It's a log of recent chat, with an input bar at the bottom.

This is fast becoming a farce.

But can't you see, the simplicity is the genius of it. Everybody can create a complicated chat tool, only few can create a simple chat tool. ;-)

Someone just has to have a patent of that ;)

Eh, looks just like IRC to me:

http://demo.nextapp.com/ChatClient/app

I think that's the point. :)

mIRC sues Campfire over design infringement...

Campfire heard telling mIRC the 90's called and wanted their software back.

More at 5!

This is IRC-like chat in a web browser. Campfire is much, much more than that.

I guess it wasn't so much more that it was not possible to copy it in a few days work.

This is satire. And I wouldn't call Campfire much, much more than in-browser IRC. In fact, 37Signals wouldn't even call it that. Campfire is simple, but well-designed software.

That's one reason I was confused that they saw the wireframe of a design that is HuddleChat and claimed that their look and feel was stolen . . .

Could you explain how it is more?

True transcript history (not just the last 15 messages). Searchable transcripts and file uploads. Inline image preview. View Paste link generated when code snippets are posted. Invitation mechanism and permission settings. Better U/I.

I'm confused...Every IRC client I've used since the Amiga days had pretty much everything you've described (except image preview and maybe the "View Paste link generated" thing that I can't parse into anything sensible in my head). And all of them had/have a very similar UI to Campfire.

I'm not saying Campfire isn't useful (I don't know, I've never used it), but it sounds like you're basing your IRC comparison on a client that has long been lost to history. Modern (as in less than 15 years old) IRC clients have great transcript support, file transfers, and easy to use permissions (you have to have channel moderator privileges to use them, but they are definitely easy).

I think the "paste link" thing means that long messages, that would otherwise appear as floods, are auto-converted into links to auto-submitted snippets of the same text on a Pastebin-like site.

Zed Shaw is going to spontaneously combust. Mark my words.

One can only hope...

I find his shtick to be almost unreadable. There may be a salient point in there, but I'm having trouble wading through the profanity & flaming naked girls.

To each his or her own, I suppose.

The flamming naked girls are the point.

It's hard to see how, but I'm clearly not his target audience.

He really drives me nuts. I don't know the man, so maybe it's just an Internet persona thing, but his writing just really rubs me the wrong way.

Having spent a few days with him in person, I would say that it's 80% Internet persona. He's a good guy. He's a strongly opinionated guy with an overdeveloped sense of justice, but he's smart, kind, and not nearly as egotistical as he seems online.

But that's just me.

Thanks, that's good to know.

Have you read the specs of his "utu" protocol? (check the "saving the internet through hate" link: http://savingtheinternetwithhate.com/design.html). Coming from the man who coded mongrel, I know he understands protocols (at least http).

I think he is doing remarkable stuff.

Call me a cynic, but I'm not sure these would stand on their own if it weren't for the language/framework/platform they trumpet.

Would anyone care about campfire if it was written in say php? I doubt it.

Why would we want him to chill out? So we can enjoy yet another pointless fake tech "blog" by yet another always-politically-correct faceless programmer that reads like an extended version of his resume?

I think we have enough of Rails "blogs" or PHP "blogs" filled with nothing but technical documentation with "Digg it!" slapped on top. Every day (even on YC news) I see 2-3 "blog" posts that have nothing in them but "to code, you'll need an editor and a debugger" or "there are two types of investors: angels and VSs" from yet another cubicle worm who feels like bloggin.

Nah, thanks. I'd rather have Zed and a few others who still have guts to write what's on their minds and sign it with their real names.

Have you read http://www.zedshaw.com/rants/rails_is_a_ghetto.html where Zed mentions being homeless? I worked with him on a project a few years ago and I can't say it was pleasurable. He could benefit from chilling out.

Go Zed!

So what? Even if they did -- that's how the world works. Take ideas, ostensibly improve them, and put 'em out there. Witness the computer you're in front of right now. What part of it and its OS came from Xerox PARC? The idea did.

He is not genuinely complaining about their ripping-off of anything; he's pointing out the ignorance and/or hypocrisy of these items:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158029

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158488

"your a dumbass" ?!?!

He certainly sounds authoritative to me.