What's IRC?

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JellyFish
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What's IRC?

Post by JellyFish »

Is it just like an Instant Messenger?
malcolmboston
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Post by malcolmboston »

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JellyFish
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Post by JellyFish »

malcolmboston wrote:IRC
Yeah, I read that. But I didn't really understand it. Isn't it just like an IM? I guess what I should of asked was: What's the difference between IRC and IM?
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

No, it's not one-on-one.

I believe it stands for Internet Relay Chat. It's a chat room implementation.
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JellyFish
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Post by JellyFish »

What do you mean by one-to-one?
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

Instant messaging is one-on-one (usually). IRC is not.
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JellyFish
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Post by JellyFish »

Is it kinda like RSS for Chat Rooms?
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

JellyFish wrote:Is it kinda like RSS for Chat Rooms?
Oh like, behind the scenes? Absolutely no clue. :P
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JellyFish
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Post by JellyFish »

superdezign wrote:
JellyFish wrote:Is it kinda like RSS for Chat Rooms?
Oh like, behind the scenes? Absolutely no clue. :P
Oh. Well it's just chat rooms right?
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Yes, just for chat rooms, but not like RSS. IRC was probably one of the first ever "chat rooms" to appear. You can get al kinds of command line clients or GUI-based clients for it and I'll bet my socks someone has written a PHP one using the ncurses library ;)

Basically you open your IRC client (which is generic enough to access any IRC chat room), then /connect to a server hosting the chat, /join the chat and off you go.

I forget the exact commands you use, but it's something like that. It's pretty simple to write a basic client for I think.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

JellyFish wrote:Oh. Well it's just chat rooms right?
Si. Try out mIRC if your curious. I'm surprised you hadn't heard of it. Starsiege: Tribes introduced me to it. Awesome game by the way. ^_^
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JellyFish
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Post by JellyFish »

I've heard of it, just never knew what it really was. Can't you just use mySQL to host a chart room or is that what IRC does?
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

I think IRC is handled through different servers. Maybe.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

JellyFish wrote:I've heard of it, just never knew what it really was. Can't you just use mySQL to host a chart room or is that what IRC does?
Yes you can use MySQL, but IRC is old and it's generic. If you wrote a MySQL hosted chat room people would have to download the right client for your version of a chat room, or they'd have to go to your website to use your AJAX version or whatever. If a chat room uses IRC, all you need is a generic IRC client.

I mean, I could have IRC open now and be sat on the DevNet chat room and also in a Java developers chat room without having to use two different clients. It's just a really generic chat room implementation. It's not like MSN or Yahoo where you have to get an account from a big organisation then downoad the software. I can't really explain any further, just take the advice of others and give it a go ;)
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JellyFish
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Post by JellyFish »

superdezign wrote:I think IRC is handled through different servers. Maybe.
Well whatever way IRC does their thing and if it's different to just using mySQL (which I'm sure it is), is it better then using just mySQL and php to create a chat room?
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