Hi all, So it should be generally known that Julia has a IRC Channel: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=julia and a Gitter https://gitter.im/JuliaLang/julia
The Gitter is (AFAICT) moderately active, with a mix of new-comers and experienced users. The IRC is not. As of the last week or so I think I was the only person posting who had used julia for more than a couple of months. Almost all posts have been people saying "I just started julia, how do i X", and generally me responding with "By doing Y", or sometimes me saying "idk, I've never Xed, try Stackoverflow" Anyway, I don't particularly mind answering questions. But my enthusiasm for IRC goes up and down, sometimes I stop using it for months. I suggest that we should connect the Gitter and the IRC into a single instant-messaging/chat "Room". Via some form of IRC-Gitter bridge. On a quick look for how to do this: - Sameroom <https://sameroom.io/blog/how-to-bridge-existing-irc-channels-and-rooms-on-gitter/>: Commerical, but says "we're happy to provide chat interop to open source communities." - Gitter IRC-bridge <https://github.com/gitterHQ/irc-bridge>: Made by the people who make Gitter (I think), doesn't bridge to existing channel (AFAICT), but creates a new channel -- which we could use (and deprecate Freenode), or we could hack a IRC-IRC brdige to connect freenode to it (or maybe even do it properly with IRC's peering stuff, but I can't recall if that is possible, particularly without intervention from a Freenode Oper) - IRC2Gitter <https://github.com/shyim/Irc2Gitter>: This seems simple, and open source. Looks like a chuck of node.js that you can just stick on a computer and leave running and have it do the bridging. It seem like it is in current development (or at least maintance) since it got a push last week. There are other more complicated routes, like I bet you can bridge GItter to Slack and I know you can bridge Slack to IRC. There is also the simpler route of just terminating the IRC channel, and telling people not to use it and to just use gitter. Having an inactive IRC does not make us look good.
