I want to start up a real-time chat interface, for nigerians which program. There isn't anything I like more than people that are into coding/unix that are from nigeria.

This chat interface would run on IRC, if people are interested in this, drop a line here, so I can get it started. I hope to have good responses back.

i'm down with it

Why not use a custom made IRC chat Interface like MIRC Do you really need to go through some java applet programming protocols for some people that doesn't get the value

nitation, in response to your question "Why not use a custom made IRC chat Interface like MIRC Do you really need to go through some java applet programming protocols for some people that doesn't get the value"

1) I don't hope to make a chat client.
2) I said nothing about java.

Let me put it to you this way, a chat-room, made available for programmers from or living in nigeria, on irc.

Nice idea. No big deal. Main thing is to have a unique name, brand to use and garner the right publicity. With that the right programming peeps and discussions would be there.

Theres already a jand irc on freenode.net for Java Nigeria Developers. You can check it out.

Anybody still interested in this?

kodewrita, just start up a channel on irc.freenode.net or something

ekt_bear:

kodewrita, just start up a channel on irc.freenode.net or something

+1 that, don't invent the wheel. I hang on a few IRC channels quite a bit, will be sure to hang more in that if there's one.

sorry if this question is dumb but what do you mean by real time chat interface? and why does it need channels?

I have used IRC in the past, and it's not great for programming discussions. The chat will go into all sorts of areas, sure the benefit will be that one can be helped in real time, however, it will require them to post code and IRC is not good for displaying code. All the coding channels on IRC use pastebin, I think nairaland will do, we should just encourage people to use pastebin to post their codes. It's far easier to help someone when they have a code that just needs to be modified than when they don't even know what they are trying to solve for yet want someone else to solve it for them.

I think I would advise pastie instead of pastebin. Just a suggestion. I think code on pastie is easier to read than pastebin

DonSegmond:

I have used IRC in the past, and[b] it's not great for programming discussions[/b],

I'm starting to feel like I'm bugging but are you really serious? like seriously? If you're into any form of collaborative coding, you can't beat IRC

delomos, okay, if you say so. I speak from experience, I was on IRC in 1994. Dalnet and Efnet. I could be found in #asm, #c, #c++, #coders, #linux, etc. and I had @p status in most of them. When we talked about code, we didn't paste code, but spoke in more abstract form. For posting code, it sucked, but hey, try it and tell me how it works. I've been there, done it and forgotten about it. IRC might be great for very experienced coders, I don't see that many on here.

IRC has probably changed a lot since '94.

It is pretty much where people hang around line to talk about programming stuff.

You don't need to paste code, just paste a link to pastebin.com or something

I'm often online on irc.freenode.net #java, #ruby, #rubyonrails. . . really a wonderful resource

@DonSegmond In addition to @ekt_bear's comment, I used to use the internet in '94 and good grief,  It was a pain with those shiny marquees or heck, just CLs, I'm glad I haven't forgotten about it though --- or have you?

I'm oft on #kohana on freenode, it's ironic that most non-programmer I talk to don't even know what an IRC is,