Platform-agnostic network APIs

When implementing networking functionality, ensure code uses platform-agnostic APIs and appropriate abstraction layers to handle differences between Windows, Unix, and macOS systems. Similar to how string operations require platform-specific handling (as seen in discussion 1 where strchr was replaced with app_candidate.find(DIR_SEPARATOR)), networking code should avoid direct OS-specific socket APIs in favor of cross-platform abstractions.

Example:

// Avoid platform-specific code like this:
#ifdef _MSC_VER
    SOCKET sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
    // Windows-specific socket operations
#else
    int sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
    // Unix-specific socket operations
#endif

// Instead, use platform abstraction layers:
pal::socket_t sock = pal::create_socket(pal::AddressFamily::IPv4, pal::SocketType::Stream);
if (pal::connect_socket(sock, address, port))
{
    // Platform-agnostic socket operations
}

This approach ensures consistent behavior across all supported platforms and simplifies maintenance by centralizing platform-specific code in the abstraction layer.