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What's IRC?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 2:23 am
by JellyFish
Is it just like an Instant Messenger?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:10 am
by malcolmboston
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:13 am
by JellyFish
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?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:14 am
by superdezign
No, it's not one-on-one.
I believe it stands for Internet Relay Chat. It's a chat room implementation.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:22 am
by JellyFish
What do you mean by one-to-one?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:40 am
by superdezign
Instant messaging is one-on-one (usually). IRC is not.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:49 am
by JellyFish
Is it kinda like RSS for Chat Rooms?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:51 am
by superdezign
JellyFish wrote:Is it kinda like RSS for Chat Rooms?
Oh like, behind the scenes? Absolutely no clue.

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:56 am
by JellyFish
superdezign wrote:JellyFish wrote:Is it kinda like RSS for Chat Rooms?
Oh like, behind the scenes? Absolutely no clue.

Oh. Well it's just chat rooms right?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:01 am
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.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:03 am
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. ^_^
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:26 am
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?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:30 am
by superdezign
I think IRC is handled through different servers. Maybe.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:33 am
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

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:35 am
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?