Live chat is now available when you are logged into the forum

[SteveW]

  There is now a Live Chat link near the top of each page when you are logged into the forum. (See above.)

The link goes to an IRC chat server and joins you to the channel #25yearsofprogramming.com. To join in the conversation (or start one), just start typing when you get there. The channel is for discussions among members of this forum only.

Whether you can click on the Chat link to go to the chat room depends on the browser you're using. 

1) Firefox with ChatZilla installed:

Click on the chatroom link to automatically launch ChatZilla and go directly to the chatroom. 
ChatZilla is mostly intuitive to use. You watch the conversation in the top pane and type in the box at the bottom. Press Enter to send your text.

2) Internet Explorer with mIRC installed:

I've heard that when the mIRC chat client is installed, it's integrated with Internet Explorer and you can click on an irc:// link to follow it, but I don't have mIRC and haven't tested it. Without mIRC (or maybe another equivalent), IE has no chat capability. If you click on the link when using only IE, it should do nothing, but it might instead hang up the web page. Closing the page should force it to stop trying to connect. 

3) IRC client:

With any other IRC client, you can copy the chatroom link and paste it into the address bar to go to the chat room. 

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Apparently, getting to the chatroom can sometimes fail.  Occasionally the server refuses to allow the connection. Not sure why. It does work usually.

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If you've never used IRC chat and want an overview, see http://25yearsofprogramming.com/blog/20071122.htm. If you're using Firefox but don't know if you have ChatZilla, it shows you how to find out. It also links to some tips for configuring ChatZilla if this will be your first time using it.

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In the future, the chatroom might be used for scheduled COnferences on topics that will be announced in advance, which was a suggestion from a member of this forum.  

I don't normally monitor the chatroom, but if it looks like it's getting some use, I might start. Anytime I'm logged into the forum, I'm usually available to discuss something. Feel free to use it ask for help. Send me a Personal Message here to get my attention.

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The chatroom is not technically part of this website since it is on a different server (a public IRC chat server), but please follow the same rules of conduct there as in forum posts. The forum's Terms of Use have been amended to cover conduct in both the forum and chatroom.

[<>lessa<>]

Istien, c'est incroyable!  J'ai lu votres lettres en francais!

Steven, it's unbelievable!  I read all the messages in French!  Simply astonishing.  Instant translations. 

The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to reply in French.  The "reply" rectangle wasn't there.   Or was it?

It's a wonderful addition to the site.

<>lessa<>

[SteveW]

I was surprised, too, how well it works. Google was the best of the 3 translators I tested.

The two others I tried (Yahoo and Microsoft) both use something called SYSTRAN. It is based on a large body of historical United Nations documents that, of course, have been translated into all languages and thus make a great look-up table for translations. However, it is static (doesn't learn or change over time) and often results in poor translations, though it occasionally does better than Google.

Google's translator is based on their own methods. It appears to use contextual cues to resolve ambiguous meanings. Its strength is that it is able to learn from mistakes and from user suggestions, so over time it will continue to improve. It probably also learns about new usages and idiomatic phrases from the many web pages in its index, in all different languages.


The translation you see of a page from this forum is really a copy of the page retrieved by Google and machine translated, with the result displayed on a Google (not a 25 Years of Programming) page. Google isn't a member here, so the page they retrieved doesn't have the Reply button. Only registered members can reply.

As you discovered, you can easily reply here in French or any language that uses a Latin character set. Actually, this forum supports many other character sets such as Chinese and Russian, but alternate character sets are currently disabled. They might be enabled in the future.