Re: ICQ

[Adam Shand <larry@earthlight.co.nz>]

Hi Stefan,

>Tabs on friends are called /notify.
>Messages to others... well.. /msg, or /notice if you like..

I know this (well actually I'm not much of an IRC buff, but I could figure
it out quick enough) but that doesn't change the fact that IRC is so vast
and complicated that it loses a LOT of beginners.

>Are you saying ICQ lacks server<->server connections? If so, it's not even
>progress reinventing the wheel like that.

I don't know.  The do have multiple servers and from what I can tell they
intercommunicate, but it's all their proprietary stuff so I'm not really
sure exactly how it works.  All I know is that from what I can tell their
network is getting hit pretty hard and their servers aren't quite up to it
(and they are losing the battle from what I can see).

>Replacing a free, well established, fully functional, and multi-platform with
>a non-free, single platform lacking basic functionality for handling networks
>as they look today, sounds more insane than sane to me. Investing some time
>making the irc clients more user friendly sounds much more like a sane idea
>to me.

ICQ is free in that it doesn't cost any money, however it's not public
license or source code available.  The problem with IRC is that it simply
does TOO much.  Come to think of it ICQ does one thing that I don't think
you can do with IRC and that is leave a message for someone that they will
get as soon as they next connect.  Though again that's what email is for.

The idea of writing a VERY simple IRC client is an interesting one.  The
only problem I can see is how do you set it up so that it doesn't get
trashed by the hacker community.  My experience with IRC shows that it
leaves a lot to desired from server/security point of view.

Adam.


----------------- Earthlight Communications Limited ----------------
P.O. Box 5301	                Adam Shand 	       (fax) +64 3 477 5463
Dunedin, New Zealand       Systems Manager    (voice) +64 3 479 0303
------------------ http://larry.earthlight.co.nz/ ------------------


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