[chishaku]

> ICQ, Microsoft instant messenger ... slack like tools...

I think people too often overlook Slack's integrations. Yes, Slack is "just" chat or "just" a glorified IRC. Or is it?

I don't know how long it would take me to integrate my Stripe, Github, Trello, and Zendesk streams into IRC to the point where I could set it and forget it. I think for business users at least, using this type of setup _effectively_ could make it hard to move away.

[ForHackernews]

Does a tool display clickable hyperlinks? That's all the integration I (and I suspect many other people) care about.

I can't even imagine what it might mean for " Stripe, Github, Trello, and Zendesk streams" to be integrated into Slack, or why I might want them to be.

Want to share a gist with somebody? Just send a link to the gist to the chat channel, and people can click it.

[nthj]

So a lot of times, on a project, maybe right after a production deploy, I'll just keep the production logs open on a spare monitor or a TV, and passively keep an eye on what's going on while working on other things. I'm not looking for anything specific: my intuition just kinda kicks in if something seems amiss. Suddenly jumped from a few errors a minute to a continual stream of backtraces? The logs stopped streaming entirely? I know it when I see it. Kinda like Cypher watching The Matrix.

Now, if I had to tab between panes across 2, 3, 6 app servers, background workers, and database instances, I just wouldn't bother. It's only useful as background noise. But that's fine, because there are tools that let me easily consolidate all of my logs into one stream.

And that's how I see Slack. Just like I can't get a notification every time I have one exception happen in production, because it would kill my workflow, I can't get a notification every time somebody updates a Trello card or resolves a Zendesk ticket. But what I /can/ do is passively watch the stream: Slack is the consolidated logfile, not for my production servers, but for my company.

Could I configure all that with IRC? Yes. Do I want to set it all up, when Slack lets me OAuth against every single service imaginable with one click? No, I really don't. My time is far more productively spent elsewhere.

[Nagyman]

Search is also a major feature.

For integrations, Github tells us when there's a PR. Yes, there's a clickable hyperlink, but I also get to know a bit more inline. It's additional context you don't get with only a hyperlink. There's less switching contexts when things are inlined ... it's a UX feature. I'd call it a feed of things happening across all of my apps, mixed with the ability to discuss those things in a standard place.

The integrations also give you shortcuts to actions without switching from your "command" line. Sure there are _some_ tools you can install on your local machine, but none make it this easy. Butterfield had the same success with Flickr (which yahoo subsequently destroyed) in making a killer user experience. That was for photos, Slack is for communication.

[debaserab2]

I'd say slack/hipchat has become the repository of alerts/notifications/etc that I would normally receive through e-mail. A lot of times these notifications aren't super mission critical and don't require immediate attention, but it's nice to have the history of them so I can investigate when necessary.

Having this outside of e-mail keeps my e-mail inbox less cluttered. That's my reason anyways.

[shostack]

Same, except the only issue (similar to email) is that when I initially check something, the little alert thing disappears. So it can easily fall off my radar if I get distracted. Hence my need to keep my Trello todo list current.

[v64]

I can't speak for the rest, but I personally use the GitHub integration to be notified in chat when builds have failed, pull requests are submitted and commented on, etc. Otherwise I end up having to keep GitHub open in a tab and refresh every minute.

[nuggien]

I don't understand. Why would you have to have a github tab open and refresh? There have always been email notifications for all these events. Also, why is getting these notifications in chat preferred over email?

[Klathmon]

Chat is just nicer to work with.

Emails are in their own isolated packages. If i get an email saying the build broke, there is no easy way to check the last time it happened. I wouldn't be able to glance at the last few messages and see that the build breaks every time "X" commits or the tests fail every monday. I can't easily get context on what someone was doing when it broke.

With something like slack it's all right there. The last 3 alerts, maybe a few messages from devs quickly explaining what happened (or preemptively saying that the build is going to break, and it's okay), someone taking responsibility and saying that they will handle the fix, etc...

It's just nicer.

[qw]

I would just create a folder and a mail rule that moves the mail automatically. You would actually be able to filter your mail with more granularity than what a simple Slack channel can provide

[v64]

When the notification comes into Slack that the build broke, I can immediately type in the chat "I'm looking into that one" and everyone knows what I'm referring to and knows instantly that they don't need to waste time on it.

At my workplace, everyone is usually always active in chat working out problems and having discussions, so a notification is more likely to be seen by more people sooner in the chat than in an email.

[_delirium]

Fwiw this is pretty common on IRC too (and has been for a long time). Dev channels pretty often have a bot that's periodically messaging some info on new bugs, build failures, etc. So I think does reflect a common developer desire that even predates Slack.

[enraged_camel]

I prefer having everything in one place possible. Clicking a link means a new tab, and if you have multiple systems, that's a new tab for each system and its links. Gets out of hand quickly.

[dreamfactory2]

Slack's core killer feature is a reasonably well executed omni-channel experience. I'm not talking about it as a central hub for comms via integrations (although that flows from this idea), but about seamless handoff creating a unified experience between desktop and mobile (and email/app/desktop notifications). That's interesting because it isn't chat related and could be applied to most applications

[baddox]

Slack seems to have mostly eclipsed Hipchat, at least among Silicon Valley startups, but integrations probably weren't a huge factor in that. Slack does have a nicer flow for integrations, but Hipchat worked quite well (and actually had much-missed features like customizing the background color of messages; it's unfathomable how Slack could still not have this feature).

[Klathmon]

>it's unfathomable how Slack could still not have this feature

I hear this saying a lot, and every time I just can't take it seriously.

This is the first time I've ever heard of someone wanting customizable background colors for messages on a messaging platform. It's just not something I or anyone I know about cares about.

I just can't see how that would be considered a high importance feature by anyone.

[baddox]

It's all about integrations. We have all sorts of server messages and errors in a couple of our Slack engineering channels. Slack provides almost no way to visually distinguish these messages based on importance. In Hipchat, we had red/yellow/green background colors that worked great.

To be clear, I'm not dead set on having background colors. I just really miss having a good visual distinction between messages.

[Klathmon]

I came on a little strong there, it's just saying things like "how could they not have [insert niche feature here]?" drives me up a damn wall!

But that makes sense, and it would be a nice to have. In the meantime can you "hack it in" via different icons per status?

[baddox]

We do it with icons. It's still nowhere near as immediately recognizable at a glance, but I suppose it's fine. I just had a thought: you could embed an image preview that's just a solid red square. That would be very noticeable for important errors.

[kcorbitt]

HipChat's colored messages made it easy to see the error messages in a stream of mostly unimportant notifications. Slack kinda lets you do the same thing with a vertical colored bar to the left of the message, but important/error messages are much less visually distinct.

[Jordrok]

I seem to remember AIM allowing customized fonts and background colors around 15 years ago... Just sayin'

[Klathmon]

And a Porsche from 1992 can outrun a current day Prius, it doesn't make one better than the other...

[criddell]

Depends on how long the race is :)

[pavel_lishin]

And it was a miserable nightmare trying to talk to my friend who would decide to use bright yellow Comic Sans on a bright pink background.

[lmm]

AIM is actually really nice these days. I wish I could get my friends to switch back to it.

[JonnieCache]

mIRC supported ANSI colour codes for foreground and background back in the 90s. I seem to remember people hated you for using them though.

[douche]

People go ape-shit about silly features in IM clients all the time. Case in point, emoticons

[daveguy]

Back when I was a boy we didn't have any fancy emoticons! We used ascii characters and we LIKED it! >:-O

[derFunk]

Hipchat, like ALL other Atlassian products are always feeling just incomplete. By design. (I'm using 80% of their product line).

Slack just feels complete. For tech and non-tech teams.