Re: Coder Needed

From: Brian Gray (mandy@tmarts.com)
Date: 07/16/96


On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, ed wrotniewski wrote:

> > Me and the other Imms at our MUD need a coder for full/part time duites.
> > You will first start off as an immortal, then become a God and so forth.
> 
> FYI dude...
> A) Giving the coder imm status is extremely insulting.

  I have to agree here.  You're saying you'll give someone access to your 
source code but not trust him with what really amounts to an honorary 
position in the game.  The coder must have trust, and must have a degree 
of leeway in what he codes as well as authority in the game itself.  
These are not hired lackeys, they are people doing this for you for free, 
and they deserve some respect.

> B) The coder could quite easily write code to make himself an imp and or
> delete all the other imms.

  Well now, what you say is true, but let's be realistic for a second 
here.  If a coder does that, the results are likely to be quick and 
severe:  He will be removed from access, his character deleted, and all 
code restored to the way it was before the unfortunate incident (we all 
maintain backups in a separate account, don't we?).  To imply that a 
coder has IMP power just because he is a coder is being too simplistic.

> Generally... coders ARE the imps.

  Now that's just not true.  The IMPs are the ones with the vision.  They 
are the ones who have spent nights up working out the MUDs theme over 
pizza and Mountain Dew.  They are the ones who see everything that is 
supposed to happen as a cohesive whole, and they are the ones who know 
just why it is that people are going to play their MUD when there are so 
many others out there.
  The head coder is almost always an IMP, and he is in charge of 
coordinating all coding activities (and from my experience doing like 90% 
of them).  But the other coders should not be higher than CIMP.  There 
must be a strong leader for each team (coding, building, quests, 
policy...) each of which is intimately familiar with the Vision.  That is 
your IMP team, not everyone with knowledge of C and account access.
  Levels mean different things on different MUDs, but you don't want to 
run the risk of having too many people with the highest authority.  What 
is it they say about too many cooks?

 -- Mandy, Coding Director of The Multiplex
 -- pccs.cs.pomona.edu 4747
 -- http://www.tmarts.com/Multiplex



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