IRC Hacks

I was hoping for a lot more detail on the IRC protocol itself and how to build things that interface with it in interesting ways. This was more from the standpoint of starting with a prebuilt bot what kind of modules you could build. Not what I was looking for.

'IRC Hacks' is not a more recent version of Alex Charalabidis's 'The Book of IRC.' Published by No Starch Press in 2000, 'The Book of IRC' focuses on more introductory material, and thoroughly covers the issues facing most IRC users. Unlike the older No Starch book, 'IRC Hacks' devotes over 200 pages to bot development. In other words, the 'IRC Hacks' authors concentrate on more advanced ways to interact with IRC servers. If this is your primary interest, you will enjoy 'IRC Hacks.'Since I am not interested in bot development, 'IRC Hacks' wasn't as useful to me as I had hoped. I enjoyed on chapters discussing the IRC protocol (ch. 13) and setting up an IRC server (ch. 15). Hacks about NickServ (#8) and ChanServ (#9) were interesting, and I may try the CtrlProxy hack (#93) to facilitate remote IRC access.'IRC Hacks' is fairly well written, although the editor should have ensured that terms were explained when first mentioned. For example, CTCP appears on pages 10 and 48, with no expansion of the acronym or reference to hack #85 (which explains CTCP). This is often a problem with books by teams of contributors. I would have enjoyed more coverage of 'operational issues,' like problems associated with running an IRC server. IRC networks have been targets of denial of service attacks and other adversarial activity for years, and the means by which IRC operators defend themselves would make good reading.If you need a book focused on bot development, give 'IRC Hacks' a try. If you're more interested in IRC as a user, or even as an operator, ask Alex Charalabidis to write a second edition of 'The Book of IRC.'

Four years before the Web burst onto the scene with Mosaic, there was IRC. At first, IRC was mostly for bulletin board users. But as the Web took off, it also greatly expanded the pool of users and the extent of the Internet's physical reach. Now Mutton shows how today's IRC has so much more than that 1988 version. Being able to format messages, or colour them. Hey, you can even send and get sounds, in various common sound formats like wav files.Numerous of his hacks revolve around managing an IRC channel. Problems of success, really. As IRC usage soared, what were once small communities of shared interests and values now often have to contend with others with different values. Channel operators may want to check out what Mutton offers.Perhaps the most intriguing hack concerns finding social networks from many channels. Neat possibilities. Social networks are quite hot these days, though no one has yet found a viable business model centred on them.

I was first introduced to IRC back in 1997, with a co-worker who spent a lot of his time typing away at a text-based IRC client. He told me later he had some very good friends on IRC, one of which my co-worker never met in person until this friend came to my co-worker's wedding. I ventured into some IRC channels myself, but always felt a little "behind the curve" in terms of understanding what was going on beyond the basics of just participating in a discussion.Many who are new to IRC may feel the same way, and often those accustomed to the medium are less than accomodating of newbies. Fortunately O'Reilly's IRC Hacks comes to the rescue. O'Reilly uses the term "hacks" here in the positive sense of a clever way to use a particular technology, or an elegant way to solve a certain problem.The first couple of chapters constitute an introduction to IRC. Various IRC clients for Windows, Linux, and Max OS X are covered, along with ways to enhance these clients. That might be enough for many users of IRC, but to be true to its title, the book proceeds to describe several frameworks you can use to write your own IRC bots in Java, Perl, and Python. No less than 7 chapters follow outlining a wide variety of different bots that can be used to enhance your IRC experience.The remaining chapters give an in-depth look at the IRC protocol, describe ways in which you can connect to IRC via "other" means (such as from a mobile phone), and also provide coverage on setting up your own IRC server.Overall IRC Hacks is very informational, and a good introduction to IRC. Perhaps one of its greatest strengths is the large number of "starting points" it provides to allow you to do just about anything with IRC. One complaint I have about the book is that in the chapters offering samples of bots you can write, the vast majority of them are written in Java. I would like to have seen more Perl in the mix. It's there to some extent in the beginning chapters, but Java examples dominate the latter part of the book.

Like all of the O'Reilly Hack books, this one contains 100 quick and dirty hints, tips and suggestions you might try on the IRC network. Although I consider myself an expert in some of the areas in which they have done their Hacks books, I have never failed to find a few things that fit exactly with something that I needed to do. In fact, I find that I need to go re-read the books once in a while just to see what new ideas I can find.This particular book is interesting in that it is suitable for both the beginning and sophisticated user. It starts with getting an IRC client, using it, modifying it - in general getting the most out of it. Then it goes on to writing IRC bots using Perl, Java and Python along with canned libraries that simplify the writing of autonomous agents.