Publisher: O'Reilly Media Released: July 2004 Pages: 436
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) may very well turn out to be the world's most successful hack. In 1988, Jarkko Oikarinen wrote the original IRC program at the University of Oulu, Finland. As he says in his foreword, "IRC started as one summer trainee's programming exercise. A hack grew into a software development project that hundreds of people participated in, and then became a worldwide environment where tens of thousands of people now spend time with each other. I have found many of my friends through IRC and learnt a significant part of my present software engineering knowledge while using and working with IRC. That would not have been possible without learning from code examples and hacks from others".
IRC has continued to grow in popularity since its inception. Millions of people from all over the world now use IRC to chat with friends, discuss projects and collaborate on research. With a simple, clearly defined protocol, IRC has become one of the most accessible chat environments, with clients written for a multitude of operating systems. And IRC is more than just a simple chat system it is a network of intercommunicating servers, allowing thousands of clients to connect from anywhere in the world using the IRC protocol.
While IRC is easy to get into and many people are happy to use it without being aware of what's happening under the hood, there are those who hunger for more knowledge, and this book is for them. IRC Hacks is a collection of tips and tools that cover just about everything needed to become a true IRC master, featuring contributions from some of the most renowned IRC hackers, many of whom collaborated on IRC, grouping together to form the channel #irchacks on the freenode IRC network (irc.freenode.net).
Like all of our Hacks books, there are many different ways to use IRC Hacks. You can read the book from cover to cover, but you might be better served by picking an interesting item from the table of contents and just diving in.
If you're relatively new to IRC, you should considering starting with a few hacks from each progressive chapter. Chapter 1 starts you off by showing you how to connect to IRC, while Chapter 2 acquaints you with the everyday concepts you'll need to use IRC effectively. Chapter 3 is all about users and channels, and introduces the first pieces of code. Chapter 4 shows you how to make useful enhancements to IRC clients.
Chapter 5 is where you will learn the basics about creating IRC bots, with Chapters 6-12 introducing more complex bots that can be used for logging, servicing communities, searching, announcing, networking, managing channels or simply for having fun. Chapter 13 delves into the IRC protocol in more detail, and Chapter 14 demonstrates some interesting alternative methods for connecting to IRC. Finally, Chapter 15 will move you on to new pastures by showing you how to set up your own IRC server.
This book presents an opportunity to learn how IRC works and how to make best use of some of the features that have made it the most successful, most scalable, and most mature chat system on this planet. IRC Hacks delves deep into the possibilities.
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- Title:
- IRC Hacks
- By:
- Paul Mutton
- Publisher:
- O'Reilly Media
- Formats:
-
- Print
- Ebook
- Safari Books Online
- Print:
- July 2004
- Ebook:
- July 2004
- Pages:
- 436
- Print ISBN:
- 978-0-596-00687-7
- | ISBN 10:
- 0-596-00687-X
- Ebook ISBN:
- 978-1-4493-8486-9
- | ISBN 10:
- 1-4493-8486-2
|
-
Paul Mutton Paul Mutton is a PhD student at the University of Kent in the UK, frantically trying to finish off his thesis at the same time as writing this book. He previously graduated with first class honors in Computer Science, winning the IEE Institution Prize for being the best overall student in his department. He uses IRC to collaborate with researchers in other countries and to talk to people in his office when they have their headphones on. In his remaining spare time, he uses his Sun Certified Java Programmer skills to develop all sorts of open source software on his personal web site (http://www.jibble.org). Some of his research has culminated in the creation of the popular PieSpy application (http://www.jibble.org/piespy/), which infers and visualizes social networks on IRC, and even appeared on slashdot once. He can normally be found jibbling around in #jibble and #irchacks on the freenode IRC network with the nickname Jibbler, or Paul on smaller networks. View Paul Mutton's full profile page. |
Colophon Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The tool on the cover of IRC Hacks is a hacksaw. The hacksaw is a saw specifically designed for cutting short or thin metal building materials as well as PVC pipe. It has an adjustable frame and uses thin, flexible blades that are stretched tightly in the frame. The blades are meant to be disposed of after they become dull from use. The finer the teeth on a hacksaw blade, the thinner the piece of metal that can be cut. A junior hacksaw is used for even finer cutting, and intricate cutwork in metal requires a piercing saw. In Greek mythology, the saw was invented by Talos, who was the nephew of the preeminent inventor Daedalus. By the time he was twelve, Talos had invented not only the saw, but the potter's wheel and the compass. Daedalus murdered his nephew out of professional jealousy, luring him to the top of the Acropolis and then pushing him off. The Furies-who punished criminals, especially murderers-strongly disapproved of parricide, and manipulated events such that Daedalus' son, Icarus, perished while flying in one of Daedalus' own inventions. Sarah Sherman was the production editor and Norma Emory was the copyeditor for IRC Hacks . Catherine Morris was the proofreader, and Matt Hutchinson and Emily Quill provided quality control. Ellen Troutman wrote the index. Hanna Dyer designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is from the DJ Soft Tools V39 CD. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with Quark XPress 4.1 using Adobe's Helvetica Neue and ITC Garamond fonts. David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Julie Hawks to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Helvetica Neue Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. This colophon was written by Reg Aubry. |
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Table of Contents
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Product Details
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About the Author
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Colophon
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Recommended for You
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Customer Reviews
7/25/2005 (9 of 9 customers found this review helpful) 3.0Book Review - IRC Hacks"" 8/19/2004 (4 of 15 customers found this review helpful) |
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