re: The last 100 or so posts.

From: Skylar (skylar@ifconfig.intserv.com)
Date: 07/29/96


I have no opinion on weather a mud MUST or SHOULD have a coder or not.

For historical reference... in the ancient days, before circle or merc
or rom or silly or any derivatives, many dikus got along fine without
coders.  Some of these were good muds, some werent... it was all new
then though, so there was less need to continually try to keep things
fresh and exciting as just about everyone was still learning how to play
and what it was like (and there was no tintin!).

For the current mud I'm working on, we have 4 coders and 1 full time
builder (who is one of the 4 coders)... so I'm a bit stilted in that area 
and hold the opinion that excellent builders are much harder to come by
than excellent coders.


Now, my opinion and my request... please take it to heart.

If you're going to post code that is huge and possibly broken up into
many parts, please just put it up on the ftp site and post a note that
you did so.  This way, all the people on this list that may have already
implemented your "new" idea dont need to see your version of it in their
mailbox multiple times.

Also, I would ask that everyone double and tripple check their code before
posting it to the list or the ftp site.  To be quite blunt, a huge 
proportion of the code posted to this list is crap.  Its buggy and usually
highly inefficient (which I dont mind if the code is geared towards being
readable, but most of it isnt readable either).  Don't get me wrong, I
dont care if a few imps are swapping their bad code, but what is happening
here is; someone posts their amazing new chunk of code, thinking they've
discovered something nobody else has before, the concept might be good, but
in their excitement, they've forgotten a few things.  Now joe-I-Cant-Code
and 10 others just like him clip this code into their muds and not only
doesnt it work, but it causes a myrad of other new problems to crop up.
We're now going to have to hear from 10 people that are clueless asking:
"Why is my mud crashing!? All I did was clip in what was posted!!!?!?!"
Followed by a fix post by the original poster... which will be missed by
several of said clueless imps who will continue to post requesting bug 
fixes or help until someone finally takes their hand and leads them through
the fix.  All in all, it generates a monsterous amount of useless mails
for everyone involved, and it could be easilly avoided if the code-poster
is a little more careful and maybe even actually tests the work they've
done before releasing it to the circle community.  Really, if something is
worth posting/boasting about, issnt it worth perfecting?  I certainly think
that people who post crappy code should be flamed... not for the bad coding,
because everyone is learning, but for generating all the angry list traffic.

Of course this is only my opinion/request... and I definitely did not mean
people who post code asking for others to spot what is wrong with it, just
those that "release" code into the community...



-Skylar


Erm... one more thing... does anyone know offhand some easy magic I can
do to eliminate that [Circle] from the subject lines (using pine) ?  I
cant see most of the actual subject line until I'm already in the mail.
Yes I'm too lazy to find out for myself.











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