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GeekNights Monday - Instant Messaging in 2016

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  • Rym said:

    The problem I run into these days is a particular one regarding older people (40+). They use IM in the office regularly, and respond immediately. BUT, they are unable to parse any moderately complex information there.

    So simple IMs work fine if my answer is one short sentence or less.

    Are you coming to the meeting?
    Yeah

    Is the code checked in?
    Nope, don't take a build yet.

    What's up with that problem you're working on?
    Still trying to get more logs.


    But anything more than that, and they invariably ask for me to call them. They want me to call them to say out loud the exact words I just typed. They are functionally incapable of parsing multiple sentences together in IM.

    I really think this problem has a lot to do with being bad at typing quickly. If you can't type quickly, then communicating with text is ridiculously frustrating because you can get the information across so much faster with your mouth. Imagine if your brain had already thought multiple sentences, but your fingers are still typing only the first word.
  • It's so much worse than that. They don't appear to be able to read and parse fast enough. They prefer the information to be spoken to them. They're not asking complex questions or saying much: they're receiving information from me. But, they're unable to do so via text and require me to say it out loud.
  • edited December 2016
    Apreche said:

    Rym said:

    The problem I run into these days is a particular one regarding older people (40+). They use IM in the office regularly, and respond immediately. BUT, they are unable to parse any moderately complex information there.

    So simple IMs work fine if my answer is one short sentence or less.

    Are you coming to the meeting?
    Yeah

    Is the code checked in?
    Nope, don't take a build yet.

    What's up with that problem you're working on?
    Still trying to get more logs.


    But anything more than that, and they invariably ask for me to call them. They want me to call them to say out loud the exact words I just typed. They are functionally incapable of parsing multiple sentences together in IM.

    I really think this problem has a lot to do with being bad at typing quickly. If you can't type quickly, then communicating with text is ridiculously frustrating because you can get the information across so much faster with your mouth. Imagine if your brain had already thought multiple sentences, but your fingers are still typing only the first word.
    I actually have this problem typing on my phone. Not to such a severe degree, I can have full conversations there but if I'm going to bear my soul or express a complex opinion, dealing with typing on a touchscreen is actually really fucking frustrating and I'd rather move it to a keyboard or voice.

    I only noticed this recently though as my girlfriend is infinitely better at typing on a touchscreen, plus she has much smaller hands and a much bigger phone, so she want's me to go into detail on specific relationships between people I know and it's just too much for me but not her, so usually I go into it for a little while and eventually ask if I can just call.
    Post edited by Naoza on
  • Naoza said:

    I can't type on phone fast.

    Practice. I didn't learn to type properly on a QWERTY keyboard until late in high school.
  • I'm amazing on a phone with physical buttons (full keyboard or dialpad) it's only touchscreens and their being incredibly error prone that gets me. That said, of course it's just practice, the frustration will diminish with continued use. It's just a frustrating period because I think a whole lot faster than I make words appear. I went through this as a kid with keyboards. I'm doing it again with touchscreens.
  • Jabber-the-protocol worked, but Jabber-the-implementations were very, very inconsistent. Multi-user chat, aka goddamn chat rooms, was an optional addon. I've yet to encounter a client/server combo that consistently pushed messages to all logged in instances of the destination user or didn't mangle presence information horribly between one's n different logins. The initial handshake/subscription between pairs of users is also opaque and—for every client I've tried—has fucking terrible UI/UX. No one wants to configure that shit, let alone the slap in the face when you first try to set up your Jabber client.
  • okeefe said:

    Jabber-the-protocol worked, but Jabber-the-implementations were very, very inconsistent. Multi-user chat, aka goddamn chat rooms, was an optional addon. I've yet to encounter a client/server combo that consistently pushed messages to all logged in instances of the destination user or didn't mangle presence information horribly between one's n different logins. The initial handshake/subscription between pairs of users is also opaque and—for every client I've tried—has fucking terrible UI/UX. No one wants to configure that shit, let alone the slap in the face when you first try to set up your Jabber client.

    That's if you actually just wanted to use Jabber itself, which almost nobody did. The important part was XMPP federation. It was glue that connected different IM networks together, and it worked. During the "golden age" both Google Hangout and AIM both had XMPP federation. This meant that anyone using AIM, Hangout, or Jabber could message each other directly. No need to have multiple clients installed.

    We don't need fewer clients. Let everyone use what they want. We just need clients to talk to each other so that anyone can message anyone. We take this for granted with email, but we've carelessly thrown away this feature when it comes to messaging.
  • If every IM service had an API for clients, I'd be happy. But it does kill most of their (terrible) monetization models.
  • edited December 2016
    Apreche said:

    I can not deny. I paid $1 for stickers. They had Pusheen the cat. Come on! I actually wish more people were using iMessage so I could send them Pusheens.

    Also in facebook, I bothered the FNPL Guest chat with them for a while.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Apreche said:

    I can not deny. I paid $1 for stickers. They had Pusheen the cat. Come on! I actually wish more people were using iMessage so I could send them Pusheens.

    I did this same thing, Pusheen was worth a dollar.
  • edited December 2016
    Naoza said:

    Apreche said:

    Rym said:

    The problem I run into these days is a particular one regarding older people (40+). They use IM in the office regularly, and respond immediately. BUT, they are unable to parse any moderately complex information there.

    So simple IMs work fine if my answer is one short sentence or less.

    Are you coming to the meeting?
    Yeah

    Is the code checked in?
    Nope, don't take a build yet.

    What's up with that problem you're working on?
    Still trying to get more logs.


    But anything more than that, and they invariably ask for me to call them. They want me to call them to say out loud the exact words I just typed. They are functionally incapable of parsing multiple sentences together in IM.

    I really think this problem has a lot to do with being bad at typing quickly. If you can't type quickly, then communicating with text is ridiculously frustrating because you can get the information across so much faster with your mouth. Imagine if your brain had already thought multiple sentences, but your fingers are still typing only the first word.
    I actually have this problem typing on my phone. Not to such a severe degree, I can have full conversations there but if I'm going to bear my soul or express a complex opinion, dealing with typing on a touchscreen is actually really fucking frustrating and I'd rather move it to a keyboard or voice.

    I only noticed this recently though as my girlfriend is infinitely better at typing on a touchscreen, plus she has much smaller hands and a much bigger phone, so she want's me to go into detail on specific relationships between people I know and it's just too much for me but not her, so usually I go into it for a little while and eventually ask if I can just call.
    I don't really have a problem typing on a phone, although I don't really like doing it for long stints because the way I hold to get optimal speed kinda digs into my palms a bit. As an aside I tend to have this problem with 3DS as well and usually have to condition my self to try and hold different as I tend to try and prop things on my palms by the edges. Anywho... my bigger issue with longer form conversation on phones is screen real estate. If I type out a large message on iPhone the way they kinda try to float text to one side or the other wastes so much space that a paragraph of text just flows on forever. That's where I'd rather see it on a monitor or something.

    Granted I only seem to rest on my palms with my phone when I'm lying down on the couch or in bed. When I'm in a chair it's usually fine.
    Post edited by MATATAT on
  • Apreche said:

    During the "golden age" both Google Hangouts Talk and AIM both had XMPP federation. This meant that anyone using AIM, Hangout, or Jabber could message each other directly.

    It felt like this all worked for one glorious month before decent smartphones happened and it all fell apart.

    I just want a terminal/ncurses Hangouts client, but I realize I'm crazy.
  • okeefe said:

    Apreche said:

    During the "golden age" both Google Hangouts Talk and AIM both had XMPP federation. This meant that anyone using AIM, Hangout, or Jabber could message each other directly.

    It felt like this all worked for one glorious month before decent smartphones happened and it all fell apart.

    I just want a terminal/ncurses Hangouts client, but I realize I'm crazy.
    More like 7-8 years. They launched Google Talk in 2005 and removed XMPP in 2013.
  • Thankfully for me a vast majority of my friends are on Facebook and thus I can just use Facebook messenger. Doing group SMS messages on my phone turns in to a complete mess. So, doing a group Facebook message is just way easier. At this point when Facebook messenger wanted to become my default texting app, I was like fuck it whatever and let it because I already use it like 95% of the time. Few people text me. Most people know I prefer messenger because I am on a computer all day and I can just type. Would I like something better than messenger? Sure, but it is super convenient.

    Like when I was in Japan, I couldn't make calls but I could still get Wifi and so I could still get messenger. So, went we needed to do a little figuring out meeting up and such it made things much easier.

    I have a few hold outs but nothing crazy. A couple people on Google hangouts (but they are not local). And my one friend who doesn't really do any social media so Steam chat is in fact on of the better ways to message him.

    This was a nostalgia bomb though. I can hear those little ICQ uh–oh sounds in my head now.
  • ICQ was eh-oh. Uh-ho was exploding lemmings.
  • Starfox said:

    Alaric728 said:

    given the alphabet of all valid HTML characters, Η, and a subset of that language therein Θ that contains all valid HTML, the sequence:
    Θ * (<body> )j Θ * ( </body>)j Θ *
    Which, by the pumping lemma for regular languages, is not regular.

    I don't think the pumping lemma supports your example. Suppose that was a regular language - the middle Θ * can be pumped as much as you like. It has a * after all.
    Nice catch! I mistakenly did the pumping lemma for Context Free Languages. How embarassing!
    It does still hold, but it definitely needs some tuning.
  • edited December 2016
    You're right in that HTML in general is nonregular - the pumping lemma holds for say,
    <div>^n </div>^n
    Post edited by Starfox on
  • It's true. HTML is non regular. You cant parse it with regex. If it's strict XHML, you can parse it with a nice stack.

    Also, fuck you for making me remember what a pumping lemma is for the first time in over 10 years.
  • What, you mean you're not formally proving all your programs‽
  • okeefe said:



    I just want a terminal/ncurses Hangouts client, but I realize I'm crazy.

    Hangups
  • edited December 2016
    Apreche said:

    It's true. HTML is non regular. You cant parse it with regex. If it's strict XHML, you can parse it with a nice stack.

    Also, fuck you for making me remember what a pumping lemma is for the first time in over 10 years.

    Why all the hate man? Understanding the formal class of a language allows you to write a good parser for it and minimize complexity.
    Also HTML is well defined to be context-free, so it can all be parsed with the aid of a stack! (In fact, most programming languages I know of are also context free)
    Post edited by Alaric728 on
  • Alaric728 said:

    Apreche said:

    It's true. HTML is non regular. You cant parse it with regex. If it's strict XHML, you can parse it with a nice stack.

    Also, fuck you for making me remember what a pumping lemma is for the first time in over 10 years.

    Why all the hate man?
    Why would you think that was a hateful fuck you?
  • Apreche said:

    Alaric728 said:

    Apreche said:

    It's true. HTML is non regular. You cant parse it with regex. If it's strict XHML, you can parse it with a nice stack.

    Also, fuck you for making me remember what a pumping lemma is for the first time in over 10 years.

    Why all the hate man?
    Why would you think that was a hateful fuck you?
    My mistake! My genetics and neurotransmitters give me a tendency to miss stuff
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