From: guddt@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (David Bennett)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
Subject: Re: A summary of the GD-discussion [a little longer, too]
Date: 17 Oct 1992 07:26:10 +0800
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: uniwa.uwa.edu.au

rg@trillian.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rudolf Gross) writes:

>I've been listening to the GD discussion with greatest interest so
>far.

Wow, you must be even more bored than us :)

>Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the main topics are (or should be):

>	Which driver has got which advantages ?
>	Who should choose which driver for his mud ?

Oh.  So, THATS what the conversation is about.  Sheeze, I wish you would
tell me these things before it finishes.

>I don't want to quote each and every statement, so I will try to sum
>them up. If someone feels uncomfortable with my summary, feel free
>to complain.

We did :)

>Statement: Amylaar's code is difficult to read.

>My 2 cents worth: It might be true that his code is more 
>	difficult to comprehend than the code of e.g. the
>	CD-Driver. However, his	code is far fom being
>	unreadable. Simple proof: At least three wizards in
>	TUBMUD (simple students, no Doctors or "compiler gods")
>	are absolutely capable of debugging and expanding the
>	Amylaar driver.

Well...  After going through the switch code...  Which was a VERY trivial
algorithm.  It still took us a while to understand it even with the
comments from what's his name (Never can rememeber names :(.   We now
do understand it...  backwards :)  (Minor point :).  If you wish to
poke fingers at our coding ability feel free, however you would do better
picking on my spelling :)  Sean and I also had a look at the alist code.
gibber

>Stat:	Amylaar's driver won't be maintained anymore, if he
>	quits mudding. Therefore using his driver is risky.

>M2cw:	Utter nonsense (see above). Everyone who knows him
>	personally is slightly amused about the Idea of Amylaar
>	quitting mudding :). Ok, it's possible, but quite
>	unlikely. Even if he should, the other wizards would
>	continue his work. In fact it's just the other way
>	round (see down).

When I bug fix code, I expect to be able to do it quickly when I have
found the position of the bug.  If I had tracked it down to for instance
the switch code (can you see we like that :) I would have had a whelks
chance in a super nova of fixing it in any reasonable period of time.
For an example of really nicely written code, sendmail (surprisingly) is
very nice.  I was able to bug fix and change that code very quickly.

>Stat:	Jacob Hallen and JnA claim: "It is as we say, and most
>	experienced wizards are of the same opinion."

>M2cw:	Doubtable. In fact that you aren't right, it is
>	wrong. If you are right, it's irrelevant. I think it
>	is wiser to PROVE your statements and don't rely on
>	the the fact that other ones think what you think.
>	By the way: How do you know that "most experienced
>	wizards" are on your side ? In Germany this statement
>	is probably wrong, since at least 2 MUDs converted
>	from CD to Amylaar recently. I'd be more careful with that.

Oh yes, I will go and get the petition now.  Care to sign?

>Conclusion: Every MUDgod has got to decide, which advantages
>	are more important for him and his MUD. If you feel
>	uncomfortable to debug and expand more difficult code, the
>	CD driver (sorry, I don't know MudOS well enough to
>	comment on it) or MudOS might be the wiser choice.
>	However, Amylaar's driver has got such an amount of
>	inherent improvements and advantages, that it might
>	pay off to have a look at it. The long list of bug
>	fixes and new features in the Amylaar driver prove,
>	that his driver is being taken care of constantly,
>	and though most of it has been done by one person
>	(Amylaar himself), he seemed to have archieved a lot
>	more than the whole CD cluster. (JnA: You said:
>	"Someone should rewrite it (Amylaars code) smaller
>	and more efficiently". First of all, noone except
>	him did and his code's overall efficiency is much
>	better. If I was in your position, I'd me a little
>	more moderate). So I'd suggest to the other MUDgods:
>	Have a look at the driver yourself. It need not, but
>	it MIGHT prove beneficial for you, especially if
>	you want a well-maintained, stable driver (especially
>	in COMPAT_MODE), and don't want to meddle with the
>	code itself too much.

Personaly...  I think scrap the driver altogether, and rewrite.  LpMud
has it nice points.  It also has its really horrible points.

>Since CD decided to
>reject e.g. Amylaar's codes categorically (and sorry, I don't
>believe at all that it's just because of the poor readability
>of his code), the big LPmud family starts to break apart in
>lots of small independent islands. Some may like this trend,
>I'm not so sure that I don't.

Actually.  I dont think it was THAT close before.  Every mud had their own
patches to the driver (and still does).  And what about the DR version,
the shattered world (not mumbles anymore) version?

In fact, I would probably change any driver I use to add in some local
patches.  And in fact do :)

David.
[DDT] Wdonderinf why he bothered with this article.

BTW Do you use an amiga?
-- 
  David Bennett,  guddt@uniwa.uwa.oz.au | University Computer Club
     Where Pink fish swim backwards.    | c/o Guild of Undergraduates
These words I am singing now mean nothing more than meow to an animal - TMBG
Disclaimer: Any spelling mistakes in this article are all entirly my fault.  Any grammer errors spotted in this article were put there because I could.