What IRC bot do developers use?

December 16, 2008 7:26 AM

What is a good IRC bot to run on an internal IRC server used by programmers in a software development company?

I've been in a number of IRC channels for open source projects where the IRC bot provides some really neat functionality. I'd like it to integrate with our CVS system, and possibly our bug tracking (JIRA) platform. An ability to index our Wiki would be pretty rad as well.

What is the current state of IRC based integration with software management systems?

posted by butterstick to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: irccat is pretty much the only Swiss Army knife you need.
posted by kcm at 7:32 AM on December 16, 2008

Eggdrop bot is the old defacto standard that I used to run when I was on IRC back in the day (8 years ago). You can code TCL and C plugins for it, so it's ideal to extend. Given that it's unix based (although windows ports do exist), I think it'll integrate nicely with CVS. JIRA might be difficult to integrate with anything, I don't know what interfaces it offers.

Eggdrop has full user management with accounts and password and user levels, which makes it an ideal public bot.
posted by teabag at 9:59 AM on December 16, 2008

Didn't know about irccat, but it seems interesting. I'd check that out first, however you may find both bots to be limited. In that case, just get an IRC library and code it yourself :)
posted by teabag at 10:02 AM on December 16, 2008

Start here, edit as needed.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:43 PM on December 16, 2008

You can code TCL and C plugins for it, so it's ideal to extend.

I don't know about you, but neither TCL nor C are really "ideal" in my mind.

I've never hacked a bot before. But, I like python, so how about phenny?

Just pick your favorite language, and google "$language irc bot". If there's one with the features you need, then you're going to be happier hacking in a language you like rather than on something funky and crufty. If you can't find one, try again with your next favorite language. I promise you'll find one you can cope with... I actually have yet to strike out on that search. They all seem to have similar features.
posted by Netzapper at 5:49 PM on December 16, 2008

Response by poster: IRCCat is so very flexible that I'm pretty sure we can hack up just about anything to use it. Could use some better built in hooks for monitoring mailboxes and whatnot.

Thanks, I'm gonna pursue that one.
posted by butterstick at 6:19 AM on January 16, 2009