Getting Help the Free Software (and Open Source) Way - IRC Channels (
Page 5 of 6 )
Finally, we reach what is perhaps the fastest way to
gather
live information online: IRC channels. If you've followed the links,
you may
have noticed that many of the pages listed in the Mailing Lists section
also
mentioned IRC channels.
With that in mind, I found it interesting that, when
writing
this story, I ran into the following message, posted to the ufra.lists.php
newsgroup in 1998:
“There are probably quite
a few
people who use IRC and also PHP. Many do not have time for the
relatively
inefficient mechanism it provides. Things tend to end up in useless and
unproductive chatter back and forth. And even for the people who can
get beyond
that, chances are that if they are on IRC
then
they are on different networks. Undernet is just one of
many. I,
for example, when I am on IRC
am always on EFNet, or sometimes on
IRCnet. A PHP channel on
Undernet
doesn't help me very much.”
While the PHP/IRC correlation might not be accurate
anymore,
what about the rest of the statement? If this is true, then who in
their right
minds would choose IRC? Can you actually get your tasks done this way?
Well,
that depends on both your need and how you like to work. The author is
right
when he points out that things end up in chatter back and forth. But is
it all
unproductive? It's been my experience that, as far as hard-core
programming
goes, chat channels are usually not the best places to go. This is not
the case
with administration and maintenance, which I find, are best benefited
by the
use of these lists.
The writer of this message points out three well
known IRC
servers: IRCnet (irc.ircnet.org),
Undernet (irc.undernet.org),
and EFNet (irc.efnet.org).
If you know anything about IRC, however, then you realize that these
contain
within them thousands of individual, active chat channels for you to
carouse
through. In fact, when I fire up my favorite IRC client (X-Chat), I get
a
listing of 63 chat servers right off the bat, not to mention the
channels to be
found within them! So much for quick answers, right?
Well, like in the previous categories, it's simply a
matter of
finding the right chat servers and channels to tap for information.
I've
compiled a list of servers and channels which I believe you'll find
useful.
Like before, if I don't list what you're looking for, then go ahead and
search
the servers. If you find something that you thing would be of interest
to other
readers, I invite you to post it on the DevShed.com message boards. By
the way,
if you've never used IRC before, or are have questionable skills, check
out the
IRC home page at http://www.irc.net,
which
just so happens to be partly sponsored DevShed.
The following is a list of links (in no particular
order) to
some of the biggest servers out there. Remember that if you want to
check out their
website, you'll need to change the irc.servername.org
into www.servername.org.
- irc.Undernet.org
- irc.Freenode.net
- irc.EFnet.org
- irc.DAL.net
- irc.IRCnet.net
On most of these, you can safely type #<subject> (where <subject> is your subject,
such as #linux,
#cocoon, or #python) and expect to find a channel dedicated to the
subject. If
you can't, then go ahead and do a search for the channels on the
server,
although a faster way would probably be to search on Google.com for <subject> IRC channel.
Chances are
that you'll find the channel you're looking for within the first ten
links.
As a related side note, while writing this story, I
ran into
the list of one-hundred most popular IRC channels, accessible at http://searchirc.com/top100.php.
Not
one of them had anything to do with development or, surprisingly
enough, Open
Source software. Free software was represented, but only if you count
warez
(illegally acquired and distributed commercial software). Note that
Free Software, as in the case of GNU, and free software, as in pirated
commercial programs, or warez, are not by any means the same
thing. Heck, they're not even in the same ideological park.
/ 8 
