November 2000
- Walking Philip Loguinov, Draymoor
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #231 - 4 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #231 - 4 msgs J C Lawrence
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #231 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
- Atomic functions Felix A. Croes
- Atomic functions Ben
- Atomic functions Christopher Allen
- Atomic functions Ben
- Atomic functions Felix A. Croes
- Atomic functions KevinL
- Atomic functions Felix A. Croes
- Atomic functions KevinL
- Atomic functions KevinL
- Mud Dev FAQ part II Marian Griffith
- Walking Robert Zubek
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen
- Articles & Columns at Skotos Christopher Allen
- skotos David Zimet
- skotos Christopher Allen
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Koster, Raph
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Marian Griffith
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" birgit.schulte@philips.com
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Norman Short
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Jeff Freeman
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" gmiller@classic-games.com
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Lars Duening
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Lars Duening
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Lars Duening
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Vincent Archer
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Vincent Archer
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Peter
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Vincent Archer
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" KevinL
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" KevinL
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Xuri
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" KevinL
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Rhys
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Justin Rogers
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Ted Milker
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Steve {Bloo} Daniels
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Zak Jarvis
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Patrick Dughi
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Madrona Tree
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Madrona Tree
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Michael Tresca
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Jeff Freeman
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Jon Lambert
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" |Eric|
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Miroslav Silovic
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Corey Crawford
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" ghovs@ghovs.moo.ca
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Corey Crawford
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Marian Griffith
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Richard Tew
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Chris Gray
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Steve {Bloo} Daniels
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Richard Tew
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" msew
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" the_logos@www.achaea.com
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" geoffrey@yorku.ca
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" John Buehler
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" the_logos@www.achaea.com
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Geoffrey@yorku.ca
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Vincent Archer
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Jason Belhumeur
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Val Trullinger
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Lee Sheldon
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Robert Zubek
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Eric Rhea
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Wells, Thomas
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Travis Casey
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Richard Tew
- "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG" Koster, Raph
- "Virtual" What? Dave Rickey
- Object Models Ben
- Object Models J C Lawrence
- Object Models Dmitri Zagidulin
- Object Models KevinL
- Object Models Tony Wooster
- Object Models david.l.smith@home.com
- Object Models KevinL
- Object Models Gavin Doughtie
- Object Models John Robert Arras
- Object Models KevinL
- Object Models Bruce
- Object Models Ben Chambers
- Object Models Bruce
- Object Models KevinL
- Object Models Gavin Doughtie
- Object Models KevinL
- Object Models Travis Casey
On Saturday, November 25, 2000, KevinL wrote:
>>>> Gavin Doughtie wrote
>> I would attempt to assemble a composite object in this case, with some implementor
>> of "edge", in turn containing a "material" property and methods like "sharpen" and
>> "cut". The whole assemblage (combat stats, etc.) might live under a more generic
>> "weapon" interface.
>>
>> Seriously, you can go crazy with this stuff, but the whole point is to make things
>> easier for the user (programmer, world builder) to understand. In real life you
>> see much more "has a" than "is a subclass of" relationships among the objects you
>> encounter. You also tend to solve problems by applying prebuilt components (i.e.,
>> you don't manufacture your own drywall screws).
> Yup, and I'm sold on components in cases like this. I was just curious about
> that particular suggested way of tying things together - I can't help but
> wonder when I look at that whether things aren't being made more complex
> rather than less for the builders - especially if you introduce tight
> contracts into the mix, where you can't change a component without updating
> everything that uses it because the contracted interface has changed.
Not being a software professional, I'm not sure what the distinction
between "tight" and "loose" contracts is, so maybe I've only dealt
with loose contracts. In the contract models I've seen, though, a
contract only specifies what must be supplied and what must be done --
it doesn't specify that an object can't have any other data or
behaviors other than the contracted ones.
Thus, changing what all a low-level component will do (e.g., to add a
"temperature" variable and make the "sharpen me" behavior take it into
account) doesn't mean that you'll necessarily have to change all the
code that uses that component.
The usual problem that I've run into with adding things like that in
muds isn't updating objects that use those components -- it's going
back and changing everything that's already finished that *should*
have used those components.
To use a real example from a mud I worked on -- I added the ability
for monsters to move along a pre-set path rather than randomly, so
that guards could actually patrol a perimeter, go back and forth from
one place to another, etc., without custom coding being necessary.
People building new areas used it, but no one wanted to do the work of
going over all the existing areas, finding everywhere that that
ability should have been used, and adding the line or two to each
monster that should use it to make them use it.
> Regardless, here's the question: You have a component that implements edge,
> material, maybe size, whatever. You decide you need to modify the component's
> behaviour based on some aspect of the object it's being included into that
> you'd never considered - this runs close to some of JCL's previous posts about
> being able to affect the behaviour of an object under new conditions without
> having to recode that object. Say, you've added the temperature of the object
> in question into the mix (heat it up, it's easier to sharpen, or something).
> Do you now have to go back and re-make that component to accept temperature as
> an argument to sharpen, then modify every object using that component to pass
> the temperature in? Or can you somehow make the component simply grab the
> temperature from the object it's been included into, thus dodging potentially
> large-scale changes?
I'm not sure why you'd need to pass temperature in as an argument. If
you have temperatures, then reasonably, every object on the mud that
represents a physical object in the game world should have a
temperature. When the sharpening code needs the object's temperature,
it should be able to just get it -- not need it passed in.
> This is my concern with components and contracts, at the end of the day - that
> they're good in a situation where you can nail down your requirements from the
> word go, but they're going to be a distraction where you want to be able to
> mutate things on the fly. And (and I know this'll go down badly ;) I've never
> worked on a project that didn't mutate part-way through.
Well, there's a old, well-known solution to that -- although it also
goes down badly: Build one to throw away. Engineers building
physical systems prototype, and it's a good thing to do with software
systems as well.
> More, I'd suggest
> the places that encourage non-techs to build are the places where things can
> be wired together, and changed, with minimum fuss - on the fly.
> Are there component systems around that don't implement the strict interface
> requirements John's argued for?
Depends on what you want to consider to be a component system. I'd
say that Forth can be, but then, Forth is designed to be a
language-building language.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@earthlink.net>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_) - Object Models John Buehler
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- ADMIN: Lost posts J C Lawrence
- Multiple Inheritance (was: Object Models) Bruce
- Fanfic (Or: Why we can't all get along) Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- Fanfic (Or: Why we can't all get along) John Buehler
- Participatory Content (was Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos?) Christopher Allen
- Object Models (OO 101) Gavin Doughtie
- Consistent Characters (Was Remote client connection) John W Pierce
- Consistent Characters (Was Remote client connection) Marian Griffith
- (no subject) John Buehler
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- facist marketers / content controllers msew
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- And the lines blur between rl and games!!! msew
- "gossip" Josh Rollyson {dracus}
- Official announce of nevrax.org www site Vincent Archer
- Intersection of Fanfic & Participatory Content Christopher Allen
- A list of Content Creation Eric Rhea
- Refactoring (was Object Models) Gavin Doughtie
- PDA-esque devices used in gaming |Eric|
- Weather and Multiple Planets Greg Mitchell
- Weather and Multiple Planets rayzam
- Interesting EQ rant (very long quote) Brian 'Psychochild' Green
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