How to use IRC for Ruby on Rails (#rubyonrails)

14 years ago I used IRC to chat with people online about the Grateful Dead and Phish, but haven't since, and basically forgot about 99% of how it works.

Then, recently I wanted to join the #rubyonrails IRC channel to get some instant information, so from http://www.rubyonrails.com/community I learned that #rubyonrails was hosted at irc.freenode.net. I downloaded ChatZilla and tried to join.

Frustration. #rubyonrails requires some sort of nickname registration and it took me the longest time to figure out how the heck it works.

I searched for documentation and found all sorts, but what I was found was very dry and technical and full of details. Typically, I like that type of stuff--bare bones, just the facts.

But, here I needed the dummies course, and I found it at http://www.zymic.com/irc.php. I can't vouch for that site, but thank goodness they had some basic info...it wasn't 100% correct, but it got me close enough.

In ChatZilla > Preferences > General there is a "nickname" setting. When you connect to irc.freenode.net you need to register this nickname...obviously, it should be something sort of unique. (How to connect? Open Firefox and visit the URL irc://irc.freenode.net ...which should launch ChatZilla.)

After ChatZilla connects to irc.freenode.net, you will need to register your nickname, aka "nick". To register the nick, type:

/msg nickserv register <yourpassword>

where <yourpassword> is some password of your creation. This will register your nickname with some sort of central registration database.

Then, to enter the channel type:

/join #rubyonrails

On subsequent visits to IRC, ChatZilla will send your username to nickserv, but you will need to "identify" yourself this time. To do so, type:

/msg nickserv identify <yourpassword>

Then, join the channel like you did before:

/join #rubyonrails

Personally, I think of it like this:

• register = create a login
  
• identify = login
  
• join = enter a chat room
  

Hopefully, these instructions will help someone else out along the way.

P.S. By the way, the delay between posts is explained by the fact that I was out of town for a few weeks visiting family.