IRC channel

Internet Relay Chat is a worldwide text chat service with many thousands of users among various irc networks.

The Freenode IRC network hosts the large #haskell channel, and we've had up to 723 concurrent users (average is 655), making the channel the 5th largest of the 7000 channels on freenode (Feb 2009) and the second largest programming language channel after Python. One famous resident is Lambdabot, another is hpaste (see the Bots section below).

The IRC channel can be an excellent place to learn more about Haskell, and to just keep in the loop on new things in the Haskell world. Many new developments in the Haskell world first appear on the irc channel.

Since 2009, the Haskell channel has grown large enough that we've split it in two parts:

• #haskell, for all the usual things
• #haskell-in-depth , for those seeking in depth, or more theoretical discussion

As always, #haskell remains the primary place for new user questions.

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The #haskell social graph, Jan 2008

Daily traffic in #haskell since 2004

Growth of #haskell

Haskell noun map

Getting there

If you point your irc client to chat.freenode.net and then join the #haskell channel, you'll be there. Alternately, you can try http://java.freenode.net/ or http://webchat.freenode.net/ which connects inside the browser.

Example, using irssi:

   $ irssi -c chat.freenode.net -n myname -w mypassword
   /join #haskell

Tip, if you're using Emacs to edit your Haskell sources then why not use it to chat about Haskell? Check out ERC, The Emacs IRC client. Invoke it like this and follow the commands:

   M-x erc-select
   ...
   /join #haskell

A screenshot of an irssi session in #haskell

Principles

The #haskell channel is a very friendly, welcoming place to hang out, teach and learn. The goal of #haskell is to encourage learning and discussion of Haskell, functional programming, and programming in general. As part of this we welcome newbies, and encourage teaching of the language.

Part of the #haskell success comes from the approach that the community is quite tight knit -- we know each other -- it's not just a homework channel. As a result, many collaborative projects have arisen between Haskell irc channel citizens.

To maintain the friendly, open culture, the following is required:

• Low to zero tolerance for ridiculing questions. Insulting new users is unacceptable

New Haskell users should feel entirely comfortable asking new questions. Helpful answers should be encouraged with name++ karma points, in public, as a reward for providing a good answer.

As the channel grows, we see a diverse range of people, with different programming backgrounds, trying to make their way with Haskell. A good rule of thumb, to avoid frustration is:

• approach negative comments by asking for details (kind of like Socratic questioning), rather than challenging the competence of the writer (ad hominem).

History

The #haskell channel appeared in the late 90s, and really got going in early 2001, with the help of Shae Erisson (aka shapr).

A fairly extensive analysis of the traffic on #haskell over the years is kept here

Related channels

In addition to the main Haskell channel there are also:

Channel	Purpose
#haskell.cz	Czech speakers (UTF-8)
#haskell.de	German speakers
#haskell.dut	Dutch speakers
#haskell.es	Spanish speakers
#haskell.fi	Finnish speakers
#haskell.fr	French speakers
#haskell.hr	Croatian speakers
#haskell.it	Italian speakers
#haskell.jp	Japanese speakers
#haskell.no	Norwegian speakers
#haskell.pt	Portuguese speakers
#haskell.ru	Russian speakers. Seems that most of them migrated to Jabber conference (haskell@conference.jabber.ru).
#haskell_ru	Russian speakers again, in UTF-8. For those, who prefer good ol' IRC channel with a lambdabot.
#haskell.se	Swedish speakers
#haskell-overflow	Overflow conversations
#haskell-blah	Haskell people talking about anything except Haskell itself
#haskell-books	Authors organizing the collaborative writing of the Haskell wikibook and other books or tutorials.
#gentoo-haskell	Gentoo/Linux specific Haskell conversations
#arch-haskell	Arch Linux/ specific Haskell conversations
#darcs	Darcs revision control channel (written in Haskell)
#perl6	Perl 6 development (plenty of Haskell chat there too)
#happs	HAppS Haskell Application Server channel
#xmonad	Xmonad a tiling window manager written in Haskell
#haskell-iphone	iPhone Haskell-based iPhone development
#leksah	Leksah The Haskell IDE in Haskell

Logs

Logs are kept at a few places, including

• tunes.org
• IRCBrowse

Bots

There are various bots on the channel. Their names and usage are described here.

lambdabot

Lambdabot is both the name of a software package and a bot on the channel. It provides many useful services for visitors to the IRC channel. It is available as a haskell package and can be integrated into ghci. Details on the software are found on a separate wiki page.

Here is its interface for the IRC user:

lambdabot's commands are prepended by a '@' sign.

Command	Usage
@help	display help to other commands, but help text is not available for all commands.
@type EXPR or ':t' EXPR	shows the type of an expression
@kind TYPECONSTRUCTOR	shows the kind of a type constructor
@run EXPR or '>' EXPR	evaluates EXPR
@pl FUNCTION	shows a pointfree version of FUNCTION
@pointful FUNCTION or '@unpl' FUNCTION	shows a 'pointful' version of FUNCTION

preflex

is the name of a lambdabot with more commands/plugins enabled. It is run by ?? To talk to preflex, write preflex: command ARGS

Command	Usage
help COMMAND	displays help to other commands.
list	lists all plugins with their commands
NICK++ / NICK--	in/decrements the karma of NICK.
karma NICK	shows the karma of NICK
seen NICK	shows information about the last message of a user
tell / ask	sends NICK MSG a message when she becomes active.
xseen	see 'seen' ?? any difference ?
quote NICK	prints a random quote of NICK
remember NAME QUOTE	associates NAME with quote. can be accessed by 'quote'
...	...

hpaste

The hpaste bot provides a notification interface to the hpaste pastebin. Emacs integration is available.

Usage?

Not online often !?

hackage

The hackage bot provides real-time notifications of new package uploads to Hackage.

Locations

To get an overview of where everybody on the channel might be, physically, please visit Haskell user locations.