May 1999

• Object server. Quzah [softhome]
• Censorship & Its Impact On World Immersion J C Lawrence
• OT: Ethics v Law Greg Munt
• Virtual v Artificial Worlds Greg Munt
• • Virtual v Artificial Worlds Matthew Mihaly
• Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Wes Connell
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? David Bennett
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Koster, Raph
    • Custom Server Roll Call? Greg Munt
  • Custom Server Roll Call? The Arrow
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Alex Stewart
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Nathan F Yospe
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
      • • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
        • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
          • • Custom Server Roll Call? Matthew Mihaly
            • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
            • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
            • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Greg Munt
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Matthew Mihaly
      • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
    • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? J C Lawrence
    • Custom Server Roll Call? Ling
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Niklas Elmqvist
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
      • Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
      • • Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
        • • Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
          • • Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
    • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
    • Custom Server Roll Call? J C Lawrence
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jo Dillon
      • • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      • Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
      • • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
        • • Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Adam Wiggins
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Matthew Mihaly
    • Custom Server Roll Call? Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
    • Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? claw@kanga.nu
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Turner
  • Custom Server Roll Call? Ling
  • • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
    • • Custom Server Roll Call? Jay Carlson
      • • Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
      • Custom Server Roll Call? Ling
• Interesting dilemma Peck, Matthew x96724c1
• • Interesting dilemma Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • Interesting dilemma Quzah [softhome]
  • Interesting dilemma Brandon A Downey
  • Interesting dilemma Shawn Halpenny
  • • Interesting dilemma Matthew Mihaly
  • Interesting dilemma Benjamin D. Wiechel
  • Interesting dilemma Koster, Raph
  • Interesting dilemma Wes Connell
  • Interesting dilemma Mattias Lönnqvist
  • Interesting dilemma Mik Clarke
  • Interesting dilemma Joel Kelso
  • Interesting dilemma Ronan Farrell
• Harvey's Rules of Immship John Hopson
• Confiscating items (Interesting dilemma) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• AW: Interesting dilemma Hofbauer Heinz
• Virtual Property J C Lawrence
• • Virtual Property Koster, Raph
  • • Virtual Property Jon A. Lambert
• Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Ben Greear
• • Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Mik Clarke
  • • Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Ben Greear
    • • Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? J C Lawrence
      • • Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Ben Greear
        • • Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Sunny Gulati
  • Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Jon A. Lambert
• Discussion of large server IO handling desing J C Lawrence
• Planes of existance Quzah [softhome]
• • Planes of existance Greg Munt
  • • Planes of existance Quzah [softhome]
    • Planes of existance Caliban Tiresias Darklock
    • • Planes of existance Ben Greear
      • • Planes of existance Caliban Tiresias Darklock
      • Planes of existance Greg Munt
      • • Planes of existance T. Alexander Popiel
        • • Planes of existance Ola Fosheim Grøstad
    • Planes of existance Matthew Mihaly
• Dynamically changing room descriptions Ronan Farrell
• • Dynamically changing room descriptions Mik Clarke
  • Dynamically changing room descriptions Ben Greear
  • • Dynamically changing room descriptions Koster, Raph
    • • Dynamically changing room descriptions Richard Bartle
      • Dynamically changing room descriptions Matthew Mihaly
  • Dynamically changing room descriptions Travis Casey
  • Dynamically changing room descriptions Travis Casey
  • • Dynamically changing room descriptions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
    • Dynamically changing room descriptions Jon A. Lambert
    • • Dynamically changing room descriptions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      • Dynamically changing room descriptions Eli Stevens {KiZurich/GreySylk}
      • • Dynamically changing room descriptions Jon A. Lambert
    • Dynamically changing room descriptions Ling
  • Dynamically changing room descriptions Christopher Allen
• old fight system I toyed with Koster, Raph
• APE 0.2.1 J C Lawrence
• • APE 0.2.1 Marc Hernandez
  • • APE 0.2.1 claw@kanga.nu
• OT: robots, agents and emotions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• • OT: robots, agents and emotions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• Time Discontinuous MUD Ling
• Semi-OT: International intellectual property right (was: Custom Server Roll Call?) Custom Server Roll Call?) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• Semi-OT: International intellectual property rights Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• Marc Hernandez' Server Greg Munt
• • Marc Hernandez' Server Jay Carlson
  • • Marc Hernandez' Server Caliban Tiresias Darklock
    • Marc Hernandez' Server Travis S. Casey
    • Marc Hernandez' Server Adam Wiggins
  • Marc Hernandez' Server Marc Hernandez
  • Marc Hernandez' Server qitelremel@hotmail.com
• Scry 1.9.1 (Feature Freeze) released. Ben Greear
• The distinction between magic spells and magic abilities Greg Munt
• • The distinction between magic spells and magic abilities Matthew Mihaly
• Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
• • Multi-threaded mud server. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • • Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
    • • Multi-threaded mud server. Jo Dillon
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Travis S. Casey
        • Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
        • Multi-threaded mud server. Chris Gray
      • Multi-threaded mud server. Chris Gray
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
      • Multi-threaded mud server. Mik Clarke
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Chris Gray
        • • Multi-threaded mud server. Mik Clarke
      • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
        • • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
          • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
    • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
    • • Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
      • Multi-threaded mud server. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Mark Gritter
        • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
      • Multi-threaded mud server. Travis S. Casey
      • • Multi-threaded mud server. Ola Fosheim Grøstad
        • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
    • Multi-threaded mud server. Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
      > So if you have two players online, each with one character, each on a
      > different thread of a multiprocessor machine, and they have a conversation
      > -- don't you have to context switch twice with every statement? The current
      > player says something, which needs to go to the other player, so you
      > context-switch to the other thread to talk to player two, send him the
      > information, and then tell the original thread that you completed the
      > action successfully, which is yet *another* context switch. So your context
      > switching immediately goes through the roof, doesn't it?
      
      First of all, traditionally academics don't care about constant efficiency
      issues (10 times faster is not enough, it has to be at least ^2 faster :).
      And of course, until recently multiprocessing was an academic discipline,
      kindof. Those guys only care about elegance and simulation/modelling beauty,
      not speed improvements.
      
      I am not an expert, but maybe a simple example could be good for discussion?
      I think it could be more like this (Assuming you use monitors for
      protection, that means semaphores in object methods. Also assuming that you
      do not use distributed multiprocessing, which threading implies. (sketchy)):
      
      
      class Somebody {
      protected:
      semaphorestuff mutex;
      semaphorestuff wakemeup;
      
      bool private_wakeup(){
      bool was_waked_up = false;
      
      mutex.down();
      if (wakemeup.is_down()){
      wakemeup.up(); // makes brainpower runnable
      was_waked_up = true;
      }
      mutex.up();
      return was_waked_up;
      }
      
      public:
      
      bool wakeup(){
      forbid();
      bool b = protected_wakeup();
      permit();
      return b;
      }
      
      
      hearing(sender,text){
      forbid(); // only one process may access the object
      
      if (private_wakeup())
      add_client_buffer(sender.name() + " wakes you up");
      
      add_client_buffer(sender.name() + " tells you " + text);
      
      permit(); // ok, now somebody else may access it
      }
      
      
      process Somebody::brainpower() {
      forever{
      something = sleep_until_I_sense_something();
      
      if (something == feelingsleepy) {
      wakemeup.down(); // makes brainpower sleeping
      forbid();
      r = thisroom;
      permit();
      r->tell_everybody(name() + " wakes up.");
      }
      
      if (something == command_tell_somebody){
      something.who.hearing(this,something.message);
      }
      }
      }
      };
      
      I probably should add more mutex stuff :P, but as you see you don't have to
      context switch. Each process (not unix-process, but a thread) will simply
      fill up other object's buffers directly and forget about them. If you don't
      then you can be pretty sure that your system will deadlock in a way which
      will give you some headeaches. However, if you do producer-consumer stuff
      using a unibuffer/port (rendezvous style) THEN there will certainly be a lot
      of context switching.
      
      However, I think that with a little effort you can actually get a lot of the
      readability advantages of threading with coroutines (or other nonpreemptive
      approaches) without the semaphores. Unfortunately C and C++ doesn't support
      that. However, on some C platforms it requires almost no assembly code to
      add the feature. I'd love to use threads or coroutines in the loginprocess
      (sketchy example of coroutines);
      
      class Login : Coroutine {
      connection c;
      start(){
      do{
      do{
      while (!c.put_line_nonblocking("Enter login name:"))
      main.resume();
      
      while(!(name = c.get_line_nonblocking())) main.resume();
      
      main.resume();
      
      } while(!legal_name(name));
      
      if(name_exists(name)){
      
      while (!c.put_line_nonblocking("Enter password:"))
      main.resume();
      
      while(!(pwd = c.get_line_nonblocking()))
      main.resume();
      
      }
      } else create_character(name,&pwd);
      
      } while(!a = find_account(name,pwd));
      
      a->attach_connection(c);
      main.readyaccount = a;
      }
      
      create_character(n,p){
      get some stuff...
      main.resume();
      get some more stuff...
      main.resume();
      etc...
      }
      };
      
      
      class Main : Coroutine {
      connection_list connlist;
      account_list acclist;
      object_list runninglist;
      
      Account *readyaccount;
      
      start(){
      forever{
      while(c = new_connection()){
      connlist.add(l = new Login(c));
      l->start();
      }
      
      readyaccount = 0;
      forall l in connlist with nonempty buffer {
      l.resume;
      if(readyaccount) {
      connlist.remove(l);
      delete l;
      acclist.add(readyaccount);
      readyaccount->start();
      readyaccount = 0;
      }
      }
      
      forall a in acclist who are ready { a->resume(); }
      
      forall o in runninglist { o->resume(); }
      }
      }
      
      } main;
      
      
      > For example, you
      > might have a "login" thread which handles everyone connected but not logged
      > in, a thread which handles combat, a thread which handles character
      > creation, etc.
      
      Yeah, but then you loose the advantage of parallelism, which for mud
      programming is readability IMO. (+ Decoupling. Modularity.)
      
      class Login : Threaded {
      connection c;
      start(){
      do{
      do{
      c.put_line_blocking("Enter login name:");
      name = c.get_line_blocking();
      } while(!legal_name(name));
      
      if(name_exists(name)){
      c.put_line_blocking("Enter password:"));
      pwd = c.get_line_blocking();
      } else create_character(name,&pwd);
      
      } while(!a = find_account(name,pwd));
      
      a->attach_connection(c);
      a.start();
      }
      };
      
      To do the login process without this you will have to implement a
      statemachine yourself. Which is usually somewhat ugly as you probably have
      discovered :). If you are going to waste your brain on syncing, make sure
      you get the advantages! What I have done myself is rather clumsy and
      involves switch statements. Probably the same speed or faster than
      coroutines, and faster than threading, but really... How much time is spent
      on login anyway? What is worrying is portability and deadlock issues. Of
      course, if you go for a pure event-handling system, then you get something
      that looks like coroutines, sortof.
      
      > Ideally, you would set this up so most of your common operations are in the
      > same thread, while progressively less common actions get separated out into
      > threads which can be put to sleep entirely when they're not needed. A login
      > thread, for example, only needs to be active when someone is sitting at the
      > main login screen to log in; if there are long periods during which no one
      > logs in, the thread can be put to sleep during those times.
      
      Yes, but that happens automagically because you listen to the socket with
      blocking. Context switching at that rate isn't too bad. Your computer are
      already doing more heavy context switches, more frequently. A thread switch
      only involves saving and loading the registerfile? A couple of hundred
      cycles on a pentium if done right. A good scheduler will let you control the
      responsiveness of the process, to prevent it from waking up all the time.
      
      There are some other situations that can get bad when you use extensive
      threading as a paradigm. Threaded login seems to be a good idea, especially
      if you have some hairy server-client handshaking. IMO.
      
      --
      Ola Fosheim Groestad,Norway http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~olag/
  • Multi-threaded mud server. David Bennett
  • • Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
    • • Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
      • Multi-threaded mud server. Travis Casey
• Macro languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
• LOTR and Mud [was: Marc Hernandez' Server] Marc Hernandez
• Noise: boys will be boys (was Multi-threaded mud server.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• • Noise: boys will be boys (was Multi-t hreaded mud server.) Koster, Raph
  • Noise: boys will be boys (was Multi-threaded mud server.) Chris Gray
• Kanga.Nu has finally moved... claw@kanga.nu
• Java & MUD servers Laurent Bossavit
• ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Ben Greear
• • ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Chris Gray
  • • ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Ben Greear
  • ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Jon A. Lambert
• [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Ben Greear
• • [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). bruce@puremagic.com
  • [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Greg Miller
  • • [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Ben Greear
    • • [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Greg Miller
      • [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Albert
  • [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Oliver Jowett
• Searching the archives claw@kanga.nu
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• Dylan Programming Language Ling
• • Dylan Programming Language Jon A. Lambert
• Ultimate Universe Documentation Caliban Tiresias Darklock
• Oh yeah... Caliban Tiresias Darklock
• [TECHNICAL] [SOLVED] (template problem). Ben Greear
• [RELEASE] ScryMUD 1.9.4 available for download. Ben Greear