Discord chat for Roda and the Roda-verse (Sequel, etc.)?

[Jared White]

Hey all,

I'm in a bunch of Discord chat servers (and run the one for Bridgetown) and it's been really awesome for sharing tips, links, making friends, etc. Any interest in starting a Discord for Roda and related libraries? I'm not suggesting it would replace the Google Group, but I do know I virtually never think to post something to a mailing list as compared to a chat room.

Let me know what you think…also, I'm having a blast with Roda and Sequel. 🙌

Jared

[adam.me...@gmail.com]

I'm generally not a fan of Discord (tho I'm in Spicy Web!). If IRC was to be moved away from (or complemented), I'd almost prefer something like Matrix which has the feeling of openness and possibly the ability to bridge with IRC.

I can understand why IRC is out of favour, and it's definitely nice to be able to search for a previously discussed topic in one of the persistent chat programs. I wonder if we could compromise where Whitequark's logger could be invited to #roda and #sequel. There's been Freenode drama lately, so moving networks might already be on Jeremy's mind. This might be the right time if so.

TLDR; I don't personally care where we are.

[Jeremy Evans]

For chat, we currently have IRC.  IRC is not as popular as it used to be, but it does work fine, and has the advantage of being an open platform (one advantage I use is it allows connections from terminal programs).  There are usually about 10-15 people in the #roda IRC channel.  However, traffic on the IRC channel is very low. There is also the downside of IRC not being persistent, of course.  #sequel used to be a logged channel, though I forget where it was logged.  I have no problem with logging on any of the IRC channels I manage, assuming someone else wants to maintain that..

Of possible IRC alternatives, I think Matrix is the best fit.  I'm in the #jruby channel on IRC, which I think is hosted via a Matrix IRC bridge, and which seems to work well.  If someone wants to work on setting up a Matrix channel for Roda, and a Matrix IRC bridge, I don't have a problem switching to that.  In addition to an IRC bridge, Matrix also appears to offer a Discord bridge, so I'm guessing it should be possible for someone connecting through IRC to chat with someone connecting through Discord via the Matrix bridges.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Jared White]

I must confess I'm one of those people who hasn't used IRC in decades, so that wouldn't be appealing to me. I'm curious how Matrix works, which I also haven't used. To me the #1 benefit of Discord is I can easily switch between all the servers I've joined in one simple interface, and it's trivial to join a new one. (Much better than Slack in this regard.) Otherwise…out of sight, out of mind.

[adam.me...@gmail.com]

If you use the Element client for Matrix, it's very similar to Discord in terms of "servers". Except those servers might be run by someone else, or they might be run by Matrix. It's all federated.

There's already a Freenode bridge for Matrix, so in essence, you could just add the #roda or #sequel room on Freenode to your Element client, and it will just work.

[Jeremy Evans]

Considering the recent issues with Freenode have gotten worse, I don't think it's a good idea to keep it as an official discussion forum.  We have a few options:

1. Moving to a different IRC network, such as libera.chat.

2. Switching to a different chat protocol/program (e.g. Matrix/Discord/Gitter).

3. Just dropping IRC without replacement.

Personally, I'm leaning to option 3. We haven't gotten that much traffic on IRC the last couple years, and if people want help, I think it's OK for them to post on a forum/email list instead of using chat.

I'd appreciate community feedback before making a decision, but I don't want to wait too long. I'd like to make a decision within the next few days.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Michael Monerau]

As you seek feedback, here is mine. Personnally, I never use chat for programming. Async fits far better to my coding workflow. When a roadblock is hit, it usually is a pretty serious issue that needs context & thought to be properly explained (eg. with repro). So it would be sub-optimal to use chat in those situations.

I guess it is useful when you are a beginner on a specific technology to be able to quickly solve simple issues.

Although reading through Stack Overflow with a proper tag filter would achieve pretty much the same "learning curve help" I think.

Best,

Michael

 

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[adam.me...@gmail.com]

I'm inclined to suggest IRC is dropped without replacement.

I'll still idle in #roda, #sequel, etc if they do end up getting moved to Libera or Matrix, but if they went away in favour of Google Groups or GitHub Discussions, I don't think that necessarily would be a bad thing.

Adam

[Jared White]

I'd advocate pretty emphatically for Discord or something that easily bridges to Discord. I'm in a number of communities that are very lively…people post tips, make friends, share things they're working on…it goes way beyond just occasional folks asking a technical question. I think the value of real-time camaraderie isn't to be underestimated and it's hard to achieve that via a typical forum/mailing list.

Jared

[Richard Drake]

Michael Monerau

>Personnally, I never use chat for programming. Async fits far better to my coding workflow.

That summarises my usage patterns - and prejudices! - well.

If Jeremy is inclined to drop IRC and replace with nothing, I'd be more than happy. More time for him to prepare the best answers for here!

As background, I've been using Roda since January 2018 and am well pleased with its simplicity for building an API and putting up simple interfaces. I haven't felt the need to ask a question here but I learn from lurking. So thanks to all, especially the main man.

On Discord, I signed up and downloaded last September because, not being a gamer, I wasn't there already and StimulusReflex interaction was centred on the thing. Then I found I couldn't disable the sound for every new message, without muting my Mac. The 'experts' didn't know how to help.

This *really* didn't fit my usage patterns. I learned a lot less about StimulusReflex as a result, which seemed a pity.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ruby-roda/2449d725-783b-4af4-b904-218c3014ca99n%40googlegroups.com.

[Jeremy Evans]

The majority of responders appeared to be OK with dropping IRC, so I took car of that in https://github.com/jeremyevans/roda/commit/c023406df905de7ab39d42878428bb6af1dfbf67

Thanks,

Jeremy