I really want the IRC protocol to decouple its sessions from the TCP connection and move to using HTTP as a transport, even if the only api verb is "send" and the only response is "receive output buffer".
I used to really love IRC, and think it could undergo a resurgence given the right upgrades.
Not everything has to run on top of HTTP or use json.
IRCv3 gets a lot more right than wrong.
If you want adoption within the enterprise then you really need to use HTTP.
And these days even most SMBs are taking network security seriously and blocking non HTTP ports.
So let those who need it use existing HTTP <-> IRC gateways or write their own. IRC is flexible enough to accommodate this which is testament to how resilient and extensible the protocol has proven to be over the decades.
I see no reason whatsoever to make HTTP a core requirement.
Which is why everyone uses Slack, Teams etc and IRC is irrelevant.
Because there wasn't enough focus on end user experience.
"Everyone". Obviously not. Having used IRC for 25 years, I'll take excellent SNR over the sort of focus on end user experience you're talking about.
> I'll take excellent SNR over the sort of focus on end user experience you're talking about
The kind of SNR that causes an attempted takeover? As IRC has depopulated it's been increasingly inhabited by a particular type of person and has a particular culture. That's fine, but ascribing some technical superiority to it because of your cultural preferences doesn't make sense. IRC attracts a certain type of user who persists despite its UX; it's not technologically superior. The rest of us who aren't in that culture go elsewhere, to a network that fulfills our needs. Like Matrix (or even XMPP for some).
You're being disingenuous. IRC has been right at the center of the vast majority of non-enterprise technical communities and especially opensource for the last 25 years.
Say what you will about culture but this is a fact and I don't see it changing. Slack and Teams are gimmicks at best. Matrix unusable for me, every single one of my peers and, apparently, the vast majority of said technical communities that keep their center of operations firmly entrenched in IRC.