[MUD-Dev] Re: META: list "peerage"

[Travis S. Casey]

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Holly Sommer wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> 
> > To play devil's advocate: The compilation of a MUD on any given platform is
> > often a serious pain in the behind. Especially if the platform is weird. The
> > sysadmin is generally better qualified to compile the MUD than you are, and
> > presumably will do all the weirdness he needs to with the makefile so you
> > don't have to worry about the network and can concentrate on the game.
> 
> But, being able to manage your own code is an IMPERATIVE part of running 
> the game! Suppose there's a bug? Are you going to ask the sysadmin to fix 
> and compile for each bug? Suppose you want to add code, or change things, 
> etc.? This, IMO, is an unreasonable expectation for a sysadmin. Potential 
> MUD imps who aren't learned enough in the ways of compiling or writing 
> portable code should practice on their own machines first, or find an 
> accont where they can practice, before taking it to a development site.

Don't forget, though, that not all mud types require changes to the basic
mud code to be able to add things to the game or change things.  For
example, the muds that I've worked on have been LPmuds using the MudOS
driver.  In about five years of working on LPs, the only alteration I ever
had to do to the game driver was changing flags in the options file and
recompiling.

Of course, I had to write large amounts of LPC code and debug it, but
that's different enough from working in actual C that an LPmud admin could
be very good with LPC without being skilled enough to work on the driver.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
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