[DGD]Object manager released

[Stephen Schmidt]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Geir Harald Hansen wrote:
> The object manager plugs into the kernel library and keeps tab on which
> objects exist and their inheritance structure.

Question, from ignorance: If one wishes simply to run a
garden-variety fantasy adventure type mud, does one need
such a structure? I have always had the feeling that one
does, and yet when I coded Melville I never ran into a
place where I needed one, so I didn't write one. I imagine
one could install one into Melville with little difficulty;
it does have a manager that keeps track of user objects
and one could borrow code from that. But it would require
a small chunk of CPU (a call_other each time an object
is loaded or destroyed) as well as a bit of memory, and
I never understood what one gained, towards the end of
running a game, that justified that use of CPU/memory,
even as small as it is. I understand that an object
manager lets you do Many Cool Things, such as code
upgrading, but I'm not certain how those things relate
to the downstream goal of entertaining the user, as it
were. Not, of course, that everyone should have that 
as their goal; just that there are a lot of people
who do.

> Melville does not use the kernel library. 

I should clarify that slightly; Melville does use some code
(I would guess 100 or 200 lines) from the kernel's driver
object (1995 version) in its driver object. Other than that,
it does not.

> But if you want to start with an existing mudlib, then Melville is the
> only option.

You can also use the 2.4.5 lib, of course. If you want to
make any substantial changes in the lib, then you would
probably do better to work with Melville; but Melville
doesn't have money, or combat, or skills, or guilds, or
levels, or experience, or any of those little things that
one needs to run a game. I think that more people are using
2.4.5 than we might think (or might care to admit).

I remain surprised that no one has ever released a native,
fully developed fantasy mudlib for DGD. It's on my list of
tasks to do One Of These Days, but things like my job and
my family seem to get in the way :) It's certainly something
that DGD could use if it wanted to increase its market
share out in the Real World, AFAICS.
 
Steve Schmidt






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