diff between tircproxy and ip_masq_irc

Hi everyone, I am reading Building Internet Firewalls as my assigned homework by the list (OK studying and taking notes to create more questions for the gurus in this list)for irc they also suggest using "tircproxy". Appreantly this is not in the SuSE 7.1 (maybe I have overlooked). What I would like to know is what are the pros and cons of tircproxy compared to ip_masq_irc from the point of security and ease of configuring and stability TIA -- Togan Muftuoglu