[MUD-Dev] (fwd) Re: Issues from the digests and Wout's list

[Chris Gray]

[Chris L:]
:A lot of this I think can be provided by having the parser generically
:detect when it enters a state dependant condition, and when such
:occurs, to isntall watchers on all the objects on which that state
:depends.
:
:That way you don't actually have to get into the semantic parsing of
:potential the state changes -- it can be handled by direct maintenance
:and checking of the state machine itself.

Hmm. That means that parsing of user input has to be involved in your
database consistency stuff, since in a multithreaded environment, the
events triggered by the watchers could be run at any time, including at
the same time as a thread trying to parse some later input from the
same user.

Doing this also requires that the parser be able to have a pretty
comprehensive semantic understanding of what all is going on, in order
that the watchers it plants be able to know when to affect the parse.
Presumeably you don't want to just cancel the parse state if anything
at all happens to any of the objects involved, since many of those
changes will be irrelevant, and some will not even be visible to the
player.

Do you actually do anything like this now, and have you thought through
any actual situations in detail? Anyone?

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