[MUD-Dev] [Tech] MUDs, MORPGs, and Object Persistence

[Bruce]

Hi Derek,

Derek Licciardi wrote:

> ps IMHO, I think it is time that MUD servers began to become
> Enterprise level in quality and design.  I think one could design a
> large stable, scalable solution using some of todays business
> technology.  RDBMSs and TP Moniotrs come to mind real fast.
> Clustering technology, and server farming also come to mind.  All of
> this requires much better design than what is currently out there
> today, with possibly the exceptions being the large commercial
> graphical MORPGs.(I assume they already have some of this)

What exactly does 'Enterprise level' mean?  I've worked with some
really nice software that was supposedly 'enterprise' software, but
I've also worked with things that I wouldn't ever ever ever ever use
again because they were under-featured, buggy, slow, poorly
documented, etc.  But that terms gets slung around a fair bit, kinda
like 'next generation', although both seem to be lacking in concrete
meaning.

But ....

RDBMS systems are nice for a lot of things.  But they're also horribly
expensive.  Although, among the free ones, postgres isn't so bad.  Are
there any (working) TP monitors that are free software?  I'd looked a
while back, but didn't see any, which definitely makes it slightly
harder to employ one in a free MUD.  (Free MUDs are still important,
right?)

There's plenty of decent clustering technology around under decent
licenses.

But there are plenty of things that aren't done well by existing
codebases (at least in released versions).

  * Monitoring/Logging systems.
  * Unit tests.
  * Use of transactions (with the sorta-exception of DGD with
    its atomic methods).
  * DB robustness in the event of server failure.

Those aren't that tough though and are pretty straight forward to add
to a system. (Well, transactions can be harder, but is doable and is a
well understood problem.)

Other things, like distributed servers, capability-based security, or
clustering are roughly understood, but the mud community hasn't really
developed any common knowledge about the implementation techniques,
design strategies, or much else.  Maybe everyone is too busy trying to
design a new server from the ground up or something. :)

Unreleased versions of Cold have a start at monitoring/logging
systems. The server has a fair set of tests.  The robustness of the DB
in the event of server failure is currently being worked on, as well
as some general re-architecting to make better use of system
resources, give priority to reading in new data, and a bunch of other
stuff.  The next version should include most of that.

But oddly enough, in the years that Cold has been around, no one ever
asked for those things.  I haven't seen people ask for those things in
other servers (MOO, Diku derivatives, LP derivatives) either.  I've
wanted some of those things for ages, but I didn't know how to do some
of them ages ago. :) Or perhaps it is that most games under
development are small enough that they never really need these things.

Most people working on muds aren't hardcore tech people.  They
couldn't really care less and don't know they're missing out on.  A
lot of the people writing new servers are (or appear to be) doing so
to learn. There isn't a lot of public academic or corporate research
going on in the field of mud servers anymore (like Pavel being at PARC
while working on MOO, Greg Hudson being at MIT while doing coldmud).

This is one reason that I'm really looking forward to seeing what
Chris Gray has done in AmigaMUD.  Or in seeing how the MUES people are
coming along with their software written in Ruby which has some
interesting ideas.  Or wishing that JC had something to show from his
work on Murkle.  Or that Brad and I had another 40 hours/week to get
some of the stuff done on Cold.  Or that something was happening with
Muq.  Or that Adam Wiggins was still around and posting.

Now, today, way too many people, who seem to be working on something
interesting that is technical, aren't discussing those things on the
list.  I know I'm not discussing a lot of stuff on the list for a
number of reasons.

  - Bruce

PS.  Were you on the UO live team for a while?  Or is that someone
else that I'm thinking of?

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