How do I run a node IRC bot?

Question

I'd like to run this IRC Eliza bot but I lack some fundamental understanding of how to do it.

https://github.com/isaacs/node-eliza

I don't know anything about IRC or how to connect to them. Could someone explain how I connect to this bot? Do I need to host it remotely? Is there a way to run an IRC client locally and connect to it locally? Currently the program just runs without error but does nothing.

I understand node.js, but I seem to missing some fundamentals in understanding IRC on how to get an IRC bot running.

The readme gives me code that executes but doesn't do anything, quoted below:

Usage

var Eliza = require('eliza/irc.js')

new Eliza({ server: 'irc.freenode.net'
          , nick: 'Eliza'
          , channels: ['##turtles']
          , userName: 'eliza'
          , realName: 'eliza' })

Answer 1

IRC is the a global chat system, comprised of many individual hosts, all (eventually) linked. You usually don't run a part of IRC yourself, rather you use a client to connect to one of the hosts and thus gain access to the network and everyone on it.

An IRC bot is a piece of machine code that has its own logic (Eliza's logic, in your case), and is also connected to IRC and issues IRC commands that let it join channels, talk to other people/bots, received messages, etc.

In your case, you would simply need to run the bot, and let it know which IRC server to join (that the server parameter in new Eliza({...), what nick name to choose for itself, etc.

To run the bot just run node, in any environment (your home PC? hosting?) with the contents of the sample file.