IRC is IMHO an example of a good text-based protocol design, along with several of the other early Internet application-layer protocols (POP, SMTP, HTTP); usable manually with nothing more than a netcat terminal, but also by more fully-featured clients. Early versions of MSNP had a similar flavour, before Microsoft decided to bloatedly XML-ify and SOAP-ify it.
Also, can we please stop using the word "modern" in everything? It's essentially meaningless. At least the name of the page doesn't have it.
Example: I have a book titled "Modern Welding" on my bookshelf (or, as others have called it, "Modem Welding", which partly explains why it's there...), whose copyright date is 1965.
Also, can we please stop using the word "modern" in everything? It's essentially meaningless. At least the name of the page doesn't have it.
Example: I have a book titled "Modern Welding" on my bookshelf (or, as others have called it, "Modem Welding", which partly explains why it's there...), whose copyright date is 1965.