[MUD-Dev] Re: META: who are we?

[Scatter]

> How many of you are from a Diku background, like me?

I'm of an LP (MudOS) background. I was very surprised to
see a few others answering this question saying that they
too are LP based as I did wonder if I was the only one. :)
Certainly it seems that none of the prolific posters are
LP based.

> And might be interested in stuff that is codebase specific? 

MudOS probably counts as a platform rather than a codebase -
it provides almost full abstraction from the underlying
OS and hardware as well as a set of tools and data types which
are specifically useful in the type of thing a mud does.

So stuff specific to a codebase is generally useless, 
except where it provides an idea or concept I can implement
myself. A snippet for DIKU is more or less useless of 
itself, but what it does may be a useful idea I can
use in my own mud. Your 'mood' code is a good example
of this. 

> How many find that stuff anathema and think it should 
> be avoided at all costs? 

I don't think it should be avoided, I just prefer to
read a higher level design than C source code.

> How many think the list is too theoretical, or feel 
> intimidated by the frequent posters and by the volume 
> of past history and discussions that seems to be requied
> knowledge in order to participate?

Definitely count me in there. I don't think it's "too"
theoretical, but a lot of the theory-based threads are
useless to me in practice. Whilst it I really like
the idea of a mud where the fundamental physical laws
are defined and everything else is derived behaviour,
discussion of it is useless to me in practice because
I want my mud up and running before the milennium turns. :)

For example, JCL followed up a post I made about my
webserver suggesting that it might be interesting to
have a mud where both the "normal" interface and a
web interface were simply views of an object database
held in relation database system. Well fine, I agree,
it would be interesting, but it's nothing I'm going
to code, especially now that my LPmud is getting to
"an advanced state of development" (though notably a 
lot of rewriting of various parts has occurred as a 
result of discussion seen here. I've now been 
telling people "it'll be ready for shakedown 
playtesting in a month or so" for about 7 months).

I do feel intimidated by the huge size of the archives
which tends to mean that I won't post in case everything
I say has been said before and better. Similarly things
like the standard scenarios you all seem to know and
love which I haven't quite tracked down yet (it seems
very few of them are in the FAQ). When people say
things like "this is a Dragon's Dinner situation"
it's completely meaningless unless you know what that
scenario is. However, I appreciate that whereas I
recognise the term "race condition", many people
will not.

I also find the qualifications and experience of some
of the posters here very humbling, no way I'm going
to contradict them. I've made a fool of myself in
the usenet groups a couple of times and have no
intention of repeating it here. :)

--
Scatter ///\oo/\\\