[llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for LLVM's discussions

[Dan Liew via llvm-dev]

On Mon, 18 Nov 2019 at 07:29, Kristina Brooks via llvm-dev
<llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
> While I understand the difficulty regarding mailing lists especially
> if one isn't used to setting up mailboxes and filters to classify and
> label emails and do think a web forum may be easier to use, I would
> have concerns over Discord. Unlike IRC which has a fairly open
> protocol and many clients and open source server implementations,
> Discord is fairly hostile towards 3rd party clients, and has a
> concerning history with regards to privacy. While that may not be a
> concern for public channels, private messages are another matter
> entirely. The protocol isn't entirely friendly and is relatively new,
> which makes it inflexible to use compared to IRC. IRC clients are easy
> to leave in tmux sessions and reconnect,

I think "easy" is very subjective here. It is "easy" if you already

* Know how to use Tmux (or screen).
* Have an always up server that you can have your IRC client running on.
* Are familiar with IRC.

I think it would be incorrect to assume that every person interested
in hacking on LLVM is willing (or knows how to) set this up.

> as opposed to Discord where
> something akin to a web browser is required for a somewhat stable
> client

Is there anything wrong with asking people to use Discord via a web
browser? To do many things these days you **need a web browser**. If I
compare the easy of use of using a web browser vs your proposed IRC
set up, the web browser wins, hands down.
There may be a more comfortable middle ground here if there is strong
community resistance to using a service like Discord. There are web
browser IRC clients that might be considered "good enough" that the
barrier to entry is low enough if we clearly document how newcomers
can use it to get started in the community.

Personally I've not used Discord much but I am going to try it for a
few weeks to see how it goes.

Dan.