[MUD-Dev] Python script as stand alone MUD server...

[Zach Collins {Siege}]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, ceo wrote:

> :) Fair point. However, my understanding (from other games devs,
> not necessarily in MUD industry at all) was that Python was rarely
> usable in these kinds of cases without a fair amount of "something
> else" (usually C) for performance critical areas (nb: I realise
> I'm only presenting a rumour here, and I only say it because it
> seems a particuarly frequently described scenario. Perhaps the
> people who have to do this are bad/novice python devs, I make no
> judgement). This alters the WORA characteristics significantly,
> although on a good day with a following wind it's probably
> imperceptible.

In the case of games, you don't want an interpreted language
rendering a heavily modeled 3D world - but you can use that language
to tell your models how to move, if it's good enough.  I haven't
seen the code your sources have written, and I'm not the most
wonderful coder in the world myself, so I can't say whether they
wrote it well.  In any case, the state of Python seems to be steady
improvement, so what was good two years ago is better now, but will
still run much of the older code - with improved performance.

> But for some things where you might end up dropping to C, e.g. for
> asynch I/O, you're still seriously platform-dependent IIRC
> (e.g. availability of windows asynch libs on other
> platforms...?). That's perhaps a bad example; I'm fishing for
> better ones, or robust explanations of why I'm completely
> misguided :).

True, if you need it.. but look at Zope or Twisted, both of which
are based on scalable asynch comms libs written in Python.  They're
also highly optimised for the task, something that not everyone has
the time or skill to do.

--
Zach Collins
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev