A few newbie questions
John Carlyle-Clarke
long established MUD that has in effect lost all of its original
coders and admins. I have a lot of experience with software
generally, but pretty much zip with MUD coding (or any game coding),
so it's a steep curve.
I have been frantically reading sites, but the history of MUDs is
pretty convoluted and documentation is patchy, especially now that
most of the net resources are gone. I've read the LPC guides and
FAQ's and so on.
According to the MUD, it runs Amylaar 03.02.1@22. Is this LPMud
3.2.1? This is different to MUDOS, right?
The mudlib is TaborLib 2.9.3. I think this was a work in progress,
and I am sure that it was heavily based on TMI-2 (the code headers
give this away). Does anyone know the history of this lib, out of
interest?
I am pretty sure this mudlib is a one-off, so that means I have to
figure it out for myself. That's fine, I don't mind that - actually I
quite enjoy it. I'm just playing around and learning - fast!
What I am wondering is if there are any general docs about the overall
design and structure of TMI-2. I think this will give me a lot of
clues and a good leg-up to understanding this mudlib. I haven't been
able to find anything - can anyone help me?
Any other pointers or suggestions welcome (apart from "convert to
MUSH").
Thanks :)
DaveWalley
Carlyle-Clarke" <joh...@nospam.europlacer.co.uk> writes:
>Subject: A few newbie questions
>From: "John Carlyle-Clarke" <joh...@nospam.europlacer.co.uk>
>Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 10:39:30 +0000
Amylaar is essentiially the LPmud driver, and is different from MudOS. If you
are looking for a newer version, try LDMUD.
As TMI was designed to run on MudOS, it seems more likely that your lib was
based on another, perhaps the original lpmud 2.4.5 lib, and various bits of TMI
were "grafted on".
Therefore understanding the TMI mudlib structure may be of little help to you.
However, it may be worth downloading a copy of the TMI mudlib and perusing
that. Alternatively you could try contacting the TMI authors - probably the mud
"Earth" is a good place to try. You should also check whether your use of TMI
code is in accordance with the TMI licence conditions.
bubbs at nospam eclipse uk
First thing; don't convert to Mush.
Second; about me.
I'm known as Bubbs, have been writing LPC since about 1991, way before
Amylaar or MudOS existed. Ack, I remember the time before call_out()!
Third: a little history as I recall...
...ok, it's not a little history, it grew...
Ok, all (except for one - more on that below) LPMud drivers derive from
v3.1.2, writen by Lars Pjensji (sp?), the creator of the original LPMud,
in Sweden (Genesis, it was called).
At that point (92ish?), he stood down, and the driver forked into
numerous directions. Ultimately some fell away, leaving three chief
drivers.
MudOS was started by an American team, it quickly gained ground in the
US, although its' lack of backwards compatilibity, and its' progressive
stance on compatibility chances, stopped it getting wide support from
the myriad of muds that already existed, although it introduced numerous
new features and matured the driver considerably. I've never used
MudOS, but kept an eye on its' development up to about v20something.
Another, was 'CD' (I think), developed in Sweden, I believe. It added
its' own version of mappings and 'function's, I seem to remember one of
its' main features was that the compiler pre-evaluated all literal
values (things like 0, 3.14, ({ 'p', 'i' }), ([ "pi": 3.14159265 ]),
etc.). I don't think it had many muds.
Amylaar, a German from TubMud, took up the baton of providing better
back-compatibility, whilst implementing new features (such as mappings,
s/printf(), and ultimately, closures = [anonymous] function pointers).
This continued for several years, with the 3.2 (and 3.2.1) line of LPMud
drivers. I used his drivers for several years.
Your driver, 3.2.1@22, is quite an old driver. I think the patch level
got up in the 200 region and upgrading will not be painless.
Amylaar stopped developing the driver some years ago, and several
recently, Lars Denning started patching the Amylaar driver, eventually,
he started true development and we now have versions 3.2.11 and 3.3
(he's matured the driver, and added 'inline-closures', a new closure
definition method that's inspired by MudOS, and it's actually usable,
unlike Amylaar's original LISP inspired lambda() method). There are a
number of muds out there that have upgraded to LDMud, as its' now known,
from Amylaar. I'm now using the 3.2.11 line (although the 3.3 line is
interesting to me... postgresql support...)
The exception mentioned above is DGD, written independantly, with no
code taken from the LPMud driver, by a guy called Dworkin - although it
was a very nice reimplementation of the driver (and was _much_ more
flexible), it never got very far, to my knowledge, but it might still be
out there somewhere...
There were some others, I recall.
3.1.2-DR was a slightly patched 3.1.2, and ultimately it faded, its'
muds moving to Amylaar's driver.
LPC4 was written by someone. I don't think it ever had any muds running
it. It implemented mappings were the keys weren't neccessarily unique.
I think there was another, which could handle two mudlibs simulateously.
Sometimes, I wonder what Lars Pjensji would think of it all...
Happy Mudding.
Steve.
Jason D. Bourgoin
> I'm known as Bubbs, have been writing LPC since about 1991, way before
> Amylaar or MudOS existed. Ack, I remember the time before call_out()!
Way before Amylaar or MudOS existed? You need to check your dates
again, before you try passing yourself off as an old-timer.
And since we're putting our pedigrees on display, I went by Katmandu on
several LPMUDs of the time.
> Ok, all (except for one - more on that below) LPMud drivers derive from
> v3.1.2, writen by Lars Pjensji (sp?), the creator of the original LPMud,
> in Sweden (Genesis, it was called).
The Shattered World, LPC4, and DGD drivers and code bases were all
derived from versions BEFORE then.
LPMUD was originally written by Lars Pensjö, and Genesis can now be
found at http://genesis.cs.chalmers.se for anyone interested.
> At that point (92ish?), he stood down, and the driver forked into
> numerous directions. Ultimately some fell away, leaving three chief
> drivers.
Lars stopped actively developing LPMUD before then, and Ronny Wikh had
already assumed more of the daily responsibility for running Genesis
before then as well. Once again, please check your dates more carefully.
> MudOS was started by an American team, it quickly gained ground in the
> US, although its' lack of backwards compatilibity, and its' progressive
> stance on compatibility chances, stopped it getting wide support from
> the myriad of muds that already existed, although it introduced numerous
> new features and matured the driver considerably. I've never used
> MudOS, but kept an eye on its' development up to about v20something.
You must not have heard of either the Nightmare or Lima mudlibs, both of
which spawned numerous muds. I would hardly say that MudOS didn't
receive "wide support."
> Another, was 'CD' (I think), developed in Sweden, I believe. It added
> its' own version of mappings and 'function's, I seem to remember one of
> its' main features was that the compiler pre-evaluated all literal
> values (things like 0, 3.14, ({ 'p', 'i' }), ([ "pi": 3.14159265 ]),
> etc.). I don't think it had many muds.
CDLIB was the next driver/mudlib project from the folks at Genesis.
Once again, MudConnector searching by code base may prove you wrong on
the number of muds it had (has).
> The exception mentioned above is DGD, written independantly, with no
> code taken from the LPMud driver, by a guy called Dworkin - although it
> was a very nice reimplementation of the driver (and was _much_ more
> flexible), it never got very far, to my knowledge, but it might still be
> out there somewhere...
Check out the listings on MudConnector some time, searching for DGD.
You'll find several active muds using this driver. DGD worked well with
the 2.4.5 compat mode mudlib, which DGD includes as part of its tarball.
Erlend Simonsen wrote GurbaLib. Noah Gibbs is still actively working on
Phantasmal. Stephen Schmidt (aka Mobydick from TMI/MudOS fame) wrote a
mudlib called Melville for the driver. There's even a code base that
emulates MOO (LambdaMOO) if that's your thing.
So, with at least 4 distinct code bases available for the driver (5 if
you count the venerable 2.4.5 mudlib), I'd hardly say "it never got very
far."
> 3.1.2-DR was a slightly patched 3.1.2, and ultimately it faded, its'
> muds moving to Amylaar's driver.
The DR line of drivers and mudlibs came from Darker Realms, a mud which
is still alive and kicking. Also, a number of other muds from around
the same era used some variant of the DR driver and/or lib.
I should know; I ran several myself (Alderon, Paranoia, and Hyundai to
name a few people might remember) that used some version of the DR code
base as our starting point.
> LPC4 was written by someone. I don't think it ever had any muds running
> it. It implemented mappings were the keys weren't neccessarily unique.
Profezzorn wrote LPC4, a derivative of LPMUD.
> Happy Mudding.
> Steve.
Hope this clarifies,
Jason D. Bourgoin
aka Katmandu
bubbs at nospam eclipse uk
Ok, my dates were off, and some of the detail... I wrote the message
since noone else had responded. My thanks to Katmandu for the follow up.
I've heard of most of the things you've mentioned, and recall them with
a 'ah yes'.
Katmandu, I don't get your comment regarding 'old timers', I was pretty
sure about that date - but thinking about it, it would've been
April-Mayish '90, back in my first year at Uni, it was an unnamed lpmud
v2.4, based at Newcastle, UK (it was around for a year or two, I think)...
Wibble.
Jason D. Bourgoin
I may have been a little harsher than intended, and I apologize for the
generous portions of sarcasm in my original follow-up.
I was frustrated with having to work on a network security issue
(courtesy of our "friends" in Redmond, Washington) during what was
supposed to be our holiday weekend.
As it turns out, I caught the fireworks show after bringing our systems
back into production, so life is good.... until the next set of
Microsoft exploits hit the streets within a few days or so (conservative
estimate).
Thanks for your post, and for being good-natured about my flames.
> Wibble.
Cheers,
Lars Duening
> bubbs at nospam eclipse uk wrote:
>
> > The exception mentioned above is DGD, written independantly, with no
> > code taken from the LPMud driver, by a guy called Dworkin - although it
> > was a very nice reimplementation of the driver (and was _much_ more
> > flexible), it never got very far, to my knowledge, but it might still be
> > out there somewhere...
>
> Check out the listings on MudConnector some time, searching for DGD.
> You'll find several active muds using this driver. DGD worked well with
> the 2.4.5 compat mode mudlib, which DGD includes as part of its tarball.
>
> Erlend Simonsen wrote GurbaLib. Noah Gibbs is still actively working on
> Phantasmal. Stephen Schmidt (aka Mobydick from TMI/MudOS fame) wrote a
> mudlib called Melville for the driver. There's even a code base that
> emulates MOO (LambdaMOO) if that's your thing.
>
> So, with at least 4 distinct code bases available for the driver (5 if
> you count the venerable 2.4.5 mudlib), I'd hardly say "it never got very
> far."
And if my memory doesn't fail me, DGD has a commercial life as well as
basis for the Skotos offerings.