[DGD] Zero compatibility

[Felix A. Croes]

Kevin Carpenter <kevinc at kplace.monrou.com> wrote:
> Felix A. Croes write:
> > A change I would prefer (which would make the server incompatible with
> > LPmud 2.4.5, and thus was abandoned with regret) would be to initialize
> > variables to `null' rather than integer 0, `null' being a special value
> > that is equal to nothing but itself, and has typeof(null) == T_NONE.
> > Null can then be a safe neutral element for addition.
> >
>
> Felix -
>
> Is this decission cast in stone?  I'd much rather have the ability to
> store 0 as a mapping value than to have LPmud 2.4.5 capability.  It
> would clean up code, allowing the removal of some hacks.

Introducing null would have to be part of a global revision that includes
proper initializers and better typechecking.  2.4.5 compatibility in
itself is not very desirable now, but support for all current muds
that use DGD certainly is.

All of the new stuff that I have made or am now working on (automatic
swapfile compression, parse_string, multithreading) I want to be available
for current muds, too.  Thus, I am not planning any major changes to the
language for the next public release, 1.2.

For 2.0, yes.

Dworkin