[Technical] Using IRC for student development collaboration

[Mark Snell]

Con,

because as a general rule the appropriate ports are blocked at the router for 
most government schools, and especially at the moment, since they lost the 
contract to Telstra, AAPT have been a little tardy in getting anything done to 
the routers.

I agree that IRC can be a wonderful tool. I remember using it heavily especially 
back in '96 when we (http://teamtnt.com/) worked on Final Doom. There is simply 
no better way to keep a bunch of geographically scattered tech people together.

Having said that, it requires a level of maturity seldom found in our schools 
today (IMHO)

Mark

Con Zymaris wrote:
> In the open source world, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is often used by
> dispirate (and often geographically distant) developers as a form of
> collaborative programming, real-time/low-cost interaction and information 
> sharing. It allows many developers to efficiently ask questions and 
> recieve fast answers to thorny problems which might other have them 
> stymied and frustrated for hours.
> 
> What may be a complex problem for you ("How do I insert a row into an SQL
> database table?") might be a 30 second one-liner from one of the other 
> programmers on the IRC channel. All conversations are logged, and can be 
> refined as  the basis of FAQs on technical topics. 
> 
> It's fun; it allows programmers to share effort, ideas and code snippets,
> and makes the task of learning programming much much easier.
> 
> My question to the teachers on this list is: Are you using IRC (or
> similar) to boost your students' learning of the programming craft. If
> not, why not?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Con Zymaris
> 
> - CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
> - Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
> - Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)
>