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IRC as a World-Changing Medium
khaladan writes "Wired has an interesting article titled Chat Room That Built the World that talks about the power of developers helping each other on IRC. The article covers the case of #winprog on EFnet, where people such Justin Frankel (creator of Winamp), John Johansen (DVD Jon), and Shawn Fanning (of Napster fame) have come to chat, hang out, and get help. Many from Microsoft visit the channel as well. Ben Knauss calls it 'innovation in its purest form, without ego, money or fame as its goal.'"
Even the warez channels suck (assuming you can find something to download, you end up in a queue with about 5000 other people). At least with p2p, you can just leave it running and it will download eventually.
Plus with p2p, you can pause it (and shut down the PC, reboot, close the program, whatever) and come back later and it will continue where you left off.
Oh and does anyone know of an IRC client for windows that is open source and which has good DCC functionality including DCC resume?
90% of the questions, on #winprog, can be answered via Google; the #winprog OPs will either ignore the question or, more likely, honestly crush the ego of the person who so wastes their time. The channel promotes open discussion on Windows programming and other topics. The quality of #winprog depends on the quality of the questions, pure and simple.
#winprog is not dead. You just have to ask questions, in the correct manner. If you can't handle that, maybe you should go work behind some fast food counter and ask the customer what they would want with their fries.
Don't treat #winprog as though it's your personal Google and we won't treat you, like you were a dumb asshat fucktard; as you probably deserve.
Yeah I'm an OP on #winprog. Be jealous.
Just because you're not an OP doesn't mean that I am on a power trip. I can't help it if you have some sort of inferiority complex, where you think IRC OPs are out to persecute innocent you.
The purpose of the OPs is to police the channel for spammers, dickwads that want to squelch speech, and trolls. However, if people use #winprog as your personal Google, they'll get a exactly what they deserve; OPs will participate and won't protect them.
We're not here to make you feel warm and fuzzy and good all over. If you want some of that action, go to #teen.