[MUD-Dev] Clients

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 14 Jan 98 at 8:18, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> Bluntly, I don't think the majority of MUD players think vi is a
> desirable interface for anything. Not even vi. 
> 
> As always: I Could Be Wrong. I can just see hundreds of people mailing
> the list and extolling the virtues of vi as the interface of the
> future. 
>

No, you are right on the money!  If the client is to be designed for 
players and builders, then editors ought to be comfortable for "most" 
users.  Personally, I don't think 'vi' is the editor of choice for
most Unix users either.

> [Shawn Halpenny spaketh:]
> >
> >But what of the people who _do_ know precisely what they want?=A0 Are y=
ou 
> >going to force them to throw out their old interface knowledge and make
> >them learn the new one?
> 
> If you wanted me to build a client just for you, I would completely
> concur with your desires and nod vigorously at every suggestion you
> made that was even remotely feasible. If you were asking me to build a
> client for your entire department, and you insisted on some interface
> decision like this -- then yes, I *would* force you to throw out your
> interface knowledge, unless you could show to my satisfaction that the
> rest of your department agreed with your idea and had a similar level
> of knowledge. If I was building a program for general distribution to
> the world at large and you sent me a suggestion like this, I'd laugh
> hysterically and delete it. 

Exactly, design for your target audience.  MOST mud players play from
a Windows box, so...  Does anyone have any data to counter this wild
claim? :)

[snip] 
> Is it what *anyone* could be reasonably expected to want? I mean, it
> strikes me as being very specific, esoteric, and unusual. I'm wondering 
> when I look at this suggestion exactly what sort of client we're
> talking about here. Who's expected to use this client? What context is
> it in? I mean, if this is a client intended specifically and
> exclusively for the MUD admins and builders -- people who have
> traditionally (on many classic MUD architectures) been expected to
> spend a lot of time in UNIX shells working in vi or some similar editor
> for extended periods -- then I'd take this suggestion a lot more
> seriously than if we're talking about a client for all the MUD's
> players. 
> 

If one was to design an interface for me, I would like to see TSO/ISPF 
mode.  However, It wouldn't think of implementing it in my mud client.

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