Software Development (CSC 321 2016S) : Handouts
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Related Courses: [Rails Tutorial] [CSC 321 2016S @ EdX] [CSC 321 2015S (Davis)] [CSC 321 2015F (Rebelsky)] [CSC 322 2016S (Rebelsky)]
Misc: [SamR] [Glimmer Labs] [CS@Grinnell] [Grinnell] [Issue Tracker]
I have started using Internet Relay Chat (IRC) as a place to hold
online office hours or just to answer student questions. IRC is
a relatively simple, relatively lightweight, public chat program.
You can find me in the channel grinnell-cs
on the
freenode.net
IRC server.
Why am I asking you to use IRC? I have a few reasons:
I've also heard good things about the use of IRC from a valued colleague at another institution, and I want to see if his experiences translate well to Grinnell.
Forthcoming.
A large number of FOSS communities use IRC, often in multiple ways. (The two most common ways are scheduled meetings and just being available for questions or discussion.) Why use IRC? My sense is that two main principals dictate its use: IRC is open and and egalitarian.
FOSS folks really seem to believe in working in the open - being willing to reveal the mess behind the scenes in software. They make incomplete work available (which I will admit is hard for someone like me, who is too often a perfectionist in his software). Doing so not only makes it easier for people to see what's happening, it may make it easier for others to join in. And being open makes it possible for anyone to join in.
How is IRC egalitarian? It's simple and low bandwidth, which makes it available to a wider variety of people. You can use IRC on a computer that's more than a decade old, running an old OS. You can use IRC on a smart phone (although I wouldn't recommend it). But the use of text is also egalitarian - if English isn't your native language (or whatever language is being used for the chat), you can copy and paste into a translator, such as Google translate, and usually get a better sense of the conversation.
I'd be interested in hearing your own thoughts on why IRC is or is not a good technology for communicating.