An extensible IRC framework built on top of ZeroMQ.

• main components communicating via ZeroMQ, meaning they can be started separately on different machines
• handle ssl and password protected servers and nicks
• plugin architecture
• multiple server support
• no busy loops

• get python 3.4+
• pip install -r requirements.txt windows tip: lxml-3.4.1.win32-py3.4.exe from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/
• git clone github.com/melbaa/ircfw

cd path/to/project
create a secrets.json with by following the example
python example_bot.py

see the examples in ircfw/plugins.
a main.py holds the entry point to a plugin (just a convention)
All plugins need unique triggers.

• IRC is a relatively simple text protocol, easy to debug
• practice programming abstraction and refactoring
• mostly a proof of concept and for learning ZeroMQ aka. toy project
• have more than just a mental framework for a distributed system. Develop an appreciation for distributed systems topics like naming and discovery; data serialization formats and protocol design; connectivity and liveness; reliability

architecture http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/rfc/rfc2810.txt
client protocol http://www.networksorcery.com/enp/rfc/rfc2812.txt