Ask HN: What IRC channels does everyone find interesting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What IRC channels does everyone find interesting?

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#haskell on freenode is always a very humbling experience. Everyone in there is extremely intelligent and helpful.

I've recently learned to stay away from #python. #rubyonrails is okay.

I've had a lot of fun in #haskell.

One time, I was talking with some people about how annoyed I was with not having a natural number type in Haskell. (Really, wtf?) It's annoying, but clearly not the end of the world--no other language I know has a natural number type either.

Can you guess what sort of response a complaint like this would have on another channel? At best, I would get some commiseration. But more likely people would either not care or actually get annoyed with me. I imagine similar reactions even to feature requests and complaints that are less "academic" than natural numbers.

So what happened on #haskell? Somebody went off and implemented a nice natural number library[1][2] right then and there--while I was still online, in fact. Pretty cool.

[1]: http://jeltsch.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/natural-numbers-in-h...

[2]: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/natural-numbers-0.0.0.0

Heh. That, more than anything, makes me want to learn Haskell. :)

I have only been in there a couple times but #haskell is a great channel. #clojure is a very good one as well. amalloy and many others are always around to answer questions.

If you think #python is bad, you definitely want to stay away from #django.

#django is awesome. Everyone is helpful. Shout out to FunkyBob and mattmcc.

Only issue is that there's a bunch of people whose answers could be solved by a quick search but still flood the channel with their questions.

#django is super awesome. Those guys helped me go from a banker who sorta knew about for loops to a web app owner with paying customers. You'll find a handful of dedicated people in there that have been around for years and are very helpful.

#haskell is fantastic. I typically just idle there, but every time I tab over to see what people are talking about, it's something on-topic and (more importantly) interesting. And like you say, everyone there is really helpful.

I was often on #python about a 2 years ago, what happened? Is it bad now?

In general any public channel that reaches a critical mass eventually gets overwhelmed with noise/trolls/elitists. It really just takes a few bad eggs to ruin the experience for everybody.

That's just the nature of things though, it's hard to keep a handle on huge channels unless the channel ops are eternally vigilant. I was in #python some time ago, and there were good moments but there were lots of bad moments.

Could you be more specific about the bad experiences?

(I'm the Freenode Group Contact for #python,#python-*. If you have constructive criticism to make any of those channels better, I would be in a position to implement them.)

I will happily admit that any sufficiently large group will have some bad apples in it, but I certainly hope that we (I'm speaking for the operators of #python) have tried, are trying, and will continue to try, to limit them :) We've tried many things in the past, including crazy ideas like having two channels, but that ended up being counterproductive.

oftc has a smaller python channel, and I think freenode has #python-friendly. Less activity, but generally means less noise and fewer trolls.

It's double hash. It's explicitly NOT a PSF Python channel. That, and it was founded by someone notorious for trolling #python and #python-offtopic :)

#haskell #dart #go-nuts #phabricator #redis #postgresql #grails #clojure #rust

Pretty much a good chunk of open-source and language channels. always something to learn there. Especially the Functional programming channels like Haskell and Clojure

I use ot idle in #nodejs and #javascript, but that got septic pretty fast.

I also idle in #litecoin because I actively mine litecoins and feathercoins.

#go-nuts is a great experience. I've been on IRC for many many years for dozens of different technologies and those first few years when everyone is just centered on the technology itself, where the egos are still in check are just a joy.

#go-nuts is just like that, helpful and healthy people, a sane pace for everyone, none of the inbred humor that older channels tend to promote, just simple flow and sharing of information.

I used to frequent #anapnea, but after it shut down I lost all my data on the sever, and the newly resurrected anapnea seems to be less interesting the few times I've accessed it, so I haven't gone back.

It seems that most of the *nix related channels have been over run by 12 year old "h4x0rz."

The best channels are "Invite Only," and I'm not allowed to share their addresses.

The best channels are "Invite Only," and I'm not allowed to share their addresses.

thought i was OG since i'd been on EFnet since before the Split, but this guy is in channels that are obscure.

we've probably never heard of them.

Think I've only ever been in one invite-only channel and that's not a technical one.

So far I've probably had luck with choosing my channels in the last 12 years, nearly all official or semi-official project channels have been inviting and helpful.

Recent examples include #clojure #leiningen and #topaz on Freenode.

I idle and answer/ask on FreeNode's ##math. #haskell is also pretty chill, people are always willing to explain stuff. Yes, this includes monads for the kth time, forall k >= 1 :).

#startups on free node, plus a rotating list depending on what I'm working on.

EFNet: #unix, #freebsd, #metal GIMPNet: #dnalounge FreeNode: #startups, #bhyve, #postgresql, and if you're interested in the adventures of derpyhackerspacedrama try out #noisebridge.

I've noticed that there are WAY more channels that attempt to take themselves seriously (and fail on the seriousness or accuracy quota) on FreeNode so stay alert. EFNet is generally the best chat network :)

#emacs, there are lots of really smart people there.

#erlang on Freenode. They're friendly and knowledgable folk.

I'm surprised no one mentioned #bitcoin-market on Freenode.

#laravel-offtopic on Freenode is full of awesome (and intelligent) people.

It's an offtopic chat for the Laravel PHP framework, however the offtopic can contain a variety of languages - usually we talk pretty much everything, from Python to Go, C++ to CSS (and weird life, or rather the no-life related topics). As far as trolls go, I personally haven't seen any yet.

#node.js on freenode is pretty solid and, for such an active channel with many noobs, essentially troll-free.

This has always fascinated me. I love hanging out in #node.js because I almost never see trolls lurking.

Reading this list, I'm honestly blown away that the IRC culture has evolved from "RTFM"

Pretty cool that there are people willing to "waste" their time explaining stuff now.

Is this just a product of there being large masses of programmers out there before, where it was pretty specialized a decade ago?

Recently, I found #archlinux to be very interesting as long as it concerns Arch.

Really? Whenever I've been there people have been very rude, pedantic, sarcastic, and in general acting like /b/ rejects. Maybe I've been unlucky?

Maybe it's only I who's been lucky. I think on every channel it depends when you go there. I haven't spent that much time there anyway but the little time I spent was useful and interesting.

It's not only you. The same applies to the #freebsd channels.

I find these interesting:

#archlinux #rvm #wordpress #jquery #rubyonrails #ruby

Lastly, don't venture in #cakephp. you will get trolled or be called a n00b for not knowing some silly cake specific stuff.

+hack and +Amiga! (later #hack and #Amiga!) on the only irc2 network and later efnet (after the split) circa 1990-1995

... haven't connected to an IRC channel in a very, very long time.

#nethack on freenode is also worth attending. Though probably not very related to #hack.

Quite different, though I did also enjoy playing nethack a lot back in those days.

I'm very surprised how popular Freenode is. Any idea how come?

freenode is and has been for long the natural go-to network for anything programming-related. As to the reasons I wouldn't know, most likely mass dynamics :)

#clojure on freenode

I used to like #p2p-hackers but the channel is normally quiet now. I miss firing up irssi and seeing lively discussions from the channel.

##proggit on Freenode is a pretty good channel.

eh, prepared to be trolled to no end in ##proggit. Also, the ops there are elitists and do whatever they want without consideration of the members wishes.

In addition to the usual open source freenode channels, I often go to #baot on irc.rizon.net

Freenode:

#fogcutter

#startups

#fedora

#centos

#trilug

#ai

#swig

#machinelearning

#grails

#opencog

#/g/tracker on p2p-net Bunch of great funny guise on there

Freenode: #go-nuts #metasploit #phabricator #puppet #riak

Freenode: #bash #python #go-nuts #awk

#meteor is a very helpful community.

#llvm on OFTC

+1 for #linux-support on Efnet.

#elementary-dev, #vala

on freenode, #swhack ##math #rest #bitcoin ##ats

#xkcd@foonetic

irc.smashthestack.org #social, #twits

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