Just a bit of musing

[claw at null.net]

On 08/03/97 at 04:17 AM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at inficad.com> said: >
<coder at ibm.net> 

>> Yup.  I find it utterly mazing that nobody (else) has done a fully event
>> driven server.  No polling loops, no list scanning, no wasted iterations. 
>> Just grab the event, process what's needed, and get out.
>
>It probablys sounds quite a bit harder than it actually is.  Implementing
>it is simple, and from there things just get easier.  It's extremely nice
>to be able to say, "Okay, I'll continue with this in a bit, so toss an
>event on the queue..." and just exit whatever function you're in, rather
>than trying to save a bunch of stuff in external variables  somewhere and
>then hope that the proper function gets called again at the right time.

Precisely.  This is why I have a fully event driven server.

>> A good MUD grammar is incredibly context sensitive.  A simple example is
>> the case where the presence or proximity of an object adds verbs to the
>> players.  There is no need for this crap to wander thru the global
>> namespace, or even warp the general grammar.

>I don't actually agree with this.  This is where you end up with things
>like "push" as a social, except for one room on the entire mud where it
>pushes a button.  In another room with a similar button but written by a
>different person, you have to use "press."  

I've discussed this in another post.  I don't offer a solution.  I don't
see it as a techical problem, but an administrative one.  

I do explicitly allow push to be used as a social (and thus defined on
character object) as well as simultaneously being used to depress buttons,
move levers etc.  This all due to the wonder of templates.  The problem of
"push" vs "press" is a horse of a different caliber.  Handled properly
under my system just means that the object inherited from the appropriate
$button object, thus getting all the verbs for free.  

>I dislike the effect you get
>from the old adventurer games of "guess the verb" - I want to know what
>commands I have availible to interact with my character right from the
>start.  

Should this be natively provided by the system, or should it be a function
of documentation, or both?

Should a user/character be able to issue a command which returns all
available verbs either in his environment, or on a specified object?

If so, should certain commands *NOT* be so reported (hidden features), and
if so, what determines the difference (are you still going to hide the
feature from a character that has found out about it?).

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: coder at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...