rain-1

Why is IRC distributed across multiple servers?

I have been wondering for a long time why IRC networks have multiple servers. Wouldn't it be simpler just to use a single server?

One of the problems of having multiple servers is that netsplits can occur. Anybody who has been on IRC for a while will have witnessed one. Hundreds of people suddenly ripped out of the chat. This can also screw up channel and user modes, and 'some people' have been known to wait for netsplits in order to takeover channels or enter password protected channels.

So lets compare situation (A) a single IRC server everyone connects to with the current setup people use (B) multiple servers. Let's say you run an IRC network with u = 40,000 users and n = 20 server nodes that people connect to via round robin DNS (meaning that when people resolve the DNS it gives them a random server from the set of 20 to connect to). These are vaguely realistic numbers modelled after libera.chat.

So in (B) you have roughly u/n = 2000 clients connected

seece

A Straightforward Way To Extend CSV With Metadata

Pekka Väänänen, Aug 19 2021.

This proposal is a response to It's Time to Retire the CSV by Alex Rasmussen and the discussion on lobste.rs. Don't take it too seriously.

CSV files (comma-separated values) are great but sometimes difficult to parse because everybody seems to have a slightly different idea what CSV means. The obvious solution is to transmit some metadata that tells what to expect but where do you put it? Well, how about a ZIP archive?

An archive with two files. The first file, say format.txt, has the metadata inside and the second one is the original CSV file unchanged. This is still readable by non-technical users because ZIP files are natively supported by both Windows and macOS. People can double click on them like a directory and then double click again on the CSV to open it up in Excel.

roachhd

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

BrainFuck Programming Tutorial by: Katie

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

INTRODUCTION