04 Apr, 2009, Ubasti wrote in the 1st comment:
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Hi!

I found a builder's school a while ago and there's a few MUSH's that run classes (or ran classes, that is) to help people learn to use MUSHcode. So, just wondering are there any MUDs that focus on coding?

I'm still learning C++ so I'm not sure if this is the best time to get into anything. But you have to start somewhere, you know? I have no idea about the different codebases, but any leads on a MUD school would be great.

Thanks!
04 Apr, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Since all MUDs of a DIKUish or LP nature are customised, there's no way a "school" could really be applicable to more than one MUD. Generally, things are done by apprenticeship.

Also, while I firmly believe students should work on projects in which they have a sincere interest, I also believe they should be exposed to "good practice", and there isn't much of that in any MUD codebase. At least, not the ones you can download. :)
04 Apr, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 3rd comment:
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http://tbamud.com/

Both a codebase (continued development of Circle) and a builder academy.
04 Apr, 2009, Remcon wrote in the 4th comment:
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Quote
Also, while I firmly believe students should work on projects in which they have a sincere interest, I also believe they should be exposed to "good practice", and there isn't much of that in any MUD codebase. At least, not the ones you can download. :)

Really now lol, I try to follow good practice and my codebase is up for download. If you have something that is "good practice" and I'm not doing do let me know :)
04 Apr, 2009, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 5th comment:
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I think the point Sandi (if i'm not mistaken) was trying to make, is that most MUDs you can download
were written a long time ago. Not only are they derived from older languages / resources, but they have also been
rewritten again and again passed down from one generation to another. The problem with this, is that
most of time the general structure of the application is faulty, usually with memory leaks. And if this not so, with languages like C++ you must write your own memory management routines.

As far as learning CODING what you are really wanting to learn is computer programming. And that should be taken as a separate undertaking, mainly because a MUD is very large complex computer program. There are many basics to programming that not (should), but (MUST) be understood before you can wrap your brain around complex concepts, namely a real-time virtual environment.
:smirk:
I say this not with the assumption that you do not know how to program, but in connection with your question regarding a coding school, this IMOO is not something that can be done, or at least not done well. Now, if you (or others) are interested in learning programming, i might recommend learning a newer high level / object oriented language. (Ruby, Python, Java, ETC) There are several projects right here on Mudbytes that you can download and learn from.

Personally i started out with Visual Basic and later went back to learn C from a Diku derivative. I found for me learning the abstract concepts of programming first made learning MUD concepts much more palatable. :biggrin:
04 Apr, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 6th comment:
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I agree with Sandi, what you want is an apprenticeship of sorts, and you'll probably only find a good one by playing a good mud for a while and then getting taken under the wing of one of the senior wizzes there. One of the reasons coding schools or classes work in MUSH is because MUSHes were designed to be a live coding environment. You'll notice the MUSH schools don't teach you C/C++, the language those servers were written in, but the softcode that runs on top the servers.

Now that said, there's no reason you couldn't do the same thing on a LP, or a mud with Lua/Python/Ruby etcetera scripting. The only thing with that, as staryavsky said, is while you'll be learning syntax and grammar (not a bad thing, it's something you'll need to do over and over to get it down like second nature) you won't be learning some of the more fundamental things important to designing and writing a larger program.

Now a TBAmud-like for writing server code would be an interesting project…
04 Apr, 2009, Grimble wrote in the 7th comment:
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staryavsky said:
And if this not so, with languages like C++ you must write your own memory management routines.

huh?! I'm guessing you mean that C++ doesn't have garbage collection, so you must manage your allocated objects. Actually, if you use smart pointers, the objects manage themselves.
04 Apr, 2009, Ubasti wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Thanks everyone for the quick responses. I think I'm going to continue to focus on learning to actually program, first. Then once I have a some what solid grasp on it, I may try to find an apprentice position on a MUD. I'm starting with C++, from a friend's suggestion. They mentioned it would teach me good structure or something to that effect. Also, PHP is based off C++, they said, which I could learn afterwards and apply that toward my job once I get it down. I'm still very new to this part, as you can tell. But I have books on all types of languages from Java to Python. I've been collecting them as the went on sale, thinking that one day I'd actually sit down and learn.

But, anyway, I am very interested in the tbaMUD, though. Since I'd like to learn all about working on a MUD, I just might get into their Builder's academy, too. Thanks again for the link there. :)
04 Apr, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
There's a bit more to using C++ than just smart pointers, especially if you're referring to the STL's smart_ptr<> template type. The limitations of that facility are one of the reasons for TR1's shared_ptr<> type, among other hacks.

I usually recommend learning C first, then C++. C++ is a superset of C, but I've found that most people who start with C++ never learn the real fundamentals of C (and hence the fundamentals of C++) and end up being worse programmers for it. C requires you to put forth a little more work to do some relatively basic things, but in reality so does C++. C++ just comes with some tools that hides the low-level details, but when you end up wanting to do anything truly interesting, you end up needing to understand those low-level details first.

You can of course learn both simultaneously – learning the easy C++ ways of doing something while learning the low-level C details going on under the hood – but I'm not aware of any books or sites that approach the topic in that manner, unfortunately.

PHP is not really based on C++, it's more like a mix of Java and Perl (both of which certainly show some influence form C and C++), but other than the presence of semi-colons and curly brackets there's really very little in common between PHP and C++. Even the way you should approach designing software for both languages are pretty different. :)
04 Apr, 2009, Ubasti wrote in the 10th comment:
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elanthis said:
PHP is not really based on C++, it's more like a mix of Java and Perl (both of which certainly show some influence form C and C++), but other than the presence of semi-colons and curly brackets there's really very little in common between PHP and C++. Even the way you should approach designing software for both languages are pretty different. :)


Wow, my friend was way off then. Thanks for the tips. I may have pick up a book on C, as well. My boyfriend is a game programming major so he may have one laying around. You would think we both were expert programmers already with the amount of books we have here.
04 Apr, 2009, kiasyn wrote in the 11th comment:
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a lot of php functions used to share the same name as their C equivalent but now they're moving towards OO
04 Apr, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 12th comment:
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Thank you, staryavsky, for putting words in my mouth - that's exactly what I meant. :grinning:
04 Apr, 2009, Grimble wrote in the 13th comment:
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elanthis said:
There's a bit more to using C++ than just smart pointers, especially if you're referring to the STL's smart_ptr<> template type. The limitations of that facility are one of the reasons for TR1's shared_ptr<> type, among other hacks.

I was thinking boost pointers, but they're pretty much the same as what's in TR1 IIRC. Why do you think they're a hack? They're very useful, when used correctly, in my experience.
04 Apr, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 14th comment:
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Grimble said:
I was thinking boost pointers, but they're pretty much the same as what's in TR1 IIRC. Why do you think they're a hack? They're very useful, when used correctly, in my experience.


The TR1/Boost shared_ptrs aren't a problem. It's the original STL auto_ptr (is that what it was called?) that's best avoided.

kiasyn said:
a lot of php functions used to share the same name as their C equivalent but now they're moving towards OO


Most of the core library is still using functions, including those with C-inspired naming. It's mostly the non-core stuff I've seen move to OO. And the PHP idiots usually get those APIs just as wrong as they got the original core library. I've said it before and I'll say it again: PHP is absolutely the worst of all of today's popular languages. Every major release of PHP primarily does two things: (1) remove all of the deprecated half-assed poorly-thought-out features introduced in the last major release, and (2) introduce new soon-to-be-deprecated half-assed poorly-thought-out features so they have something to remove in the next major release. Not until PHP6 are they finally adding first-class functions (and they're still not quite right), and they refused to add name-based parameters because "it's not the PHP way" (which I've come to the conclusion is best translated as "we're too dumb to figure out how to make it work"), and the syntax they chose for namespaces makes me want to stab someone in the eye. A backslash. A freaking backslash. WTF. *stab*

Ubasti said:
Wow, my friend was way off then. Thanks for the tips. I may have pick up a book on C, as well. My boyfriend is a game programming major so he may have one laying around. You would think we both were expert programmers already with the amount of books we have here.


Your friend may have been simplifying and just meant that PHP has a C-inspired syntax and has object-orientation like C++. It's a common comparison, just not one I feel is worth making. ;) Btw, I'm curious as to which school is your boyfriend at; there aren't many well-known ones that offer game development degrees.
05 Apr, 2009, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 15th comment:
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Sandi Said:
Quote
Thank you, staryavsky, for putting words in my mouth - that's exactly what I meant


umm, i hope i didnt say anything offensive. :redface:
that is just in case you were being sarcastic. I can never tell.

Well, if i did put any words in your mouth that were contrary to your thoughts i'm sorry.
05 Apr, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 16th comment:
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No, no, you expressed exactly what I was thinking. I seem to have a problem judging what is "too obvious to mention".

And, I didn't mean to slight anyone's codebase that I don't know about. I should have worded that differently. But stary is quite right, if your codebase contains old code from the early 90's you'll see much more attention payed to saving a character anywhere you can than to readability. In the MUD development environment, given its high turnover, readability is paramount.

I'm an expert on readability. If you think my posts are hard to understand, you should see my code!



Oh, and for what it's worth, I agree one should learn C before C++, if you're in this for the long haul.
05 Apr, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 17th comment:
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fyi, Sandi, the phrase "putting words in my mouth" generally is used when you mean to say "you just said that I said something that I did not mean nor want to say," hence staryvasky's confusion. :)
05 Apr, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 18th comment:
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See? Even my explanations need explanations. :redface:
06 Apr, 2009, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 19th comment:
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lol, well as long as no ones not upset… :tongue:

I agree too about learning C first. Although now I am in love with Ruby and its brevity / readability, I'm not sure if i would have the same appreciation if I didn't spend those sleepless nights with C trying to make just one modification and not have gcc whine about it :lol:

But back to you're mudding dreams, don't ever give up on them. And don't let some seasoned mud programmers like us get you off course with our opinions. I am a firm believer in Polonius' popular adage "To thine own self be true."

If you like C++ that much, then go for it. If you just love Diku derivatives and you are happy with untaring it and go straight for stock building, then go for it. Just knowing there are green mud developers still adds meaning to the rest of us trying to keep the community alive.
06 Apr, 2009, Ubasti wrote in the 20th comment:
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Oh yea, someone had asked about the school my boyfriend attends. Well, currently he's not taking classes, but he did go to a few schools with gaming programs: First was Devry, but he left because he felt that he would not be prepared for any gaming job after graduation. I think they only taught C++ and another language and he complained about not learning Python and a bunch more. Recently, he tried The University of Advancing Technology, here in AZ. He left since it seemed they were a gaming focus school, but none of their general use computers had any of the SDKs available. I think Dark Basic was the major one he was complaining about. I'm sure their were other reasons, too. He's been looking into The Gaming Institute Online but, I think he's just going to settle for ASU, where he'll major in CS and take the extra gaming related courses, which is so much cheaper - even as an out of state resident. I've been bugging him to do this all the while, as I don't quite like those other "Universities."

Anyway, I've heard good things about Full Sail, but I just can't bring myself to trust them. I went to Strayer for computer programming and I think I'm dumber for it. I learned more by teaching myself than in their classes. So just with that, I'm a little bias towards the other schools of its kind. /rant
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