What I do not understand: Why not write a simple IRC (or even XMPP) client – but an “IRC-like” client? The documentation is out there. Do people feel special when their software is incompatible with older software without having features that make incompatibility a necessity?
Internet Relay Chat: Client Protocol https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2812
Internet Relay Chat: Server Protocol https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2813