From DGD Mailing List Mon Aug 23 15:11:01 2004 From: DGD Mailing List (Derek Baron) Date: Mon Aug 23 15:11:01 2004 Subject: [DGD] Quote of the year >As for the larger conversation topic, I think the basic problem is that the >overwhelming amount of work being done in the LPMud area is endless >redundant reimplementations of trivial low level libraries that should have >been standardized a decade ago. There is virtually no coordination in the >LPMud world; it seems like every single good programmer whose LPC interest >is peaking finds a new ancient mudlib to bring from the 1991 era to the >1993 era, and it just STOPS there. I don't understand it. That's my candidate for best paragraph of the year in the list. Maybe because it hits so close to home; I know I'm guilty of reimplementation. Of course I don't think I ever would have *really* understood things like stack security, natural language parsing or the intermud3 protocol if I hadn't rebuilt them from scratch. Nevertheless, I didn't make other advancements that could have moved things forward - a shame I guess but it is what it is. _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From DGD Mailing List Thu Aug 26 16:55:01 2004 From: DGD Mailing List (David Jackson) Date: Thu Aug 26 16:55:01 2004 Subject: [DGD] GurbaLib At 02:37 PM 8/26/2004, you wrote: >Instead, I shelved the project (it's on a CD-R somewhere on my shelf, at >least) when I considered that I might like to bring it commercial someday, >or at least have the option of licensing it as such. As much work has >been done with LDMUD to cleanup the Lars/Amlyaar stuff, it's still a >direct decendent from those driver lines and thereby subject to the same >license restrictions. That's the biggest problem in the MUD development community today. Thousands (dare I say millions?) of man hours have gone towards developing libs, but no-one ever wants to release them (some for the reason you stated, and thousands of other reasons as well). We have to keep re-inventing the wheel, over and over again. How much code, I wonder, will never see the light of day again? >> You can best serve DGD by appointing yourself to such a role, and >>releasing your code from the very beginning. Yes, even when it's >>basically unusable. > >I'm of mixed opinions on this one. > >I don't think I really want to release a (mostly-) non-working product, >only to have to "hand hold" other people after they unpack the tarball. >It's bad enough that half the people who would download the thing barely >understand how to compile and launch their driver executable. > >On the other hand, it's a sure-fire way to get beta testers, without >having to even make them THINK of themselves as such. Hmm. This falls into "one of the other reasons people don't release code". I think back on the Linux addage of, "Release early. Release often." Maybe we should adopt this. >>Starting from an existing lib would be fine, >>whatever floats your boat. Just make sure you understand any >>appropriate license issues. >> > >There are some pretty-interesting libraries out there (yours included, by >the way), but I'd have chosen to be a DIKU-family developer if I wanted to >take someone else's work, make a few changes here and there, and release >it as a new product line. I don't think anyone suggested that. >No, what's really needed is a new creation. A new species, if you will, >of game library for the DGD engine. Something that can be GPL or BSD or >whatever license you want, right from the get-go. And yet another mudlib is born, when there are several mudlibs that need to be completed. >> If that's more work than you wish to commit to, help out somebody on >>an existing project of that type. >> >> Under other circumstances I'd nominate me, but Phantasmal's been >>pretty stagnant for awhile. It sounds like shortly, Par Winzell will >>be the guy to help. >> > >I guess I'll look and see what the Skotos folks release and give it some >more thought. > >Thanks for your comments, though, as it's always interesting to hear from >folks who have done mudlib work that's been released in various stages of >completion. > >Cheers, >Jason D. Bourgoin >aka Katmandu And perhaps not so interesting to hear from folks who haven't released anything at all. David Jackson