IRC brings back some memories. I haven't personally used IRC in a few years directly, but I can remember how when I started university, every freshman "had" to login to IRC through SSH and screen :-). That's where the course channels were sitting and you could get help, either if you didn't want to ask face to face, go to school or just needed to ask something. There were other channels too, some where you were invited and had small social groups you chatted with daily.
Nowadays, most of the communication has migrated to Telegram from IRC.
EDIT:
If one was to start using IRC, I guess there isn't a channel or a server where most or some of the people using also Hacker News go?
Nowadays, most of the communication has migrated to Telegram from IRC.
EDIT: If one was to start using IRC, I guess there isn't a channel or a server where most or some of the people using also Hacker News go?