IRC channel + introduction of myself + appreciation

General
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Hello all, in order of the subject line:

Table of Contents

  • IRC Channel
  • Introduction
  • Gratitude

IRC Channel

I’ve noticed there is no official Odin irc channel; it’s not on me to criticize or question this, as I’m aware IRC is not the “thing of the day” and maintaining any place needs staff, moderation, etc pp. As I, and others, despise Discord though, and find the simple nature of IRC appealing for more chatty less long-form use cases (than a forum for example), I went and registered #odin-lang on irc.libera.chat (the largest irc network, focuses on open source software specifically).

You can even join over web via: https://web.libera.chat/ simply #odin-lang as the channel.

A few points regarding the channel:

  • The channel makes clear it’s unofficial, and does NOT claim any official affiliation
  • if anyone wants to join, and has good standing in this forum, I’m willing to make them into a permanent channel moderator (upon quick check on some of their posts, feel free to throw your name into the ring here)
  • If anyone officially linked to Odin wants to take over the channel I’ll gladly hand it over (if the channel is then officially run, if not, let it be a community driven affair)

Introduction of myself

I’m a software developer from Germany working in machine automation; in my spare time I’ve mainly dabbled w/ C lately but became increasingly frustrated with aspects of it (macros, build system, make files, lack of native strings, subtle bugs, memory management facilities, …).

Therefore I’ve started to explore Odin, knowing Ginger Bill from many podcasts, and finding him likeable, but more important, agreeing with most of what he says about software development (he described Linux on Desktop as unusable though, so good to see he isn’t completely infallible (tongue in cheek here)). My hope was Odin would be the “just let me program language” I could use to build upon regarding my private educational efforts and project ideas… and how it’s looking so far…

Appreciation / Thanks

It may be early but I feel warranted to already say: A HUGE appreciation to Ginger Bill, any developer helping out, JangaFX for part-sponsoring the language. There’s already so much things I like about the language. I can see the benefits of so many things (array programming, how slices work, AOS/SOA, simd library, matrices, context system), love the “try to do the sensible thing”-approach in lack of explicitness (simpler said than done) over for example zig’s “explicitness at all times” (not to start a flame war, just a preference).

So thank you already <3 Also started to donate which I encourage everyone to consider, small contributions go a long way, and work isn’t free. I hope I’ll have time to pop into this forum from time to time, always busy. Will see some of you on IRC maybe.

Cheers,

src

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There’s been an IRC channel for over a year.

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Welcome, magician of the source! :hugs:

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Thanks for pointing that out!

Not too many users either though (counted 6) and very curious choice of a network, never heard of “hackint.org” nor know who runs it.

libera.chat is the largest and therefore quasi-default network for open source software, where some of the largest channels for open-source projects and programming channels, some official even, are.

Many of which concern topics that jive well w/ an interest in Odin, some examples of libera channels’ user count:

  • #c channel has >800 users
  • #go-nuts (for Go) channel has >700
  • #python channel has >1500 users
  • and many more, small and large
    • various c++ channels w/ >200 users each
    • unofficial #sdl channel w/ >80 users
    • etc pp

Easy to see how someone from those channels, and others, might stick their head into #odin-lang if it’s a simple “join”, rather than to add a network to their client and register w/ a new unknown network (let alone finding that in the first place).

Many users, myself including, by default would search for a channel of an open-source language on libera. Therefore I’ll keep it for now and see if a community starts thriving there.

It might have a better chance there than on a mostly unknown irc network.

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Created a pull request to add #odin-lang to the IRC channels on the website

Think I kept it fair, hackint channel is on top (was the first one after all) ; also added a line stating that none of the listed irc channels are official

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Denied the pull request.

It’s also presumptious of you to create a pull request adding this competing IRC channel after learning we already have one, not to mention rather rude for someone to do after parachuting into this community 24 hours ago, with zero history of contribution.

Thanks, but no thanks.

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So, I guess the “unofficial Odin IRC channel” isn’t so unoffical after all?
Also “competing” channel?
Instead of aggressively rejecting it, be happy that someone is willing to host an Odin IRC channel.
The more the merrier?
Is the Odin community a place where we must prove ourselves?
I am disappointed, to be honest.
It’s obviously entirely up to you, the Odin team, how you want to run the project.

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First of all, people’s time and attention is limited. Any time spent on Discord is time not spent on the forums, is time not spent on IRC. At some point adding more options isn’t going to grow a community, it will fragment it.

It’s great that OP is enthusiastic enough about Odin to start an IRC channel, but when we’re talking about the already small subset of those with an interest in the IRC protocol, adding a second IRC network - whose messages aren’t crossposted - it’s not growing the community, it dilutes it.

Not too many users either though (counted 6) and very curious choice of a network, never heard of “hackint.org” nor know who runs it.

There was no reason for this jab. If you don’t know who runs it, learn about it. If the number of users isn’t to your liking, the last thing you should be doing is advertising another place for people to go to instead.

More choice isn’t always better, certainly not in this case.

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Momentum , Fragmentation, Motivation

Momentum is important hence why people are on Discord and Odin is there, and many use it. Hence why a channel on Libera might thrive more considering the huge user base there, and I wanted to run that attempt.

Considering an unofficial channel existing for a year, on a to me unknown network, has accumulated 6 users, I thought the experiment was all the more justified. I did not argue for switching, for making any channel official, I even offered to hand off the libera channel if anyone affiliated wanted to take over.

Rather than fragmenting I’d call it: Let people organize wherever they want to organize at, and see what happens, and for many, myself included, and because of many interest-related communities already present on Libera (as laid out), it’s simply the lowest friction and more visible network.

Two points regarding things that seem to have been taken the wrong way:

  • Regarding “less than 24 hours here with 0 contributions”, I think I made a decent open-minded attempt at an introduction, gave understandable reasoning and motivation (you could even argue this my first contribution, though may potential future attemps have better success of course)

  • Rather than the “pull request” is rude, I thought it was rude to expect someone else to ‘add’ my channel to the site, putting someone else to work for what is a simple edit. So I made the github account, found out how to do the pull request. Also thought the change in the pull respect was respectful to the already existing channel.

Consider the Issue resolved!

Seems unnecessary ego is involved here, I’d say it’s not me, others will say it’s me, but I have neither the time nor energy to argue much about it, and I do partly agree that I have no position in this community to argue to begin with.

Again: I work full time as a software developer intending to use Odin for private study efforts. I do not intend to make this into big drama, considering it would not be a productive use of my time to begin with (nor of anyone else’s!)

Consider the issue resolved from my side.

Follow-Up Question

With one follow up question if I may: Is the channel on hackint now official or not?! Because this would obviously change things, I’d be happy to promote the official hackint channel in libera’s #odin-lang topic, pointing people towards it. Should be good for disoverability!

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Attempt at Damage Control, please no drama

btw: Appreciate the sentiment, but I’d encourage you, and everyone else reading this thread and sharing a similar opinion for the matter, to not be disappointed too much.

Written communication in open source projects, and let’s be honest, among the technically inclined programming types sometimes especially, is fraught with peril. And a “new guy” showing up, “here’s my IRC channel” (not to say that was my attitude, but from a cursory glance…)…

I can’t completely deny the fact that I, simply on the other side of the isle, might have reacted the exact same.

As I’ve said in my previous post: I consider it resolved, no need for unncessary drama, taking sides etc pp!

Odin is still awesome obviously :) and I’m still more than excited to write stuff in it!

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Very well, then I consider the matter resolved as well.

I detect an assumption that the unofficial IRC channel has been advertised for the duration of its existence. While it’s existed for around a year, it’s only been linked from the main site for a month or two, and it hasn’t been pushed. Too much is read into this user figure.

The comparison with the #c channel, #go-nuts channel likewise doesn’t justify the creation of a new channel on another server. Let’s round #c’s user numbers up to 900 and divide that by #odin’s tally of 6. I am happy to concede that the C programming language has more than 150x the userbase of Odin, and then some.

Now you did say that these are people that may stop by an Odin channel, and point taken, but when you read it in context of a dig at “the unknown” hackint and the low user count, it parses as a spurious comparison, as our userbases aren’t comparably sized. :slight_smile:

I’m glad there’s no ill will. I do stand by my reasoning that linking to a second IRC channel on another server would fragment rather than expand the community. As such I won’t be reopening the pull request.

With that out of the way, welcome.

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It’s not official. While I am a team member, and I’m always present there, it’s still an unofficial IRC channel. I don’t think there will ever be an official one either.

You’re welcome to think of it as an officially blessed community enclave, if that makes sense. It’s a decently apt moniker for it. In the same way that Karl’s book isn’t an official Odin book, but we quite appreciate it and are happy to point people to it.

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#odin-lang topic on Libera now reads:

Unofficial channel for the Odin programming language, see https://odin-lang.org for details; The "official" channel (blessed by Odin devs, not run by them) is on the hackint network, for instructions see https://odin-lang.org/community/irc/ ; you may still gather here of course

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I think it would be better with:

“The “officially blessed” channel is on the hackint network. For instructions see . . .”

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I am the founder of the IRC channel, and I too am everpresent.

You have presumed a specific interest in population numbers. I have done no advertising up until this point, because I have no interest in such figures.

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The point is not to compare to #c’s numbers, the point is that a #c channel with >800 users is a few dozen of those w/ potential to like Odin, so hope for cross-population (same with countless other channels on libera), the size of an Odin channel itself being a dozen or two seems fine and it will unlikely reach beyond that number in any case (in the near to mid future at least)

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I am new here myself, but I have heard people say that increasing adoption of Odin is not really a goal. Can anyone confirm that? I may be wrong.

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Odin’s design philosophy isn’t really hypeable. It doesn’t lend itself to marketing very well because its killer features are that it doesn’t have any.

Bill studied languages that came before and kept what worked, removed what didn’t. How do you market reducing friction where you need it, and introducing slight friction in other places to avoid anti-patterns?

On top of that we’re also rather open about people using the right tool for the job, and that Odin may not be the right fit for every problem. That’s also not very sexy.

It’s not that we want to limit adoption, and more that it naturally attracts people who’ve thoroughly used other languages and arrived at a certain programming sensibility. Increasing Odin’s adoption is likely going to remain largely by word of mouth; a language that gets out of the way to let you focus on your software doesn’t lend itself to marketing in the same way a language that sells silver bullets does.

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I can hype Odin a bit:

“Odin let’s you do what you want, safely and efficiently”

“Odin - batteries included; hoops and hand-holding excluded”

“Odin, because you’re worth it”

I could go on . . . :wink: :wine_glass:

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I’m skeptical of such bridges in general, but haven’t experienced IRC ↔ Discord myself yet. Often time communication culture is different, messages from another network are tagged in some way, the bridges I’ve experienced often worsened communication for both sides, had a spammy feel to them etc. I think I’d rather have some “fragmentation”. As a non-Discord using IRC user I want to escape Discord, not have it within IRC. :wink:

Also “a few users” on IRC and 50% of them are probably also at Discord, doesn’t warrant the invest yet to set up a bridge and maintain it imo, though that’s not on me. If it were on me I wouldn’t bother though.