and out of it as I wish.

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