77 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
77 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Matrix Has U
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date: 2015-11-27
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tags:
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- matrix
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- irc
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- legacycontent
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---
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[This is an old post that didn't survive the port of my website from Lua to Go.
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I have rescued this post from archive.org. Hope you enjoy 2015 Xena
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posting!](conversation://Cadey/enby)
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As a lot of people close to me know, I am a very avid IRC user. I like the
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simplicity of IRC and how easy it is to set up your own node. I like how the
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protocol is easily scriptable for and think that a lot of the extensions are
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well thought out and useful.
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That being said, a lot about the protocol is absolute garbage. It is poorly
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understood by nearly all but the most sophisticated developers and a lot of
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companies that offer IRC gateways to things half-ass it. Not to mention of
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course the other core problem that ircd in 2015 acts the same way as ircd in
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2005 did.
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Every time your TCP socket to the server dies, your session is deleted and you
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need to start over from scratch. Bouncers basically just make it harder for the
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TCP socket to die by having another server with a (hopefully) more stable
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connection keep your IRC socket open. You have to verify your identity to a bot
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in order to get access to places from another bot, and if you're lucky that
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will be done by default and not require additional commands in order to enter
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invite-only secret rooms. You'll have to be even luckier to have an IRC server
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or bot setup that caches the most recent channel messages so you have context
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to what is going on there. Private messages are one-to-one and adding another
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person to a conversation means having to create a private channel, meaning you
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just bring on the pain points mentioned earlier.
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Things like this are also causing IRC networks to slowly hemmorage users to
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things that do the job even worse like Slack, Skype and Telegram.
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It's a mess. There has got to be a better way, one that lets you still have
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channel moderation controls, doesn't have clients that look terrible in
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comparison, still lets you have file uploads and the like, seamless mobile
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integration and not losing messages when connecting from a different device.
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Luckily, we live in the future, and there is an option. This option is
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[Matrix](https://matrix.org).
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From a high level, it will look like the new XMPP. It kind of is, but at its
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core it is far superior to XMPP in my opinion. Its protocol is nothing more
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than JSON over HTTPS. It is built for multi-user rooms from the beginning
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instead of [half-assing it in an extension](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html).
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Its reference home server [synapse](https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse)
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is under the permissive [Apache](https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/LICENSE)
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license. You can even set up your own homeserver and have it federate to
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other home servers, or if you like you can also choose not to.
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You can even join channels hosted on IRC networks like Freenode or Moznet by
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joining channels formatted like `#freenode_#ipfs:matrix.org` or their main home
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base `#matrix:matrix.org`. The bridging is seamless, with one matrix user
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created per active IRC user and vice versa.
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Usage of matrix via the [Vector](https://vector.im/beta) client is very simple:
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1. Sign up for an account by clicking on "Create a New Account"
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2. Enter in a valid email address, a password and your desired username
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3. Check your email for the activation link
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4. Click it and click the button on Vector that says you did so
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5. Join a channel and start talking
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My current home-base on Matrix is `#ponydevs:matrix.org` and I'd love see you
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in there too.
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TL;DR: IRC is dying, Matrix is a very valid sucessor. Matrix has u.
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To find out more about Matrix, read their [home page](https://matrix.org) or
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their [FAQ](https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html).
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