there is a key difference between mIRC's timers and the functionality offered by this snippet. timers operate asynchronously; you can't, for example, use a timer to pause and interrupt a custom alias to grab a value sent from the server.

and i wouldn't judge FOPtics by his monologue up there. he was a terrific coder (probably still is, though he left the mIRC scene a while ago :P) who devoted a lot of time to helping countless scripters and creating snippets that, for the most part, have stood the test of time. perhaps he was in a bad mood when he wrote that post.