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From: byron@cs.mun.ca (Byron Montgomerie)
Subject: Re: Talk about simulations.
Message-ID: <1995Feb23.155646.14742@cs.mun.ca>
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References: <3i50ce$2hq@westnet.westnet.com> <3i833i$sri@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1995Feb20.135814.10082@cs.mun.ca> <3ig4ov$3ju@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 15:56:46 GMT
Lines: 51

Jadrian Zun (zun@athena.mit.edu) wrote:
: I'm well aware of MOOs and their existence... however, the other focus for
: the boogum project is my M.S. thesis :)

Ah. :)

: MOOs are great, however, a) they are
: interpreted languages and b) I don't like their interface :p

A Z-machine program is basically an interpreter.  I think interpreters are
suitable for IF in general, although you have a point about multiuser setups.

I think that modifying code while running the program you are modifying is very
productive to creating IF, more so than the old compile run cycle.  That is
the main thing I like about MOOS, although the list based language is
nice too. 

: boogum is written in C++, and is multi-threaded with persistent objects.  It's
: at a much lower machine level than MOOs are because it's actually a general 
: application framework.

Is it written in C++ or is it C++ source?  From what I can gather you are
suggesting people use a C++ compiler for creating IF using a C++ library.
That is interesting but it does tend to move away from the machine
independent features of the game file systems out there.  Maintenance would
seem to be a issue as well for multi-user setup, is everything fixed once
compiled?

: MOOs are also limited parsing-wise I think and their framework is also rather
: different than what I'm thinking of.

Well, there are means and ways around those aspects but I can concur with that
point in general.

: >Sounds like a candidate for a MOO to me.  If you do decide to use MOO then I
: >would advise you to limit the amount of programers you have.  Too many cooks
: >and all that.

: Too many cooks spoil the broth true, but not if they're organized well...
: many people can simultaneously author adventures and build parts of the world.
: I've had experience with 30+ people collaborating on building a replica of
: Tolkien's Middle Earth.

I have seen several attempts at creating MOOs that didn't take off because
everyone went off and did their own thing.  Getting deciplined people to work
on a project for fun is not always easy.

Regards,

Byron

