#Textual irc software
#Textual irc mac

I would never suggest that civilian internet users learn IRC - but I would strongly recommend it to my fellow software engineers, especially those working with open-source software. Why did I bother will all this? Like the above XKCD cartoon, I consider IRC primarily as the location where specific few chat-based resources (not to say people) make themselves available, and not at all as an all-encompassing chat solution. I relate this memory as it comes to mind unbidden because I know exactly what I sound like, talking about this IRC stuff: I sound like an excited little boy, so totally at home with a new, pleasurable discovery that he has no idea how utterly unfit for his larger social context he sounds. I alone transgressed by writing of a recent camping adventure with my Boy Scout troop, and for days my classmates mocked me, repeating “We decided to head up the trail to check it out!” whenever they saw me rounding the corner. Every other kid, boy and girl alike, did the correct thing of describing a victory-clinching goal they scored on the athletic field.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, we all received a creative-writing assignment: write 300 words about an recent accomplishment you took pride in, then read it aloud to the class. As with IRC itself, I strongly doubt many discover its details without active assistance.) Finally - applying my knowledge about IRC nickname commands and conventions from Vicky’s talk - I stole jmac on Freenode away from someone who provably hadn’t logged in for a year, presenting my case to a friendly “op” on the #freenode channel and receiving the blessing to re-register the name to myself. Only a bare handful appear where expected in the Preferences window the remainder bury themselves layers-deep in the right-click menus of one onscreen feature or another. (Textual, fantastically customizable, scatters the controls for its myriad options in a dozen separate places throughout the interface. The last pieces slid into place last week when I got over my shyness to ask the #textual IRC channel on Freenode to help me tune the application to my particular use-patterns, starting with having it automatically reëstablish all my various connections when I open my laptop back up. Furthering this, I installed Prowl on my iPhone, to which my ZNC instance relays notifications when folks mention my name.

For ordinary IRC discussion, I have set up a ZNC server, and I proxy all my connections through it this gives me persistent presence in any channels I choose. The details are not interesting, so I shall get them out of the way quickly: As my client program I use the excellent Textual for macOS. It took me nearly a year of off-and-on, trial-and-error research to find a combination of magicks that let my laptop connect to IRC networks with the reliability, back-logging, and mobile-notification functions that Slack provides out of the box. I feel as comfortable saying that it will outlast the viable lifetimes of every younger chat system - yes, including the ubiquitous Slacks and Discords of today - as I do in predicting that people will rightfully keep inventing new systems anyway, because IRC remains completely unsuited for civilian use. IRC has hardly gotten less nerdy, in the years since. I don’t recall the name of the one I favored, but I do remember that it greeted you on launch with an orchestral-hit sound effect from an old Star Trek episode.

#Textual irc mac

The Mac alone enjoyed a dizzying variety of IRC client programs. I first used it as an undergraduate in the early 1990s, where it had already earned a reputation as foundational technology, boasting an array of implementations on any computing platform you could name. But with any system so venerable - and, in my case, decades of personal-computing history - I can’t avoid starting my refreshed relationship with IRC by thinking back on my history with it. I have a practical purpose for doing so, far apart from nostalgia for a less commercial or colorful internet. Ten months after finding inspiration in this delightful Perl Conference talk by VM Brasseur, I’ve fashioned for myself an acceptable setup for using IRC, the internet’s oldest and most open chat system.