That was true a few years ago, but is long invalid, due to many recent changes. Nowadays it looks like this:
> * No standard identity services. NickServ is a common bolt-on, but it's a total hack. (It works by pretending it's another IRC server!)
SASL and account-notify.
> * No way to determine when certain commands have succeeded. In particular, commands which can generate multiple lines of output (like WHOIS) don't have a standardized termination. Command-line clients sidestep the issue by just showing all the output in one place; higher-level clients have to guess.
Batch messages.
You can find more at http://ircv3.net/, there’s a lot of specs on modern IRC features. IRC has changed a lot, you might want to take a look at it again ;)
> * No standard identity services. NickServ is a common bolt-on, but it's a total hack. (It works by pretending it's another IRC server!)
SASL and account-notify.
> * No way to determine when certain commands have succeeded. In particular, commands which can generate multiple lines of output (like WHOIS) don't have a standardized termination. Command-line clients sidestep the issue by just showing all the output in one place; higher-level clients have to guess.
Batch messages.
You can find more at http://ircv3.net/, there’s a lot of specs on modern IRC features. IRC has changed a lot, you might want to take a look at it again ;)