[DGD]statedumping

[Stephen Schmidt]

On Wed, 10 May 2000, E. Harte wrote:
> I'd say that DGD makes it very easy for a
> developer to track objects and make sure the basis is airtight when it
> comes to leaking objects.

Is it easier in DGD than in, say, MudOS? After all, you can
use simul_efuns() to override load_object() and clone_object()
in MudOS if you want to implement such a thing. I've never
tried it, so maybe there's something I haven't observed.

> The most likely place to find any such leaks is
> in places where creators/wizards add to the game, not in the mudlib.

This may just be a vocabulary issue, but I would have said that
the additions that wizards make to the game are part of the
mudlib. That is certainly one thing I had in mind, although
I also suspect that the larger publically available mudlibs
have not been sufficiently tested to ensure that even their
core mudlibs have no object leaks. Of the small mudlibs it
may be true.
But in any event, even if the only object leaks are in wizard
code, they can still cause the same problem of overfilling the
swap file that they could if they were in the core mudlib,
unless you do something along the lines of Dworkin's suggestions 
for controlling them, or you have a mud with no wizards, which
is possible but not what most people have traditionally done 
with LPmuds.

> In a decent mudlib you'd have limitations in place that
> avoid an object going berzerk and creating clones or adding call_outs
> until the mud crashes.

Most publically available mudlibs don't live up to this
standard, unfortunately, though I agree that it would be
good if they did.
 
Stephen Schmidt



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