Re: OLC interfaces

From: J.C.vanIterson (J.C.vanIterson@ET.TUDelft.NL)
Date: 12/15/95


First let my discribe our OLC system (diamond) I hope it helps.

We have a menu based OLC or our mud. Instead of going though all
menu's you can also go directly to the state you want by typing
something like: olc create mobile 2020 (create is optional and
mobile can be mob).
After this you go through sequential steps for creating a
mobile. If you type ? you get extra help and # gets you to a
menu to shortcut the steps.
It doesn't use a con state for every step but instead it uses
only Con_building and 2 extra sets of states (Prog_xxxxx, and
Step_xxxx)
When you are building you are not in the game (you don't hear
gossip, tells, etc.) but you can get in and out the OLC system
so fast that I don't think this is a problem.




This is what I think what the advantages and disadvantages are for
using binary format world files instead of the ordinary ascii format:

- Binary files aren't portable, different machines can have different
  sizes for integers and such, even the byte order inside the integers
  can differ.
- Binary files aren't easyer to deal with, when you make some addition
  to a saved data structure you'll have to make a utility program to
  convert the binary files. Ascii files can often be changed while
  keeping backward compatibility.
  compatibility.
- Binary files can make the bootup a lot faster though. Especialy if you
  leave out the sanity checks (do them at create or save time).
- I don't know what proprietary means (I'm dutch) but you can make it
  pretty hard for other muds to use your world files while still being
  able to load the standard world files when you use ascii files. (make
  additions to every room, object, etc.)
- Binary files can be edited by a normal editor.

So my advice on this is: don't do it (yet).
  

Jaco



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