motd -
"im redesigning IRC edition!"
it's my website :D! i have 2 chat apps on it, database edition and IRC edition (they are also at the side bar)
IRC edition has a server (just like database edition) and it is faster, but less reliable because it recieves messages, and puts them on your computer's temporary storage (CPU cache or RAM) after revieving it instead of storing them in an external database for viewing anywhere.
IRC is a protocol, like the one you use to access websites, and get the data from them (HTTP), but its tailored for sending and recieving messages, so its quicker at doing that. if you know about networking, its like socket programming (in python, c, etc.) where a device sends an encoded string to another device and if the other device is checking for strings, it will recieve it almost instantly.
i've already covered a bit of this in what is IRC edition, but not a lot of it. database edition stores messages in a database, instead of unreliable computer cache.
when you send a message on database edition, it then proceeds to upload it (via POST) to a database. so now, when you view the messages it asks the database for all of the messages, and you can view older messages after clearing your cache (it happens when you reopen your browser, restart your computer, etc.).
there is a pretty big downside to database edition, though. i programmed it from scratch so its a bit, no, really buggy. also, the other downside is that to reload the messages it has to ask the server for the messages a lot of times, and its still slower than the IRC messenger aaand it slows down the server. (the server is potato powered lol)
i hate when people say this, but is depends on the use case. database edition is better if you want to post something important like uhhh... test answers, people can access it anytime, anywhere.
if your bored in class or at work or anywhere really, and just wanna talk, IRC is better for that because its quick, and theres no bugs n stuff.