I think gchat had a horrible ux.
Slack is better compared to a simple to use irc. In fact the only thing it really has over irc is UI/ux.
Slack is better compared to a simple to use irc. In fact the only thing it really has over irc is UI/ux.
I think it had a simple UI, which for many things worked very well. When I managed the Technical Support for a university using Google Apps for Education, gchat's simple interface was kind of a blessing in that everyone on the campus had it, it was unobtrusive, automatically saved and searchable (though the search could have used some improvements), and you could make calls/video calls without leaving your email.
When it switched to hangouts, a lot of the simplicity left with it in favor of a more social experience; large user-pics on by default (at the beginning I don't think you could customize this either), the windows were significantly bigger, and the text box lost space to the emoji/add picture buttons.
It was a pretty simple, out of the way, and concise chat option with, as far as I could tell, nothing really hidden. What you saw is what you got.
This is its default size and behavior when in a browser: https://imgur.com/bXL1Ezn
This. Is. Horrible.
I have some very, very unkind words for the person or team or manager who decided to make hangouts show as few lines as possible. It didn't used to be this way.
It really makes me sad that it's 2016 and we haven't just updated IRC. Text is cheap: storing every byte every written on an IRC server would cost, essentially, nothing.
I'd say that there's a lot more to it than that. IRC isn't intuitive for new, modern users. Take login and password recognition using one of the many NickServ options, for example.
[1] https://client02.chat.mibbit.com/?channel=%237daystodie&serv...
Oh, you mean its easier for people who already have github account? Who are these people that create accounts on a hosting service for one of the more complicated version control systems but find connecting to ftp servers and entering cli commands too daunting?
If you want to talk about confusing, in gitter I can navigate to a room and see what happens in it but I need to press an extra button to actually be able to talk in it? What? Rooms, private chats and /me? Many parts of gitter doesn't make sense if you don't know the whole chat paradigm that irc created.
Gitter derives it utility purely in the better web client and its custom built integration with github.
I agree -- I was extremely happy with my all-in-one IRC / XMPP app many years ago. Now everything is fragmented to the point of uselessness in the name of a few bells and whistles. Or maybe it's corporate greed. Either way, it's infuriating.
Even more reason to keep it compatible with XMPP so that one could use it with his favorite XMPP client.