[MUD-Dev] java clients

[ceo]

Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, ceo wrote:

>> If you want to develop and deliver java clients, the story is
>> simple - tell your uses to get the current version of java!
>> Frankly, I find the widespread obsession with 1.1 compliance
>> rather strange - it doesn't even have basic data structures like
>> List!

> Isn't that a bit like insisting your users get Windows so that you
> don't have to bother with Linux or Mac support?

> Downloading anything is a barrier to entry and thus has its own
> (potentially huge) downside.

Superficially, I guess it is similar. But, being sensible about it,
upgrading java has no effect on the user other than asking them to
click the mouse between 5 and 10 times, and wait somewhere between
10 minutes and a couple of hours. Since they don't actually have to
sit there and watch it download, it's misleading for me to say they
have to "wait", when psychologically all they need do is
fire-n-forget, then "try again this evening", by which point your
game will magically work for them.

c.f. my point in the other post, that downloads as a barrier to
entry have become very much smaller in recent years (AFAICS,
vanishingly small for anything you can get before a dialup modem
gets disconnected. There is, I suspect, a noticeable dropoff in
download numbers for downloads that are physically impossible for
dialup users to get without a download manager, because many windows
users don't yet have one, despite their pervasiveness these
days. E.g. in the UK, you get 2 hours with dialup before the ISP
auto-disconnects you. So, anything you can download in about 1.5
hours is OK, and anything less than an hour is usually no problem at
all).

Adam M
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