[MUD-Dev] Java and Javascript

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

At 03:37 PM 2/16/98 +0000, Matt Chatterley wrote:
>On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>> At 11:11 AM 2/14/98 +0000, Mat Chatterley wrote:
>> >
>> >Absolutely agreed that the browser interface is not useful. If anything,
>> >it means a waste of resources!
>
>Albeit in a slightly ranty form, this contains some very interesting
>points (and I'm not certain to what degree this is serious, but in either 
>case, an interesting attitude - not necessarily Caliban's). Dissection in
>parts follows.

Well, I went flying off on a tirade as usual. I have a tendency to do that,
and I just hope I'm not leaving people with the idea that I'm some bitter,
pathetic jerk who has nothing better to do than argue with people. ;)
 
>> No it doesn't! Quit assuming that your MUD is the only damn thing I want to
>> do while I'm online! I want all the same integrated features I'm used to,
>
>But given that assumption (a reasonable one when writing a mud client, I
>think), 

I don't. I have not done one and only one thing on my computer for years. I
average eight to twelve open applications at a time (right now I have 16
open).

>using the browser environment when not necessary *would* entail a
>waste of resources. This is perhaps not a valid enough argument on its own
>(OTOH, Netscape puts my machine through the wringer, and I have 64 mbs of
>ram plus a fast disk). Even so, its a design thing - I hate to see big and
>unwieldy things being used for tasks that can be accomplished with
>smaller, neater programs (and also, it makes things more accessible to
>'lower power' machines). Of course, it means I don't have to deal with
>bugs in other peoples software, too.

I can see both sides of this issue. I have a healthy aversion to canned
code and downloaded components, but sometimes you have to ask yourself why
you ought to build something someone else already did. The major question
is whether the benefit outweighs the liability -- for example, if you build
your client in Java, you inherit any security bug that might be found in
Java. You have to ask yourself whether that's a risk worth taking; do you
want the software done and out the door faster, or do you want it
bulletproof? Time is a commodity, but so is reliability... and when you use
someone else's framework, you're investing a lot of trust in that person. 

>> dammit, and your client can most definitely make use of forward and back

>> while I'm playing if you use an interface that uses that -- like a
separate
>> help window on the side in a frame, for example. Browser-based clients can
>> provide a lot of functionality and a lot of convenience, and I see a lot of
>
>Actually, I can't think of any extra functionality that could be offered
>by a Browser based client. Could you give some examples? (Genuine
>interest). How would you find it more convenient?

Consider a framed site, with the terminal session in one frame, a table of
contents in another, and the help file in another. I can browse the help
and news and all that while I play, without spamming the hell out of my
screen. Back and forward are useful there. Someone else could design an
add-on product which sat on top of yours, and just run it in a separate
frame or window. If I play several games like this, I could fit two or more
in the same browser window. I could write Java and JavaScript that
interacted with the world, or even use dedicated client software of some
sort ot add to it. The availability of the 'chrome' is sometimes essential
for this sort of thing, and the resources the chrome actually takes up are
miniscule. After all, you have the whole application loaded anyway. 

>It's not the only argument; just one consideration. And you may not wish
>to use the entire machine up for your mudding! 

I should certainly hope not, but all the same you shouldn't be thinking
about the 640K barrier when you build a client. ;)

>You might want to run it in
>the background, or low-priority rather than in a browser (I think you must
>accept that browsers are fairly huge things, now).

Browsers are also absolutely essential to most online activity. I think a
larger number of people than you realise have their web browsers open all
the time *anyway*. I've got three Netscape windows open as we speak. Plus a
pair of NetTerm sessions to shell accounts and three MUDs. If I could do
all of those in the browser, I would SAVE resources, since the browser
would have a significant amount of shared code between windows.

>There are many machines below average. Personally, I own a p133 (intel),
>with 5gb total storage space (not all available currently), and two

>cd-roms (4x and 2x). The video card has 1mb ram, and the sound card
>doesn't work. It also has 64 mb ram (oh, and the CPU only clocks 100
>because the PSU is overloaded by the SCSI bus). The 4x cdrom is kinda
>busted, too. None of this is likely to change any time soon - I make the
>assumption that I am not the only person behind what some people consider
>to be 'standard'.

The system that cost $1500 last year (I just did some research on this
recently) was a P133 with 32 megs and a 2 GB hard drive. 2 megs of video
RAM was standard. A 4xCD was about standard. In other words -- yes, you are
average. Better, in some respects. You have more RAM and disk than most
people.

>The more resources the browser uses, the fewer are available for my client
>if I wish to make it do clever and/or attractive things, though.

But some of those resources are things you can use yourself. Like the GIF
and JPEG display code, the scripting engine, the document object model, the
protocol support... you could actually use an SMTP mail server for your
users and an IMAP mail interface on your back end. There's a lot of
rendering code handled for you there, and it's that much work you don't
have to do. And your users already have all their preferences set up, and
all their druthers accounted for, and they already know how to use it. All
in all, using the browser could be a really big design win if you leverage
the technology right, and can actually SAVE memory and disk space.
 
>This is no different to instally any other substantial piece of software.
>Btw, AFAIK no reboots or anything of that sort are actually required to
>get JRE running on windows (certainly was not needed when I test installed
>an old copy of JDK 1.02 I had on the windows machine here).

When I last installed the JDK, I had to manually enter several environment
variables and registry keys. It was not something I'd wish on a novice.
I've also never had to do that with any piece of software I have ever
installed, with the exception of the Gnu Win32 utilities which required a
similar setup. (I think it's a UNIX thing. UNIX people seem to have this
idea that you should have to prove you're worthy to run their software. So
they make you do fifty weird technical things, and if you can manage that
then you must know what you're doing.)
 
>It could also be pretty hard to integrate Java and Javascript in any way
>like this (as far as I can see). The trouble with JS really is that its a
>scripting language which was (as far as I can tell) intended for embedded
>objects in webpages, rather than 'dynamic objects' like Java itself.

Netscape has a specific connectivity option (LiveConnect) between Java and
Javascript. MSIE supports it pretty well, as far as I can tell. Not like I
use MSIE much.

JavaScript is a lot more robust than it used to be. And on the Microsoft
front, ASP in particular is an exciting technology. It's starting to look
like I may never have to write another CGI script in my life. ;)
 
>> What ever happened to single player games? I don't like team sports and I
>> don't like competition and mainly I want something that I can play and have
>> fun with even if there's no one else there. Most of the time there isn't
>> going to be anyone else involved. (Sort of like my sex life.) This network
>> game boom has really caused a lot of the single player stuff to suffer.
>
>Can't a lot of muds be played single-player (this is an interesting
>notion).

Yeah, but they suck. I've tried. ;)