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"Feature wise slack doesn't really bring much new. It just has a good interface."

That's a pretty huge feature. Never underestimate how making something more usable increases it's popularity.




Really - what is sooo unusable about IRC?

Get a good GUI client, enter some parameters into a text bar, click 'ok', then chat. exactly the same process as a web browser..

The real problem is the 'endless summer' of tablet-era people who confuse the 'interweb' with the 'internet'. There used to be much more general community advocacy and understanding of promoting open communications 'baked in' to the internet culture which has been eroded by crass commercialization - this is the real problem that needs to be attacked...


Can you easily share multi-line code, formatted in a proportional font and syntax highlighted, in any IRC client? That's something I want to do almost every hour I'm working.


Some clients will intercept multi-line messages and let you POST the content to a pastebin. That way, supported clients show pretty-printed code and unsupported client just see a URL.

Ex: https://blog.irccloud.com/pastebins/


And how do I know that everyone in the room is using such a client? I know that everyone using Slack will see the message as I intended it to be seen.




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