How to IRC?

How to IRC?

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi all,

I'm an (almost) complete newbie wrt IRC.  How do I start?  The EmacsWiki
page is basically a bunch of people stating that ERC is great.  That is
cool, but I'd like to learn how to use that (I found some general IRC
links there, so that part can be considered solved) and choose an
(Emacs-based, of course) IRC client.  What are the differences bewteen
(many) existing clients?  Any hints which might help me decide?

TIA,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: How to IRC?

[Aurélien Aptel]

If you want to use an Emacs client I would suggest the default one,
rcirc (bundled with emacs). Here's a quick tutorial.

Let's say you want to join the #emacs channel on the Freenode network.

C-u M-x irc RET
Emacs should prompt you for:
- a server. Default is freenode on my config (full domain just in
case: irc.freenode.net)
- a port. Freenode servers listen on several ports [1]. 6667 will do.
- a nick. This is the name others will see when you talk. Limit
yourself to ascii with no space.
- a username. Leave default.
- a password. Leave empty.
- irc channel: #emacs. Channels are usually prefixed with #.
- encryption. Leave default.

rcirc opens a server buffer (*irc.freenode.net*) which is used to send
server commands (you probably don't need it at this point) and a
buffer per channel (#emacs@irc.freenode.net) where you can actually
discuss. Switch to the #emacs@irc.freenode.net buffer and start
talking!

If you close the channel buffer, other will see you left the channel
but you are still connected to the server. You need to kill the server
buffer to be completely disconnected.

1: https://freenode.net/irc_servers.shtml

Re: How to IRC?

[Teemu Likonen]

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Aurélien Aptel [2015-12-03 16:58:20+01] wrote:

> If you want to use an Emacs client I would suggest the default one,
> rcirc (bundled with emacs).

Erc is bundled with Emacs too.

When someone is totally new to _IRC_ I'd suggest some graphical client,
not Emacs. When concepts and commands are more familiar I'd try an Emacs
IRC client.

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Re: How to IRC?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-12-03, at 17:18, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:

> Aurélien Aptel [2015-12-03 16:58:20+01] wrote:
>
>> If you want to use an Emacs client I would suggest the default one,
>> rcirc (bundled with emacs).
>
> Erc is bundled with Emacs too.
>
> When someone is totally new to _IRC_ I'd suggest some graphical client,
> not Emacs. When concepts and commands are more familiar I'd try an Emacs
> IRC client.

Why?

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: How to IRC?

[Teemu Likonen]

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Marcin Borkowski [2015-12-03 19:13:54+01] wrote:

> On 2015-12-03, at 17:18, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
>> When someone is totally new to _IRC_ I'd suggest some graphical
>> client, not Emacs. When concepts and commands are more familiar I'd
>> try an Emacs IRC client.
>
> Why?

I think Emacs's irc clients (ok, Erc at least) are difficult for
beginners. Only a suggestion.

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://github.com/tlikonen> //
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Re: How to IRC?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-12-03, at 19:22, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski [2015-12-03 19:13:54+01] wrote:
>
>> On 2015-12-03, at 17:18, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
>>> When someone is totally new to _IRC_ I'd suggest some graphical
>>> client, not Emacs. When concepts and commands are more familiar I'd
>>> try an Emacs IRC client.
>>
>> Why?
>
> I think Emacs's irc clients (ok, Erc at least) are difficult for
> beginners. Only a suggestion.

Thanks for your advice.

Challenge accepted.

I'm going with Erc.

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: How to IRC?

[Teemu Likonen]

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Marcin Borkowski [2015-12-03 21:15:10+01] wrote:

> On 2015-12-03, at 19:22, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
>> I think Emacs's irc clients (ok, Erc at least) are difficult for
>> beginners. Only a suggestion.
>
> Thanks for your advice.
>
> Challenge accepted.
>
> I'm going with Erc.

Excellent attitude! Erc is one of the best irc clients available.

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://github.com/tlikonen> //
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Re: How to IRC?

[Jude DaShiell]

People exist who aren't even graphically-oriented.  Not many of us mind 
you, but we do exist nonetheless.  I have only the command line version 
of talkingarch linux installed for that reason and memory limitations 
which may only permit a graphical user environment using orca to run 
with extreme latency if it runs at all; this machine only has a gig of 
memory.

Aside from that, I found erc works and takes my credentials from .bashrc 
to do so and it does not get automatically disconnected by remote 
server.  irc in emacs gets disconnected every time when connecting to 
freenode.net which is where erc goes to connect.  Why this is, I don't 
know.

On Thu, 3 Dec 2015, Marcin Borkowski wrote:

> Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2015 13:13:54
> From: Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>
> To: Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi>
> Cc: Help Gnu Emacs mailing list <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> Subject: Re: How to IRC?
> 
>
> On 2015-12-03, at 17:18, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
>
>> Aur?lien Aptel [2015-12-03 16:58:20+01] wrote:
>>
>>> If you want to use an Emacs client I would suggest the default one,
>>> rcirc (bundled with emacs).
>>
>> Erc is bundled with Emacs too.
>>
>> When someone is totally new to _IRC_ I'd suggest some graphical client,
>> not Emacs. When concepts and commands are more familiar I'd try an Emacs
>> IRC client.
>
> Why?
>
>

-- 

Re: How to IRC?

[Emanuel Berg]

Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> writes:

> When someone is totally new to _IRC_ I'd suggest
> some graphical client, not Emacs. When concepts and
> commands are more familiar I'd try an Emacs
> IRC client.

Ha ha ha!

Especially the OP who is totally new to Emacs and
non-GUIs should really heed this advice ;)

No, people come to Emacs and the shell/CLI world not
because it is "the next level" after "mastering" the
GUIs ("mastering a GUI" - a contradiction in terms
btw). No, it is a matter of personality. It *is* more
powerful but it isn't more difficult. A kid can do it.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: How to IRC?

[Emanuel Berg]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> I'm an (almost) complete newbie wrt IRC. How do
> I start? The EmacsWiki page is basically a bunch of
> people stating that ERC is great.

There are several Emacs IRC clients. ERC is the one
I use and tho I have encountered one bug in particular
(which was ignored on both gmane.emacs.devel and
gmane.emacs.erc.general when I brought it up) - anyway
save for that anomaly I am happy with ERC.

Here is my setup:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/erc-my.el

Also, there are a lot of `erc-' faces!

So you will have to spend some well-spent time getting
it to work to your liking.

As for IRC itself, for people like us, it isn't that
great. Gmane/Usenet is much, much better. But IRC is
good for questions that you know there is
a fast-and-standard answer to. Anything that requires
discussion and follow-ups, use the listbots/newsgroups
as always.

Historically IRC is a playground for havoc kids to
experiment with security and be immature nox-ing each
other, do takeovers - basically boys will be boys, tho
some of these boys are bit more... whatever.
For grownups to spend time "idling" on IRC - I don't
see the sense in that. And I'm more than willing to
have a flame war over that RIGHT NOW! ... No, just
kidding :)

Emacs of course, makes both IRC and Gmane better.
If you don't get an answer on IRC, kill you question,
bring up a message buffer, and send it to Gmane!

Case closed.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: How to IRC?

[Shakthi Kannan]

Hi Marcin,

--- On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 8:06 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:
| I'm an (almost) complete newbie wrt IRC.  How do I start?  The EmacsWiki
| page is basically a bunch of people stating that ERC is great.  That is
| cool, but I'd like to learn how to use that (I found some general IRC
| links there, so that part can be considered solved) and choose an
| (Emacs-based, of course) IRC client.  What are the differences bewteen
| (many) existing clients?  Any hints which might help me decide?
\--

I started with ERC, but, it kept getting disconnected, and
reconnecting. I switched to using rcirc. My configuration is at:

  https://github.com/shakthimaan/cask-dot-emacs/blob/master/etc/init-rcirc.el

SK

-- 
Shakthi Kannan
http://www.shakthimaan.com

Re: How to IRC?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm an (almost) complete newbie wrt IRC.  How do I start?  The EmacsWiki
> page is basically a bunch of people stating that ERC is great.  That is
> cool, but I'd like to learn how to use that (I found some general IRC
> links there, so that part can be considered solved) and choose an
> (Emacs-based, of course) IRC client.  What are the differences bewteen
> (many) existing clients?  Any hints which might help me decide?

I use erc.

So once you've installed it,

M-x erc-select RET
irc.freenode.org RET
marcin RET
RET
wait for the connection, then in the irc.freenode.org buffer,
/join #emacs RET
and start to chat.

You can customize erc to store the default irc server, nickname,
password, and a list of channels you'd want to join automatically.

M-x customize-group RET erc RET



-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                 http://www.informatimago.com/
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a
dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to
keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk

Re: How to IRC?

[Emanuel Berg]

"Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
writes:

> So once you've installed it

You don't need to install it, but I suspect this
wasn't always the case.

> M-x erc-select RET irc.freenode.org RET marcin RET
> RET wait for the connection, then in the
> irc.freenode.org buffer, /join #emacs RET and start
> to chat.
>
> You can customize erc to store the default irc
> server, nickname, password, and a list of channels
> you'd want to join automatically.
>
> M-x customize-group RET erc RET

Or you can do it straight with Elisp:

    (setq erc-server "irc.freenode.net")
    (setq erc-port   6667)

    (setq erc-nick            user-login-name)
    (setq erc-user-full-name  user-login-name)

    (erc)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: How to IRC?

[B. T. Raven]

On 12/3/2015 8:36 AM, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm an (almost) complete newbie wrt IRC.  How do I start?  The EmacsWiki
> page is basically a bunch of people stating that ERC is great.  That is
> cool, but I'd like to learn how to use that (I found some general IRC
> links there, so that part can be considered solved) and choose an
> (Emacs-based, of course) IRC client.  What are the differences bewteen
> (many) existing clients?  Any hints which might help me decide?
>
> TIA,
>


I found these related lines in my .emacs:


(defalias 'irc 'erc) ;; so M-x irc loads the erc chat module

through Customize set these; substitute your own servers, channels, etc.

  '(erc-autojoin-channels-alist (quote (("dal.net") ("freenode.net" 
"#emacs"))))
  '(erc-manual-set-nick-on-bad-nick-p t)
  '(erc-modules (quote (autojoin button completion fill irccontrols 
match menu netsplit noncommands readonly ring stamp)))
  '(erc-nick "yournick")
  '(erc-pcomplete-mode t)
  '(erc-port 6667)
  '(erc-server "irc.dal.net") ;; or your own
  '(erc-stamp-mode t)
  '(erc-truncate-mode t)

the Emacs rcirc module might be easier to use but it's less capable than erc

Anyway, wait for more authoritative suggestions. Often I have to fall 
back on Chatzilla or another client when dal.net won't connect. I don't 
know if the problem is in one of my Emacs settings or what.

hth,

Ed

Re: How to IRC?

[Emanuel Berg]

"B. T. Raven" <btraven@nihilo.net> writes:

> Anyway, wait for more authoritative suggestions.
> Often I have to fall back on Chatzilla or another
> client when dal.net won't connect. I don't know if
> the problem is in one of my Emacs settings or what.

Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:

> irc in emacs gets disconnected every time when
> connecting to freenode.net which is where erc goes
> to connect. Why this is, I don't know.

Okaaay...

In theory as well as practice, unless practice is at
an embarrassingly low level (and a wierd one at that),
the IRC client shouldn't one bit influence the status
of IRC as a network, and the client should be able to
connect to any server that any other client is able to
connect to.

If not, the IRC protocol isn't implemented correctly -
and this is something we normally take for granted
when discussing clients. E.g., when we say Gnus is
better than Thunderbird, we mean we prefer the Gnus
*interface*, we appreciate Gnus being part of Emacs,
the configurability and Elisping, and so on - we don't
mean that Thunderbird is incapable of delivering and
fetching the actual mails.

With ERC, these variables

    (setq erc-server "irc.freenode.net")
    (setq erc-port   6667)

are prefixed `erc-' but that refers to them being part
of the ERC software; ERC is still the client and the
server is the server of the IRC network - so by
changing that variable value, ERC should be able to
connect to virtually all servers (except some for
non-technology reasons).

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: How to IRC?

[Nicolas Richard]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> "B. T. Raven" <btraven@nihilo.net> writes:
>
>> Anyway, wait for more authoritative suggestions.
>> Often I have to fall back on Chatzilla or another
>> client when dal.net won't connect. I don't know if
>> the problem is in one of my Emacs settings or what.
>
> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:
>
>> irc in emacs gets disconnected every time when
>> connecting to freenode.net which is where erc goes
>> to connect. Why this is, I don't know.
>
> Okaaay...
>
> In theory as well as practice, unless practice is at
> an embarrassingly low level (and a wierd one at that),
> the IRC client shouldn't one bit influence the status
> of IRC as a network, and the client should be able to
> connect to any server that any other client is able to
> connect to.

An IRC client can have bugs (e.g. fail to respond to PING requests from
the IRC server for some reason), leading to it being disconnected more
often.

That being said, I never noticed any such disconnection problem with
rcirc, which I use. Some people on #emacs use ERC with a very impressive
uptime too, so I doubt rcirc or ERC have this sort of bugs.

OTOH, since emacs has only one lisp thread, when emacs is doing
something, it will most likely stop responding to ping requests and, if
it emacs is busy long enough, this can lead to disconnection. A common
suggestion (even though I don't follow it) is to use a separate emacs
session only for IRC.

-- 
Nicolas

Re: How to IRC?

[Emanuel Berg]

Nicolas Richard <nrichard@ulb.ac.be> writes:

> An IRC client can have bugs

No :)

> That being said, I never noticed any such
> disconnection problem with rcirc, which I use.
> Some people on #emacs use ERC with a very impressive
> uptime too, so I doubt rcirc or ERC have this sort
> of bugs.

I doubt that as well. Anyway, look (!) - uptime again!
It is such a useful thing :)

> OTOH, since emacs has only one lisp thread, when
> emacs is doing something, it will most likely stop
> responding to ping requests and, if it emacs is busy
> long enough, this can lead to disconnection.
> A common suggestion (even though I don't follow it)
> is to use a separate emacs session only for IRC.

That might be a good solution with respect to uptime
but not with respect to using Emacs and ERC/IRC to do
useful things. Say that you work on some source and
you want to yank it into the ERC buffer. Or the other
way around.

I'd say in general it is preferrable to do it the
other way around - keep everything including ERC/IRC
in the regular Emacs session, and then, for the rare
occasions when you use Emacs for batch/DP stuff that
might block IRC, put *that* in its own session.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: How to IRC?

[B. T. Raven]

On 12/16/2015 9:34 AM, Nicolas Richard wrote:
> Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
>
>> "B. T. Raven" <btraven@nihilo.net> writes:
>>
>>> Anyway, wait for more authoritative suggestions.
>>> Often I have to fall back on Chatzilla or another
>>> client when dal.net won't connect. I don't know if
>>> the problem is in one of my Emacs settings or what.
>>
>> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:
>>
>>> irc in emacs gets disconnected every time when
>>> connecting to freenode.net which is where erc goes
>>> to connect. Why this is, I don't know.
>>
>> Okaaay...
>>
>> In theory as well as practice, unless practice is at
>> an embarrassingly low level (and a wierd one at that),
>> the IRC client shouldn't one bit influence the status
>> of IRC as a network, and the client should be able to
>> connect to any server that any other client is able to
>> connect to.
>
> An IRC client can have bugs (e.g. fail to respond to PING requests from
> the IRC server for some reason), leading to it being disconnected more
> often.
>
> That being said, I never noticed any such disconnection problem with
> rcirc, which I use. Some people on #emacs use ERC with a very impressive
> uptime too, so I doubt rcirc or ERC have this sort of bugs.
>
> OTOH, since emacs has only one lisp thread, when emacs is doing
> something, it will most likely stop responding to ping requests and, if
> it emacs is busy long enough, this can lead to disconnection. A common
> suggestion (even though I don't follow it) is to use a separate emacs
> session only for IRC.
>

Thanks Nicolas. Whenever I have the problem, Emacs shouldn't be busy 
with any thing other than holding the contents of 5-10 text buffers in 
memory. The problem is not disconnection but failing to connect (about 
20% of the time. If erc connects to dal.net, it will likely stay 
connected. Also, I have always been able to connect with Chatzilla when 
Emacs (erc) is not working. If I figure out the problem I'll post an 
explanation but I may not devote much time to it since irc represents 
much less than 1% of my computer usage in any given week.

Thanks again,

Ed

Re: How to IRC?

[Emanuel Berg]

"B. T. Raven" <btraven@nihilo.net> writes:

> Thanks Nicolas. Whenever I have the problem, Emacs
> shouldn't be busy with any thing other than holding
> the contents of 5-10 text buffers in memory.

That shouldn't influence even if you have 100 buffers,
as long as they don't do any active computation.

> The problem is not disconnection but failing to
> connect (about 20% of the time. If erc connects to
> dal.net, it will likely stay connected.

Why do you want dal.net anyway? Better:

    irc.freenode.net

(But I just connected with ERC to arcor.de.eu.dal.net
with no problems.)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573