Xchat: the exception that confirms the rule?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 28/01/2008, Sebastien Bacher <seb128 at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> On lun, 2008-01-28 at 00:47 +0100, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
> > XChat isn't included in Ubuntu by default, and I guess that's because
> > of the rule of one application for each task. However, I feel that
> > even though Pidgin can be used for IRC, it does the job so poorly
> > compared to XChat, that it isn't a real option.
>
> Could you describe why you think that pidgin doesn't do an acceptable
> easy to use IRC client?
>
> Sebastien Bacher

It's very difficult to configure it. What is a screen name, what's
local alias? Where do I enter my nickname? Ok, I enter the same in all
the fields, and hope that'll work. I now seem to be connected. I have
a window called freenode-connect, which sais «freenode-connect:
Received CTCP 'VERSION' (to aintmynick) from freenode-connect» and I
have another window that's called NickServ, telling me that my
nickname is owned by someone else. Ok, so I've read RFC 1459 and know
that there is a command called NICK that's used to change nicknames. I
also know of a command named JOIN, which will enable me to join
something called a channel, which Pidgin doesn't seem to know anything
about, until you type /join #<some channel>.

I'm now in the channel, which pidgin has renamed "Room". I have a list
of 1300 users, each having their own color, so it's impossible to read
the text. Pidgin has changed my nickname to aintmynick2 internally,
while people on IRC see my nickname as aintmynick. So, if someone
calls me by my Pidgin-nickname, then the message comes out golden, but
if someone calls me by my IRC-nickname, then the message comes out so
light-green that I cannot see their nickname. Actually, only the
nickname of the user sending it, not the entire message, like in
xchat.

...

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love Pidgin, and I use it for
everything related to IM, but let's be honest: it's _horrible_ when it
comes to IRC! IRC and IM are two different things in any case. Let's
have good tools for both. Especially when we recommend it to new
users...

I hope that was descriptive,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad