Community Byte: Coding an IRC Bot in Python (For Beginners)

Beginning this week, Null Byte will be hosting a new feature called Community Byte, a weekly coding and hacking session held in the Null Byte IRC. This is a chance for our community to do something fun, and make something awesome together!

The weekly community projects are geared toward people who haven't programmed before, and programmers alike. For this week's first Community Byte, we will be going over how to make a simple IRC bot in the Python programming language.

Prerequisites

• Basic computer literacy
• Your brain
• Will to learn
• Python2.7 installed on your computer
• An IRC client, like XChat
• Gobby, a real-time collaborative code editor

How does this work?

We will be using IRC to round people up before the coding. In IRC, I will assist whoever needs help connecting to the Gobby session. If you're new to IRC, go here to learn how to set it up and use it. I will be hosting a Gobby server for everyone to connect to, which allows us all to code in real-time, with everyone able to view and learn the code as we go along. Gobby makes coding with friends over long distance fun and easy.

When does it start?

The coding will take place every Friday at 5:00 pm PST, so be in IRC around that time. At the end of each session, I will post the code to the forums, and write a post about how it works, and what our code can do!

Project goals

• The bot will be able to connect to IRC (at minimum) and send a message.
• Everyone will learn a bit of Python.
• Bring the community together and teach each other new things!
• Get more people in IRC.

Let's try to get as many people in this as we can! Everyone should have basics to coding down, it makes life far easier when you can code your own tools in just a few minutes/hours.

Get everyone you can to join IRC, and idle in the channel with the rest of us. Don't be shy, we don't bite, and the more people who idle 24/7, the more fun it is for all of us! I'm always there, so come say hello.