XChat following RFC 2812

[computerquip]

I had a small discussion (more like statement rather than discussion) about the USER command on IRC. Looking at the packets sent from Xchat, the USER command seems to follow RFC 1459 - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459#section-4.1.3.

Connecting to irc.freenode.net used the following command without quotations: "USER MasterCQ MasterCQ irc.freenode.net :MasterCQ"

According to RFC 2812, the third argument of the USER command is "unused" while the second parameter is now a bitmask related to usermodes. This can be referenced here: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2812#section-3.1.3

The original question on IRC was what RFC should I follow as I was creating a basic IRC library for myself. I was told by protospork (on IRC) that you would generally follow the more recent revision of the standard (which is 2812). Am I misreading the more recent standard? Am I wrong on any of this maybe?

[protospork]

My response in IRC was based on the fact that 2812 "updates" 1459. I assumed it would make more sense to follow the updated version, but I have absolutely no idea whether 2812's event style is actually supported by anything, if any clients use it, etc. - I probably should have told you to ask an actual xchat person or track down some ircd devs and ask how/if they deal with the two styles. I'm just some guy.