Yesterday, inspired by Michael Czigler's post about his approach to write an IRC client, I thought back of the days where I spent some time in various IRC channels...
irc2: A Minimal IRC Client Using netcat
It was a long time ago. Over 20 years have passed since–time really flies by … Anyway, I was about 12 or 13 years old when I first got in touch with IRC. The trigger, as far as I can remember, might have been some posts in a newsgroup I was participating in at the time. Yes, the kind of newsgroup that was accessed via NNTP back in the day. No, I am not UUCP kind of old!
My first IRC client, if I am not mistaken, was mIRC. Not a choice I would make again, but I wouldn't use Windows 95 again today either. Coming from a certain newsgroup, the first channel I participated in, was, of course, the newsgroup's channel. My first real foray into worldwide (even if it was limited to German-speaking countries in the beginning for me) text-based real-time communication. What an adventure for my 12-year-old self! About a year later, ICQ appeared, but it was really only suitable for direct messages between two people. And it was way too colorful and loud for my taste. Uh-uh! I wanted text without any bells and whistles. IRC remained my preferred real-time communication medium for the next few years.
At some point I discovered Linux-specific channels, which paved my way into the GNU/Linux world.
Especially during, but also after my first steps into the world GNU/Linux and its different distributions, the people in the respective IRC channels were always a great help. Keep in mind that Stack Overflow was not a thing yet and most problems could be addressed only via newsgroups or, especially for smaller kinks you just wanted a quick comment on how to work it out, via IRC (I'll exclude BBS systems, since I used them only very briefly and not very intensively). IRC has accompanied me on all my journeys and detours, from SuSe, to Debian, to Slackware, to Gentoo.
But solving problems was not the only focus of many lively discussions. There was chatter, philosophizing, political discussions. In summary, it was a very worthwhile time with a wide variety of individuals who I would probably never have met in the offline world. Some acquaintances I met later in real life. It was a time that I remember fondly.
At some point, I can't even say what exactly prompted it–if there was any prompt at all, I spent less and less time on IRC. Sometimes days went by without me logging in, until it became weeks and sometimes months. At some point I finally lost contact. A few years later, in my mid-twenties, I gave it another try for some time. But it just wasn't the same anymore. Maybe, in the unforeseeable future, I'll log in again sometime. And who knows, maybe I will meet one or the other acquaintance from that time. And what will we do then? Exactly, talk about old times ;-)
My thanks go to the many nice people from #linux.de, #LinuxGER (both IRCNet), and +linux.de (freenode).