[MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Wed, 25 Jun 1997 19:22:51 PST8PDT, clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>In <33ad0a65.1847835 at relay.mnsinc.com>, on 06/20/97 
>   at 07:29 PM, caliban at darklock.com (Caliban Tiresias Darklock) said:
>
>>This illustration is slightly flawed as I present it, in that the
>>game system and game world are rarely a clearly defined pair of
>>separate entities, and on many occasions the programming language and
>>user command set are subject to significant crossover. 
>
>It also avoids the various forms of hardcoded games (cf DGD, Diku)
>where there is no internal programming language:  changing the game
>requires recompiling the game kernel.  Such servers are surprisingly
>common.

Since the aim here is to create a flexible server which does NOT require
recompilation to effect changes, this option is completely unacceptable
by definition. Therefore I do not avoid the issue, but merely ignore it
entirely. I don't have a graphics module or a popcorn machine listed
either, because they're outside the scope of the discussion.

>You can try and build a system which is leveragable into different
>systems, but the result is that you don't define the current system
>with sufficient detail to actually define the precise behaviours with
>the result...

 [snip]

>...that you end up here (from my last para).

Are you saying there is no middle ground here which would be an
acceptable compromise? I find that a dubious claim. On the other hand,
no one out there seems to have many ideas.

>ie user interface definition where user interface is defined in two
>ways: as the interface to the game world, and the interface to the
>game system.  My  view is that properly done one has little logically
>to do with the other.

If you look at my diagram again, you may notice something. Namely that
the game system and game world are separate modules which in turn have
little interdependence and not necessarily any relation at all. 

>>I've got a lot more in the way of comments and opinions on this
>>matter...
>
>Not a lot I disagree with so far.  Most of it is largely unarguable --
>essentially a reporting of what you have observed and your conclusions
>there from.  What is missing is a proposed interpretation and
>addressing of your observations.

I'm being deliberately cagey on the matter, because I've been rather
quickly pounced on as a codebase bigot and/or someone who doesn't know
what he's talking about every time I've tried to discuss it previously.
I still haven't heard more than two or three people express an interest
in participating in the discussion, and all of them seem to be of the
opinion that the concept has merit but it will never work. I really
don't feel like laying out a lot of work only to be told by two or three
people that I'm just dreaming and a server like this can't even be
written. The end result of such a thing is likely to be either I write a
server that everyone hates, because the opinions of two or three people
are not statistically valid, or I don't write a server and people smirk
and say 'yeah, right, *sure* it can be done'. 

-+[caliban at darklock.com]+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
 I am here to grind your eyes harder into the miasmic bile of life; to 
 show you the truth and the beauty in the whisper of steel on silk and 
 the crimson scent of blood as it rises to meet the caress of a blade. 
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