[MUD-Dev] Re: Multi-threaded mudding (was a flamefest)

[coder at ibm.net]

On 02/05/97 at 05:58 PM, Jeff Kesselman <jeffk at tenetwork.com> said: >At
04:38 PM 5/2/97 PST8PDT, coder at null.net wrote:

>>While technically accurate, its really a questionable point.  ColdX's
>>definition of envets are tightly limited to connection and I/O state
>>changes.  It actually has no real concept of an internally generated
>>event, or even an event model as regards internal state changes for
>>the DB.  It's only events center on what happens on its network ports.
...
>I think to make your poitn vaild you need to explain what the differnece
>between an "internal event" and a message pass is, in your model. I see
>no practical difference.  In my model and in the term event driven as I
>understand it to be commonly used, the only difference is that the call
>coems from the OS... which is to say it happens inresponse to IO (or the
>clock, which is also a form of IO really.)

A running MUD has the unusual property of being self-animating.  Ignoring
the questions of swapping out inactive areas etc, even if no users ever
log in, the mobiles will continue to wander their paths, night and day
will progess thru the MUD world, weather will change, seasons will pass. 
The game world will animate itself.

I model these animations as events.  A mobile moves his next step by
having a closing event log a new event to step him forward some time in
the future.  All other changes operate similarly, with the internal code
within the DB becoming a source for events, and those events being
executed and possibly spawning new events.

A key, and rather underlieing reason for considering these sort of
internal-DB generated events as "events", is that they are external to the
server.  The fact that such events also execute independantly and without
any real reference to the server or other executing events, and that the
server itself has no responsibility to the events once they begin
execution helps ratify the definition.

Message passes occur within an event when a method on one object attempts
to call or reference a method on another object.  Is the old tired
standard of how an a method is called.

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