I hate irc. I hate it for one main reason, nobody uses it. Now, before you say "over x million users" I mean use, like I actually talk, not just sit there logged on. I have tried to join a lot of open source or product channels on irc (pypi, python, docker, wercker, kubernetes, etc.) And every time without fail, I join the channel and there are over 50 people signed in and I'm like "awesome people actually use this channel", then I proceed to ask the question the prompted me to lognin in the first place. After four hours and no answer or response at all, I usually have to go home, or shut my computer down. I don't have a desktop running 24/7 just so I can irc. So once I log off, I know I'm never getting an answer. I might try again if I have another burning question, but with a couple of tries and no luck, I eventually give up.
Now slack on the other hand I've never had this problem. I don't know what it is, but some of the same communities switched over to slack (i.e. kubernetes) and once they were on slack, I was getting responses and discussions from multiple people within 15 min or less.
The beauty is even if the channel wasn't as active it would still be a million times better because I can shut down my laptop, and get notified on my phone when someone replies. I can then continue with the conversation publically or privately, even if the two of us are on other sides of the world, because history is saved and I don't miss anything I'm notified on, even if I'm not logged in anywhere.
Now slack on the other hand I've never had this problem. I don't know what it is, but some of the same communities switched over to slack (i.e. kubernetes) and once they were on slack, I was getting responses and discussions from multiple people within 15 min or less. The beauty is even if the channel wasn't as active it would still be a million times better because I can shut down my laptop, and get notified on my phone when someone replies. I can then continue with the conversation publically or privately, even if the two of us are on other sides of the world, because history is saved and I don't miss anything I'm notified on, even if I'm not logged in anywhere.