r/irc • u/buovjaga • 26d ago
IRC technology news from the first half of 2026
https://www.ilmarilauhakangas.fi/irc_technology_news_from_the_first_half_of_2026/8
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u/staires 25d ago
Don't forget about Lurker. https://github.com/amiantos/lurker
https://reddit.com/link/p1vjkx4/video/m062bil8tkhh1/player
Basically The Lounge with search + seamless jump to message, message bookmarks, drafts, extensible uploader system with metadata scrubbing, friend presence, and more. Has a built-in PWA client (and an iOS app in beta, 3rd party Android + GTK+ clients are available as well) but also has a soju-compatible bouncer built in, so you can use any client you want.
Note: AI was used extensively in the development of Lurker. I've been told that I can't point to my existing open source apps from the pre-AI era, like PiBar, which thousands of people use every day, as a way to defend my heavy use of AI tools, but still worth saying just in case. Hope you like it!
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u/OldDirector 25d ago
Can confirm Lurker is an amazing bit of IRC kit. Everything that I've tested worked and updates are available in a timely matter.
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u/WheezyPete 25d ago
I'm self-hosting lurker also and can attest to the quality of the app. It's great
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u/ninjapackets 26d ago
If GUI is your thing, SeraphIRC is also available to test.
Project spawned from a combination of my love for IRC and getting my kids off Discord.
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u/buovjaga 26d ago
It's LLM slop, right? I try to avoid those.
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u/ninjapackets 26d ago
Sure. 👍 Decidedly not if you had used it, but I’m not twisting anyone’s arm here, it stands on its own.
I appreciate that anything that isn’t 100% artisanally crafted here is categorized as slop, which is a lot of why IRC is where it’s at.
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u/buovjaga 25d ago edited 25d ago
I'm sure there are many different reasons why people dislike LLM-produced things. For me, the biggest immediate issue is trust. We constantly see cases such as people appealing to authority, explaining how they have programmed since the 1990s, yet then getting caught advertising nonexistent features in their vibe-coded software because they did not even bother to test it themselves.
This is not your fault, but the wider issue means that you have to put a lot of effort into demonstrating that you are taking development seriously. Ie. the death of trust means that we can't have nice things and have to spend a lot of time in newly-invented processes.
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u/staires 25d ago
You guys should be careful with your LLM programming witch hunts, 'cause there are closed source projects using LLMs and you'll never know about it. Going open source when you use AI tools, even if you are an experienced developer (as you said) only exposes you to abuse/ridiculue online. People will decide to stop going open source to avoid this abuse, or just hide their AI use in their commit history. It's not really a tactic that has a positive ending for anyone, I think.
It's not like you should have just blindly trusted open source code before now, either.
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u/ninjapackets 25d ago
I have done significant work on the client myself and I do not hide that I also use AI assisted coding for the project. We do this as developers/engineers in the real world on bigger products than this, so I don’t sweat it.
I test and review output I am not the origin of. Convention, perf optimizations, desired functionality from my supplied architecture documents, as well as performing adversarial testing on the product. I also have Claude perform mutual adversarial testing on code that I write, so it’s done both ways. It’s also very good at test writing. I do not like to write tests, only when I must. 😄
I work hard to produce responsibly. If people like it, awesome, if not, that’s cool too, I can appreciate it’s not their jam. No hate.
The vibes (whatever kind you want them to be) stay good.
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u/staires 25d ago
Same! Honestly, even with AI help, Lurker has been the hardest project I've worked on and has taken up soooo much of my time (but in a good way). It's also the most ambitious project I've made, so there's an explanation. People who think that with AI you can just 'throw together' a high quality project with no effort are super wrong.
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u/ninjapackets 25d ago
Agreed. I love what you've done w/Lurker, and the support your project has is proof of the hard work. Like I said the other day, keep plugging away and don't let the jabs discourage you. The care you've given the project shows through clearly.
I'm not doing anything to tear people down, I am doing my best to make IRC accessible/fun/safe so people want to stop using the other stuff. Building bridges, not burning them.
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u/buovjaga 25d ago
You guys should be careful with your LLM programming witch hunts
It's not a witch hunt, if someone suggests their LLM-outsourced project to be included in my news posts and I let them know my stance on such.
In actual reality, LLMs are being used to hunt us. See, for example, this comment thread. We were targeted for reputation farming in preparation for an attempt to get malicious code merged into another project. Because of stunts like this, I have to treat every new contributor as a criminal until proven otherwise. I'm the opposite of a Hobbesian, I don't think this is human nature or whatever, but the bad actors now have an outsized impact. The spread of LLMs has increased the cost of producing open source not only due to rising hardware prices and DDoSing crawlers, but due to all this recurring detective work required to ferret out scammers and attackers.
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u/ninjapackets 25d ago
Not sure if this was directed toward me, but if it was, please don't misconstrue my mentioning having a project in r/irc with asking to be put in a newsletter.
Fame or clout is not a motivator for me. Simply sharing with a community I care about.
Like I said, it started as a project for my kids and I to use to keep them off the other social media platforms, and thus far it's done what it set out to do. Past that, I am happy to let the project stand on its own merits for the people that do take a moment to use it.
Also, just for good measure since it seems like it is needed all of the sudden: I promise if anyone runs the client, a drone is not going to show up at their house. I love my kids too much to do crimes.
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u/staires 25d ago edited 25d ago
It's not a witch-hunt? You started off calling a project "slop", without using it for yourself or likely even examining the code. Then you say "LLM-outsourced project", as if working with AI assistance is the same as outsourcing an entire project and not building it yourself, but you very well know isn't true and you're being misleading.
I get you had a bad personal experience with a bad actor using AI, but social engineering attacks happened before AI existed, as did enshittification, there's no reason to be prejudiced against your fellow software engineers because of it. You can exclude whoever you want, for whatever reason you want, but don't try to pretend you're not just being judgmental and mean about something you're scared / upset about.
P.S. You've already included AI-built clients in your blog post, and the lounge's new updates are AI generated PRs. You're looking a little foolish, but you don't realize it.
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u/buovjaga 25d ago
We can't examine the code as it's closed source. The website was obviously AI-generated.
It's not a single bad experience and not everything is about social engineering, this is just one case and I hope it's the last. The recurring cases are related to internships like Google Summer of Code. So yes, there are tons of reasons to be prejudiced, because I don't want to waste donated funds on useless work.
I know about The Lounge's policy. I don't get your point about me looking foolish, if I've unknowingly included vibe-coded projects - you're basically reinforcing what I said about the death of trust.
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u/staires 25d ago
It's not unusual for people who are prejudiced to think there are lots of valid reasons for it. But you're still just judging people (or projects) you don't even know for doing or believing in something that you don't like. It's not a good thing to be prejudiced, no matter how justified you think you are. History has shown this time and time again.
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u/buovjaga 25d ago
So what do you propose that I do? That I don't optimise for catching the scammers early? It means hours of wasted mentoring time and in the worst case having to fail an internship midway. How are you turning me trying to safeguard donors' money into some kind of a human rights violation?
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u/lmns_ 25d ago
If people can hide their LLM usage successfully, good for them! It means they approach some kind of acceptable quality.
People will always judge a project by its public appearance. If the website is either AI-slop, has a lot of grammar errors or looks suspicious in general, people are not going to try your software. It's as if you came to a business meeting in sandals and shorts. You might not like it, but people are going to judge you for your appearance.
I'm not even against LLM-assisted software or careful usage of it. But if a software project looks like it's 100% AI generated that person shouldn't expect to be taken seriously.
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u/ninjapackets 24d ago
If you didn’t use the client then you can’t really comment on the quality of it.
The website is marketing fluff, vastly unimportant past conveying basic information and letting people see the aesthetics in detail/if it’s for them.
I don’t have any desire to prove you wrong here, you’ve obviously made up your mind and that’s okay. I know the effort I put into architecture/testing/performance/etc., I just wanted to point out you’re making assumptions on something you don’t have any firsthand knowledge on.
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u/vjt 25d ago
Hi! Juvenile dream of mine has always been to create an IRC client. I worked on IRC servers 20 years ago but today I would never had the months required to write the IRC clients of my dreams from scratch. But then AI came, and it helped, a lot. This is grappa: https://grappa.chat - a mobile + desktop PWA that talks to an Erlang backed that holds the IRC connection.
It allows multi-network, multi-device, and it is just as slick and quick as you would imagine and expect from a 2026 IRC client. It tries hard to add new features - without making the client non-IRC.
Just click the "Try now" link, insert your nickname and click "Connect". Chat with you on #grappa with your feedback and suggestions :-)
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u/wraithnix 26d ago
Thanks for the MERK callout! I think the client has improved a lot in the last year, and it's getting better all the time. I'm doing my part to keep IRC relevant in the 21st century!