sam: I'd like to do some more on that chat system we were writing.
sam: maybe a relay server, a bit like NNTP / usenet where posts are relayed to other servers and duplicates are dropped 
sam: I was thinking 3 levels of protocol - 1. just plain messages, 2. from: message, 3. time from to: message
sam: the relays would use level 3, while the clients would send level 1 and receive probably level 2... or something like that!
sam: A client would use a separate TCP connection for each conversation - so no need to write "from" and "to" on every line, that is fixed with the connection.  A relay would use one connection per peer server.
sam: I hope that makes some kind of sense.  No need to go implement it, but maybe you have some ideas about it.

implement 'rooms' / conversations
  - including private conversations / rooms
  - 'rooms' named bar,baz,foo (sorted usernames) are for those users to communicate only
    - room named 'sam' would be for sam only (to talk to himself!)
  - option to receive packets without source prefix (good for 1-1 conversations and generic TCP relay service)
  - option to forward packets, or lines
  - option for write-only / read-only chats
  - option for no-echo / confirm / echo
    - confirm is just like 'username:' without 
  - no esc sequence or commands.  Could implement commands by sending messages to a robot, perhaps in a different connection, or using level 3.


protocol levels:

  0 - plain packets
  1 - plain lines
  2 - from: message
  3 - from: to, message
  4 - time from: to, message