Up until now, if you wanted to talk to someone on another network, you used email or maybe Bitnet's RELAY. But Jarkko Oikarinen, a student in Finland, has just released IRC (Internet Relay Chat). It’s a client-server protocol that allows for real-time, multi-user discussion.
I’ve been spending my nights on "efnet," and it’s addictive. You join a "channel" (prefixed with a #), and anything you type is immediately seen by everyone else in that channel.
The Architecture
What's impressive is the distributed nature of it. Multiple servers connect to each other to form a spanning tree. This allows users on different continents to chat with very low latency. However, it also leads to "netsplits," where a portion of the network loses its connection to the rest, and everyone on the other side seemingly "quits" at once.
A Look at the Protocol
The protocol is text-based and relatively simple to implement. Here’s what a raw message looks like when you join a channel:
USER guest 0 * :Real Name
NICK MyNick
JOIN #tpoint
:MyNick!user@host PRIVMSG #tpoint :Hello, everyone!
We're already seeing people write "bots" in C or scripts to manage channels, kick disruptive users, or provide automated info.
The Outlook
IRC is more than just a toy. It’s a tool for global coordination. During recent international events, IRC has often been faster than the traditional news wires. I expect that as more universities and companies connect to the Internet, IRC will become the primary way developers share knowledge and collaborate across time zones. It’s the first true "global village" square.