Why in the name of the fuck do companies use the piece of shit software that is Slack?

Because it's really good for what it is

1. It has huddle feature (No need for GMeet, Teams)

2. You can create channels and have your web application direct your logs in them.

3. You can integrate stuff like Google Calendar, GitHub, BitBucket etc.

4. You can create custom commands so u can get basic stuff done on ur web application without needing ur laptop.

@mansur85 If mattermost is good, how does that make Slack less good than what it was all this time?

@mansur85 does that mean it's worse and all the companied now MUST invest thousands to milions of $s and spend weeks to years worth of manhours just to migrate to an alternative that looks different [so employees will have to learn the new tool, its limitations and capabilities and make mistakes while learning], works different, integrates differently and gives no real financial benefit and only questionable value?

That makes 0 sense

P.S. Mattermost enterprise is not free afaik

Slack isn't bad at all. 0f all the tools in the area of IM/collaboration I have used, Slack is my personal best

What makes you feel it is shitty?

@asgs It's very clunky and glitchy. Sometimes I send messages from one device and it's sent, then I can't read it on another device. Just an example.

@kenpidev that's likely network issues on your end.

I have used slack on multiple Windows installs (going back to Windows 7), Linux, Android, Mac, iPad. Never had that happen.

I have had the native Windows slack app lock up on me at least once a day, but that's just because electron is shit running on a shitty os.

@mansur85 I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF MATTERMOST. I GUESS THEIR MARKETING TEAMS ARE PRETTY SHITTY LIKE MOST OSS.

I'm all about supporting OSS, but it has to be good, it has to be cheap, it has to be supported.

To use slack I don't need servers, I don't need IT, I don't need to worry about compliance, I don't need to spend hours per month fixing problems I don't have time for.

Slack is a better solution for enterprise.

@sariel Isn't enterprise the one market that _does_ have the resources to maintain self-hosted stuff? I mean, wouldn't a class of clients that commonly build their own in-house versions of basic software to support their unique use cases be in the best possible position to adopt open-source solutions?

@lorentz Enterprises do have the capacity and intent to self host and manage servers and databases because of cost benefits, and security reasons but not the standard solutions like IM, Bug Management, Email or Productivity suite o

I like it and I actually never heard anyone complain before.

Maybe there's something new that's better but we have no issues with it.

It's possible people would think Slack sucks after they tried this new better tool, but ... I gotta say that when I first got I felt it was superior to anything we had before. And sounds better than everything Microsoft is doing.

What have I done

@kenpidev: what are the top 3 things you dislike about Slack?

I legit don't get the hate. The only thing I don't like is the new features for sending voice and video which no one at my company has ever used but are still occupying unnecessary space.

...And the outage a few days ago.

@mansur85 "just better" and "integrates better" is not much of an argument, is it now.

Anyway, I'm not in the mood to argue today. I had years of developing for Slack in a corp, and last week I skimmed over mattermost as I'm working on setting up GitLab. Gotta say, my first impression is that MM is a lot different from Slack - very cluttered, features I did not understand (but apparently important, as shortcuts are on the surface), design slightly reminds of forums' input textarea from 2007 (something BB.. BB-code? BB-form? IDK). And the fact that you can't create a Mattermost Cloud account using a personal email.. eww...

However, as I said, I just skimmed over it and my initial impression is that they are substantially different. Haven't looked at it from dev perspective yet.

Probably you're right and I'm wrong, as you clearly have analyzed both tools better and more thoroughly than I have.

@mansur85 bro I use Linux as my daily. I've been breathing OSS for decades.

Enterprise solutions aren't always open source. Maintaining communications is a full-time responsibility, I already have a full-time responsibility to my products for my customers, I don't need another one.

That's the problem with OSS evangelists, they just can't comprehend why anyone would pay a vendor for a service. It's damaging to our rights, it's damaging to our freedoms. Why do it at all?

Money and time. It's that simple.

Maybe it's time for OSS to take a real look at business models and change with enterprise needs. Some are getting the picture by offering cloud hosted services but still offering the code to diy, I think that's a good direction.

Only offering support to a tool I still have to host or pay someone to host? Nah bro, I'll just pay Slack for it all.

@jiraTicket Tbh this was mostly a rant in a moment of frustration. However, clunky glitchy and unintuitive UI (how channels/chats/threads work). Sync between devices despite trying on multiple different networks.

I have used many different communication programs over the years and they all have their quirks but, by far, the best one I used is Discord. I know it is not commonly used in a professional setting but I wish it was.

@kenpidev I understand.

I figured Discord was the main alternative. Personally never used Discord for work but I’ve used it for private gaming groups and been a bit confused over the UI for voice chats versus our text chats.

I feel the Slack UI is semi intuitive to me but I’ve used it daily for years so it’s an unfair comparison. i’m probably used to some of the unintuitiveness to the point where it feels intuitive to me 😬

I have experienced some occasional sync issues between mobile and desktop Slack but not often enough to bug me big time. Now that you mention it though I’ve had a few really annoying ones like everyone getting the wrong avatar for a while. and mobile messages that failed to send and remain as unremovable notifications for a few days

My main gripes with slack are:

- The distinction between threads/channels being clunky.

- Dunno if just me, but the slack web client seems sluggish and terribly optimized (I'm sure it's not my PC, I have a fucking rocket, probably interns thinking queuing 1555269 promises is multithreading).

- main one: massive incongruence with mail notifications. Some messages are missed because no notification ever arrives. Other times, I even fucking read the message as it has been written, and randomly, say, 5 hours later or even 1 day later, I get a mail about that very same message. That infuriates me to no end.

@CoreFusionX Ah yeah the web UI was slow last time I used it. Many of us who ”defend” slack are heavy users who have the app installed everywhere so we forgot all about the web version.

Regarding threads I never felt the UI was great but can’t recall seeing a better solution either, if I compare it to thready things like Discus (not Discord) or Reddit (not a great comparison since it’s infinite response nesting instead of just max 1 level of responses like on Slack or Discus)

I think I pretty much rely on Search or Saving random posts in threads to find my way back to old threads that are valuable and go on for a long time

@jiraTicket

Not really fond of discord either. (Besides usual electron ugh stuff).

I mean, might be because I grew up with IRC, and I just want my messaging tools straight and to the point.

As for desktop apps, no, thanks. Slack is one of those things that pushed browsers to be able to show system notifications and do a myriad other things they should never do.

Well, they pushed it. Now they have absolutely no fucking reason to push a desktop app after the fact (which is also electron shit, but with more tracking and shenanigans)

I am most comfortable with gmeet, but I also admit that's probably because of recency bias on my part.

@CoreFusionX One thing I see in common among oldschool IRC-users is the dislike of threads.

There would be a benefit in some slack-channels if threading was disabled entirely and it was all just a single level flat feed.

I think it would work well for low-activity channels but in my eyes it would be horrid for high-activity channels.

In my team we have recurring debates around Slack usage and it shifts between "it's impossible to keep up with this channel cause two people are having a discussion without using a Thread!" and "I can't find important messages cause they were written in the middle of a thread" or "There's too many channels! Do we really need a channel about the web search feature - can't that be part of the WebDev-channel?"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

haven't used it much so I can't tell you.

would be amusing if the church of the subgenius founded slack. what a bunch of retards that turned into a bunch of sell their own daughters and wives as whores retards.

can we uh. just stay in 2023+ please ? I really don't want to be have to be able to explain how I know what said retards are, I keep having to go to their damn swareee.

can I like go to the owls instead ?

wear like a funny robe and hat and pray to the grand poobah and make locker room jokes ?

so how much does this shit cost ?

I may make my own and charge 50% of the price lol

the strippers in this one ad photo are like a cellulite advertisement.

And you just derailed another thread!

@lorentz hahahahahahahaha hahahahahah.....

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

All the enterprises I have worked for/with had one thing in common. Techdebt. Well that and shadow IT.

Why is there tech debt? Because the devs and ops engineers are working furiously injecting value into the company. Maintaining tools that actually help with that isn't on the list of things to do.

The tools need to be vetted by management to make sure it doesn't negatively impact delivery pipelines or jeopardize certifications or reduce their control.

These assholes could care less if customer details are leaked or if you're working 20 hour days. Just as long as you're not a problem and don't cause problems.

Shadow IT happens when good leaders are ignored and create tooling to reduce or remove managerial bullshit.

Here's a quick test.

Did your team choose your task system?

Did your team choose your chat system?

Did your team design your delivery pipelines?

If you answered no, you've been cucked!

@sariel mattermost is around for quite a while, pretty popular and well supported by the company.
However @mansur85 your requirements don't necessarily align or are a priority. Some existing integrations and bots might be way more valuable than being open source. Also the self hosted part seems preferred making it questionable whether the cloud solution is going to survive.

Because Slack sucks less than MS Teams?

Maybe I'm just too old to become a fan of the new stuff. What happened to nntp, why can't there be a usenet with added markdown support and some sort of authentication and community mechanisms?

At least, slack has preserved some of the original IRC ideas, and it's even possible to log into multiple communities with different email addresses.

But what would be the alternative? Do you actually like discord, or what's the next big thing?

because it's not teams - which is a HUUUUUUGE selling point.