[MUD-Dev] C&C and Event Rescheduling

[Chris Gray]

[Chris L:]

:  Please enters the following very rapidly:
:
:    N, S, E, W.

It seems to me that, even if they are all on the same input line, they
are separate commands from the user. I'd say that an input command from
a user cannot even be ready for execution until all previous commands
from that user have C&C'd. I wouldn't think any user would expect
otherwise. Hmm. Haven't we talked about just this before?

[Editing exit code for source room and entry code for destination room
while character is making the move.]

:While rooms are an odd example to chose here, try any other command
:which launches a sequence of operations where each operation is
:dependant on the one before.

This suggests to me not that there be anything in the DB to handle
this, but that their be something in the system to handle it. First,
I assume that the programmer doing this has checked the correctness of
the two routines before trying this. If not, then, if that kind of
online modification is allowed by the administration, all bets are off
and no-one can complain about anything that happens. If, however, there
are administrative controls on this sort of thing (not something I've
thought about yet!), then it behooves the programmer to do the change
in a way that won't mess things up. The simple answer is to have all
changes happen in one C&C. I'm not sure of the mechanism in your system
or others, but in mine, it just means that the programmer should make
a function that does a set of function assignments/updates. Then, a
single call to that function does an atomic update of all that is
involved.

That may not be possible in a direct-call situation (i.e. where the
functions in question are called directly by name, rather than by
being retrieved via pointer from the DB), in which case I would
suggest some mechanism within the MUD system whereby edits to code
can be "held back", and then all released in a batch. It's manual, sure,
but likely only the programmer can properly judge what all needs to
be updated.

--
Chris Gray   cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA