[IPython-dev] Results of last year's user survey

Tue Mar 11 12:05:25 EDT 2014

> On Mar 10, 2014, at 23:38, Nelle Varoquaux <nelle.varoquaux at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I think I already asked Matthias about this, but why not simply use irc?
> It has all the features you require, and is the default communication channel
> for software engineers.
> 

We started using hipchat specifically because IRC wasn't working well, and it doesn't have features that we require. Among them:

- offline notification
- history persistence
- search

-MinRK

>> On 11 March 2014 02:39, Aaron Meurer <asmeurer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The guest access of HipChat is really what sucks to me. There is no
>> chat history, so accidentally reloading the page causes you to lose
>> all context.
>> 
>> Gitter does email you when a starred room has activity. I think they
>> also email you if you are @mentioned (not positive about that last
>> part, but it would be silly if they didn't). According to
>> https://gitter.im/apps phone apps are coming soon.
>> 
>> I've been using it since the public beta started in December and I've
>> been really impressed with how fast it has improved.
>> 
>> The only concern with gitter is that they are currently in beta, so
>> it's not clear what will remain free when they leave it. But seeing as
>> you guys are already paying for HipChat, it shouldn't be as big of a
>> concern for you.
>> 
>> Aaron Meurer
>> 
>>> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 8:08 PM, MinRK <benjaminrk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> There are chat rooms for organizations and repos
>>> 
>>> - only members of an organization can join the org room
>>> - public repo rooms are public
>>> - private repo rooms are private
>>> 
>>> I think there are two things that we use on HipChat that gitter doesn't do:
>>> 
>>> - guest access (GitHub login is required even for public rooms)
>>> - push/email notifications for mentions when idle (it supports desktop, but
>>> not offline notifications)
>>> 
>>> For the most part, I think Gitter seems a lot better than HipChat,
>>> especially for guests (at least those with GitHub accounts). I am not
>>> especially fond of HipChat, and the guest experience is pretty horrendous
>>> (no native app, no history, frequent crashes, etc.), so I wouldn't mind
>>> giving something else a try.
>>> 
>>> -MinRK
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 5:45 PM, Aaron Meurer <asmeurer at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Gitter does support direct messages. I don't know if it supports private
>>>> rooms.
>>>> 
>>>> Aaron Meurer
>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Thomas Kluyver <takowl at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 10 March 2014 13:02, Aaron Meurer <asmeurer at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I didn't know you guys were dropping 2.6 support so soon.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yep. We've been fairly aggressive with Python version requirements for a
>>>>> while - we were one of the first projects to drop 2.5 support as well.
>>>>> We
>>>>> anticipate we'll get some bug reports about it, but we think it's worth
>>>>> it
>>>>> to be able to use 2.7 features reliably. It's so easy to forget what 2.6
>>>>> didn't have, which is why we had to release 1.2.1 soon after 1.2.0.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Regarding hipchat, I hate to say it, but nobody uses it because it
>>>>>> sucks. I personally hate it every time I try to use it. The interface
>>>>>> is just the worst for people who are not registered. You guys should
>>>>>> take a look at gitter.im. It integrates with GitHub, it's free, and it
>>>>>> has nice things like backlogs on chats for everyone.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> We do actually see a couple of questions on Hipchat most days - probably
>>>>> more traffic than the mailing list - but I don't think most of the
>>>>> people
>>>>> using the help chat room would have heard about the survey. Gitter does
>>>>> look
>>>>> interesting, though.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Brian: I think Gitter has private rooms if you associate it with private
>>>>> repos. People who can see the repo see the chat room. I don't know about
>>>>> direct messaging.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm a little surprised about the academia vs. industry usage. I
>>>>>> suspect there were just more respondents from the academic side than
>>>>>> from industry.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> That's quite possible. The results are probably also biased towards
>>>>> English
>>>>> speakers, early adopters, and technically proficient users. Getting a
>>>>> representative sample is pretty tricky. But I think the results give us
>>>>> some
>>>>> ballpark figures.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thomas
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> IPython-dev mailing list
>>>>> IPython-dev at scipy.org
>>>>> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/ipython-dev
>>>>> 
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>>> 
>>> 
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