META: List goals (was Re: [MUD-Dev] OS Inspiration)

[J C Lawrence]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 04:10:57 -0600 
Greg Miller <gmiller at classic-games.com> wrote:

> Threading is fairly popular on the list, but we don't have a
> terribly large amount of agreement on how to go about it.  

__NOT__ writing as list owner:

  Having done a little survey of the rest of the MUDding public
(lotsa probing about the web, Usenet, and half a dozen other MUD
lists), the general view seems to be that MUD-Dev is a research
establishment first and an educational venue second (lurkers benefit
from the research we do).  This probably best echoes my own
interests and shouldn't be a surprise.  (I don't think I have the
patience or the interest to run an educational list, or that we'd
keep many of our more, umm, august and entertaining members if I
did).

  If we are going to take the research position, we need to be
supremely careful of assumed othodoxies (nod Keegan).  If the
function of the list is to arrive at agreed upon dogma and recipes
for "how something is done", we've failed before we've started.
Currently we have at least four different threading models
represented on the list, five different DB models, 3 different
client/server models, half a dozen or more internal scripting
languages, at least 3 OS platforms, 6 different social/cultural
models, any of several score different target markets (Furcadia's
target market is certainly not UOL's for instance), etc etc etc.

  This is a Good Thing.  Difference is good.  Knowing and
understanding the implications of why that difference is there is
even better. 

--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                              Other: coder at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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