[MUD-Dev] [DGN] Creating a MUD

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

Matt Mihaly [mailto:the_logos at achaea.com]
> Richard Krush wrote:
 
>>  Considering the above, I would like to ask people who have a lot
>>  of experience with MUD development or general programming
>>  whether I should do what I planned or postpone it until I get a
>>  degree in CS.
 
> Start now. The most important part of programming a text MUD is
> starting it, continuing to work on it, and opening it to
> players. It can be difficult to stay motivated without players
> giving you feedback and a reason to continue. When I started
> Achaea, I knew nothing about coding at all, and I certainly didn't
> (and don't) have a degree or any real experience in CS. Get
> yourself a good engine, and the rest of the coding isn't
> hyper-difficult.

Yep I definitely agree with all this, start now and don't over
engineer. The other thing to avoid is throwing code away. I see a
lot of this in development where a team changes personnel/manager
and wants to throw away all previous code to make version 2 in a
better way. In the end they always end up with something roughly
equal to version 1 and just as broken, but in new and interesting
ways. Instead, refactor mercilessly.

I always over engineer, and now have a complex thread pool based
IOCP socket class, a ref counted memory pool, half a terrain engine
and not a lot else.  In the time I spent doing that, you could have
implemented a simple text mud. Of course I just like writing neat
code, and the actual delivery of anything isn't that high on my list
of importance. Also set realistic goals, I have huge problems with
feature creep, which is usually a result of reading around the topic
too much rather than actually knuckling down and coding. You really
can spend too long in the design...

Dan

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