What are the best IRC channels for developers, security, networks, programming, general tech discussion, data science, etc. Just looking for some recco's.
There is one particular use of IRC channels that is insanely useful, that I'd like to share.<p>On various programming language channels, there are ad-hoc expression evaluation bots that experienced people use to guide newcomers through the intricacies of the language. If you're new to Haskell, for example, what you can do is grab the logs for the past 3 years, grep for "> " (used to invoke the evaluator) and you have instant insight into how an experienced Haskeller's mind works. It can speed up your learning by a factor of 10 compared to reading papers / blogs / formal tutorials. I know because it did this for me.
Tangentally related: #gaygeeks on FreeNodes. Tired of being the old LGBT person amoung you geeky friends? Tired of being the only geeky person amoung your LGBT friends?
I don't know that there are too many interesting "abstract" IRC communities, beyond those Freenode channels specific to a given programming language or technology.<p>I leave a connection to Freenode running while I'm at work, in a few channels related to my job... so that during builds, or other short bursts of idle time, I can glace over and see if there are any questions I can answer. Likewise, I throw out a quick question of my own every now and then, when I'm afraid it's too subjective in nature to avoid being closed by StackOverflow-lawyers.<p>I've lost interest in general chat, outside of specific questions and answers. From what I've seen, the nicer communities are the newer channels. Ironically, they degrade over time as their underlying technology matures. You would think that channels like #clojure and #go-nuts would be populated by immature hipsters, while ##java would be made up of 40-something corporate types. However, I've found that those first two channels are welcoming and thoughtful, with interesting discussion always taking place... whereas ##java (even its mods) frequently sound like pre-teens yelling profanity at each other on XBox Live.
This is going to be borderline off-topic as it's not general for developers.<p>I have to mention #clojure on freenode for being an incredibly welcoming IRC channel. The discussions you will see can be very interesting, and the community is more than often willing to help. Living in Japan, I was worried about the timezones being an issue, but there seems to be people from different parts of the world on the channel, making it very nice.
Personally, I never found IRC to be a helpful tool for learning new things from unfamiliar people.<p>To me, IRC has always been a "grapevine" tool, where etiquette, social pecking orders and gossip are shared amongst a smallish close-knit social circle. IRC always feels more like a social scene, and a distraction.<p>If anything, perhaps an IRC channel is useful for managing fluid, rapidly changing situations, where you might need an up-to-date, live information source, to use in immediate decision making (hence, why bot net command and control tends to be integrated into IRC programs), but, otherwise, chat logs from IRC usually read like a disorganized array of participant's various scattered streams of consciousness.<p>Are you looking for reading material, or a hangout?
I've found #bash to be full of very helpful people. They don't get tired at all of being asked common bash questions. On most channels, if you ask a common question, they tell you to RTFM. But not on #bash. They still tell you to RTFM, but nicely, and usually <i>after</i> they give you an actual answer. Especially that greybot guy.
#wikipedia-en is a channel where english wikipedia editors and admins hang out, and it is fun watching their discussions. #wikimedia-dev is where most of Mediawiki development happens these days, so that is nice too. #wikimedia-opearations is fun too once you ignore the icinga bot spam - not often do you get to see a world class ops team operate that transparently :)
I've recently been using SaltStack and have found #saltstack on Freenode to be very welcoming and helpful which is nice. Often you go into a channel and it's a ghost town or out right hostile to relatively simple questions. I think OSS projects in general could learn a bit of "marketing" in this regard, if your IRC channels are toxic, I immediately think your community as a whole may be toxic.
I hang out on Freenode, in #nimrod, ##php, #elementary-dev and a couple of others.<p>I'd love to know some good security ones to idle in; I've got a bit of experience in it and am trying to expand it some more, and would love a place to ask questions regarding web security and the like.
Nowadays, I mainly hang out on irc because of the #lesswrong channel on freenode. There is plenty of intelligent discussion, HN readers and no real topic.
Usually I join topic-specific channels, got tons of answers in #django , #javascript, #drupal, #flask, #python, #celery, #nodejs etc ..<p>Those are on freenode, there are channels for software users (e.g: photoshop) but on a different servers.
I have always found a bunch of nice people with a lot of knowledge in the various programming and tech channels on Freenode, like #twisted and #pocoo<p>#debian on EFNet also has a great bunch of people.
Freenode #emacs, ##linux, #nimrod, #julia and #d.<p>Nimrod's gang (including Araq) are very friendly and welcoming.<p>#julia and #d are very quiet though (except for the bots).<p>And #emacs -- well, that one channel which is lenient towards off-topic chats!
An approach that seems to work well for me is to use IRC as a way to communicate with groups people that mostly I know in person and share a common interest with. That way, I'm able to avoid a social pecking order or having to be "initiated" into a group. You may already be in one of these groups already, though the medium isn't necessarily always IRC--think Skype (text) chats groups with a subset of regulars.<p>Remember, you can always drag others along with you and start your own channel.
You're welcome to join #nirc, it's a channel originally created for <a href="https://github.com/cjstewart88/nirc" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/cjstewart88/nirc</a> but its since turned into a hangout for old coworkers and friends. We are all developers. Sometimes we are helping each other and other times we are talking about random shit... or in the event someone has a nirc question, we talk about that!
I'm a bit late to the party, but I've found ##csharp to be a fantastic channel, Very rarely do I not get a great and thoughtful response back to any issues I've had. They're also incredibly helpful when it comes to general .NET questions, which tend to get asked in ##csharp because ##asp.net is usually dead.
#lp101 on ...I think?...EFNet was the hotbed of locksport/mechanical security discussion and research for quite a while. I was amazed by some of the results of IRC-based collaboration in that community.