[tony]

For chat, people will use Slack, Discord or Gitter. These new chat apps have clients on Linux/Mac/Windows and mobile apps and log messages remotely out of the box, where as with IRC, it requires additional setups and the solutions can be porous.

The other thing is IRC is one of those things where instant feedback isn't guaranteed. So many /join, ask a question, and /part by the time I even read it. In those cases, there's StackOverflow (and to a lesser extent reddit), where a thread is created and upvotes help a post weigh upwards a bit longer. As icing on the cake, there's nesting / voting in the conversation, as well.

With IRC, messages fade away and its really a matter of timing you find someone with the right expertise that bites. If you ask something at the wrong hour, you have to hope someone reads far enough up to answer you.

On StackOverflow, people are very generous in pointing to a newer answer with less votes. It's easy to copy and paste code snippets. Posts can be edited. StackOverflow posts are also more persistent as there's a concept of duplication and trying to have one thread for a question.

[giancarlostoro]

> With IRC, messages fade away and its really a matter of timing you find someone with the right expertise that bites. If you ask something at the wrong hour, you have to hope someone reads far enough up to answer you.

This is what connection bouncers solve. I think IRC just needs a good client. IRCCloud is a good client and bouncer service, cheap too. I can keep track of IRC convos from forever ago.

The only thing stopping an IRC client from being as resourceful as Slack or similar is the client developers. I've seen clients that preview images like Slack does, long before Slack was a thing. I think the KDE one does this? Or at least Quassel does.