[MUD-Dev] Re: Mud-Client, and specifically, COOLMud and SFWhite

[Dan Root]

On Wed, Apr 29, 1998 at 06:41:31PM -0700, Jay Sax wrote:
> >In addition to looking at the Crossfire client (which I really need to 
> >do), I'd also strongly recommend looking at Stephen White's Java
> >MUD/client system:
> >
> >  <URL:http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~sfwhite/VNet.html>
> >
> >Stephen White is of course the original programmer of MOO (before
> >LambdaMOO), and author of COOLMud, which is quite possibly the most
> >utterly elegant MUD server out there.

I'll agree that it's very definitely one of the cleanest and
conceptually simplest systems out there.

> How about a few more words on COOLMud?  What I've seen on SFWhite's
> site is several years old now ('94 date as I recall), including the
> COOLMud server, etc.  His page at the school says there is no active
> COOLMud mud out there, and when I wrote to ask him what's up several
> weeks ago I never received a reply.

I'm running a moderately hacked up version of the latest distribution
source for evaluation primarily.  The biggest problem with it is
the only equivilent to a mudlib or core database for it is in the
distribution and defines a world about as complex as an out of the
box original TinyMUD.

The internal language is nearly identical to that of MOO, modulo a
couple of years of minor divergence.  The biggest difference I've
noticed is in the object and security model.  A LambdaMOO has sets of
permissions vaguely like a unix filesystem and a very strict single
inheritance mechanism.  COOLMud is a little more 'truly' object
oriented, each object is entirely responsible for it's own security.
Additionally all object data is private, only method calls are
publicly accessible, plus there's multiple inheritance, a blessing
or a curse depending on your personal opinions...

At a server level, the much maligned dumped memory style database
has been replaced by a disk-based dbm system based on mjr's UnterMUD
db-layer (the same one in MUSH 2.x, and the basis for ColdMUD's).
This is the primary reason I'm working with it as opposed to working
with LambdaMOO.  The code as a whole is quite clean, well written,
and easy to work with.  The YO protocol, mentioned before in several
of the inter-server communication threads, is also a nice feature,
though not one I've personally used much.

If anyone would like to play with one in action, it's running on
phantasm.thekeep.org port 6565.  Feel free to log in an look around,
however since it's just for testing there's not much interesting
to play with.  A word of warning though, don't eat the Thingy. ;)

	-DaR
--
Dan Root - dar at thekeep.org

--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.