[MUD-Dev] Languages

[Miroslav Silovic]

> 
> My main objection to it is the same problem I have with the Mac. You are
> either a newbie, or a wizard. There is no in between. C++ is so tightly
> interwoven, you have to understand ALL of it INTIMATELY before you can
> expect to have any confidence that you're doing things properly. If you
> don't have a deep understanding of the internals, it's almost impossible
> to explain WHY things have to be done a certain way.

I can't agree more with this.

> However, the vast majority of applications today is so outstripped by
> the power of the computer, C++ is an acceptable tradeoff. We don't
> normally worry overmuch about tightening inner loops, because the
> system's plenty fast even if it's a little inefficient. There are
> applications that need to be written, however, which will require either
> that you are God-on-a-stick with C++, or that you use a more easily
> optimised language that runs closer to the bare metal. Like C.

There is alternative to it: A language that, while very high level,
is optimized for things that are done very often in a MUD (like
string operations, message passing, weird, complex operations that
take lots of arguments not all of which have to be present, and,
most importantly, maintaining complex datastructures). Any GCed
language (Java included) excels at these and is *FAR* simpler to
learn and use efficiently.

(I consider GC to be the key feature of a MUD language, after
incredible ammount of time wasted on tracing leaks, bad access,
and similar problems. C++ constructors and destructors alleviate
this problem, but if you run out of luck, not even Purify will
save you.)

	Miro