25 Sep, 2009, Grumny wrote in the 81st comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said,
Quote
Samson, Sandi. I'ma roll up my sleeves and step in here if you
two don't knock off the bullying of DH. That's no bluff. Get
your shit squared away, please.


This has got to be the funniest thing I've seen in this whole thread. I'm sorry Cratylus, really, but it's been ten minutes and I'm still chuckling. Gosh, you made my day, too bad it's almost over.
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 82nd comment:
Votes: 0
Grumny said:
Cratylus said,
Quote
Samson, Sandi. I'ma roll up my sleeves and step in here if you
two don't knock off the bullying of DH. That's no bluff. Get
your shit squared away, please.


This has got to be the funniest thing I've seen in this whole thread. I'm sorry Cratylus, really, but it's been ten minutes and I'm still chuckling. Gosh, you made my day, too bad it's almost over.


Happy to be of service!

I figured I'd give folks fair warning before going full throttle here.

Give them a chance to reflect on where they wanted to go with
this vendetta.

Seems only fair.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Sep, 2009, Grumny wrote in the 83rd comment:
Votes: 0
Wait, you mean it wasn't a joke?

I assumed you were joking. I guess that's where "good faith" can get you. My bad.
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 84th comment:
Votes: 0
Grumny said:
Wait, you mean it wasn't a joke?

I assumed you were joking. I guess that's where "good faith" can get you. My bad.


Nope! It can still be funny tho, don't feel bad.

-Crat
25 Sep, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 85th comment:
Votes: 0
WTF??? WWF?

Several people, not just Samson and I, have expressed displeasure with David's methods and turned them back on him, as can only be considered fair. Perhaps David has learned something, perhaps not. There's no vendetta here, and you cannot substitute for David, as much as you'd like to play "tag team".




Seriously, we all know your real agenda is pushing the post count to 100! :biggrin:
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 86th comment:
Votes: 0
Sandi said:
Several people, not just Samson and I, have expressed displeasure with David's methods and turned them back on him, as can only be considered fair.


Your stalking him across threads to try to trip him up is getting
very, very old.

If you want to stop looking like a cupla bullies picking on DH every chance
you get, then simply debate him on the points he raises and correct the
misimpressions he asks you to clarify. You don't need to get personal about
it, and my post was intended to indicate that if getting personal is ok
in one direction, it'll be ok in the other direction too.

Sandi said:
Perhaps David has learned something, perhaps not.


If what you think you are doing is teaching him a lesson, then it's
you who needs to learn. You are making a spectacle of yourself and
giving Samson an opportunity to fling poop at a dude he has a personal
grudge against. It's disgraceful, you know better, and you should stop it.

Sandi said:
There's no vendetta here, and you cannot substitute for David, as much as you'd like to play "tag team".


This was actually an interesting thread til you shit on it. I intend
to get it back on track because it's on point to a project I'm
working on. I'll do what suits me to get trolls to simmer down.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 87th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
This was actually an interesting thread


Aaaanyway. Let's see if we can get back on track here.

At first I was mostly disregarding this thread because it looked like
typical armchair copyright law…ho hum.

It occurred to me though that it's actually somewhat relevant to
what I'm up to.

The mud I work on has a somewhat unusual build policy. There are
two "ports", as I think Dikuites call them (I call them "instances").

People on each instance can see each other on "who", can tell to
each other, chat on local channels…but they can't interact
"physically", they're isolated from each other. The point of that
isolation is that while the player port is a normal mud, on the
dev port anyone at all that logs in is automatically made an imm
and can build stuff. They have full creator powers.

The idea behind an auto-wiz port is that I have enough on my
plate with doing core system development that I just don't have
time to chase around a build staff. By opening building to anyone
that feels like it, whenever they feel like it, without bothering
with permission and promotion and so on, I get to just not
think about it.

This thread has made me consider, though, that it's probably a
good idea to explain up front what I expect to be able to do with
stuff that is built, whether it is submitted for inclusion in the
player port or not. Hadn't really occurred to me that people
would get owny about pointless little tidbits they never did
anything with…but I guess they probably do.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Sep, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 88th comment:
Votes: 0
Several recent posts have crossed the line from discussion of specific points or arguments to attacks on the character and motives of those involved.

I don't think there's anything further to be gained at this point by continuing to discuss David's posting style and the issues around it. If you wish to continue this aspect of the discussion, please do so via PM.

If you find someone difficult to engage with, for whatever reason, you also have the option to simply not engage with them. In many cases this may be a better solution than trying to challenge them again and again over why you find them difficult to engage with.
25 Sep, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 89th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
This thread has made me consider, though, that it's probably a
good idea to explain up front what I expect to be able to do with
stuff that is built, whether it is submitted for inclusion in the
player port or not. Hadn't really occurred to me that people
would get owny about pointless little tidbits they never did
anything with…but I guess they probably do.


Yes it's definitely a good idea to make it clear somewhere what you intend to do with contributions on the build port. This is pretty standard stuff for most websites these days as the same principles can apply to forum posts, chat logs or any other user submitted content.

There are a few open source Terms of Service agreements out there that you could use as a guide if you wanted to have something with a bit more of a legal foundation, for example this one at Wordpress.com is freely available.
25 Sep, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 90th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
The mud I work on has a somewhat unusual build policy. There are two "ports", as I think Dikuites call them (I call them "instances").

If you mean there are two port numbers, then that's really a general computer networking term, it's not Diku-specific. However I've not seen any Diku muds do what you've described - they either open up a second copy of the mud on a different port number (eg a building port), which is technically a completely separate mud, or they bind the mud to multiple ports but put all players into the same game.

Cratylus said:
This thread has made me consider, though, that it's probably a good idea to explain up front what I expect to be able to do with stuff that is built, whether it is submitted for inclusion in the player port or not. Hadn't really occurred to me that people would get owny about pointless little tidbits they never did anything with…but I guess they probably do.

The question then becomes: Do you want to control what they do with their work, or do you just want to stop them controlling what you do with it?
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 91st comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
they either open up a second copy of the mud on a different port number (eg a building port), which is technically a completely separate mud, or they bind the mud to multiple ports but put all players into the same game.


Heh…you know, sometimes misunderstandings are a good thing. This system I came up
with was premised on the idea that "hey I heard Dikus can do this thing, let's see if I
can make it happen on LP!" I hadn't realized what I was doing wasn't at all what they do.

In my case what it is is two separate muds, on separate ports, but running from the exact
same world/system data…so it's two processes, two ports, and players on different instances
can't hang out together in the same room, but changing the code for that room in one instance
will change the code for that room in the other instance too. One of the motivators for this
arrangement was being able to test new stuff in the for-real production environment without
it being the for-real production environment. If that makes any sense.

KaVir said:
The question then becomes: Do you want to control what they do with their work, or do you just want to stop them controlling what you do with it?


The second thing. If they code a handsome looking suit of armor, but never get around
to submitting it for inclusion, I'd like to be able to throw it in where I think it might fit well.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Sep, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 92nd comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
In my case what it is is two separate muds, on separate ports, but running from the exact same world/system data…so it's two processes, two ports, and players on different instancescan't hang out together in the same room, but changing the code for that room in one instance will change the code for that room in the other instance too.

The Diku "building port" works much the same way, except each process has a different copy of the world (and unless they use IMC or something, they can't communicate with each other either). In theory (and with a little tweaking) you could share the world as well, but the main purpose of the building port is usually to let people build without breaking or unbalancing the main game.

Cratylus said:
One of the motivators for this arrangement was being able to test new stuff in the for-real production environment without it being the for-real production environment. If that makes any sense.

But if both versions share the same world, doesn't that mean that breaking it in one will also break it in the other? Also, what happens if two people are modifying the room at the same time, but on different ports? Wouldn't one be lost? Or do you have some sort of version-control checkin/checkout locking mechanism?

Cratylus said:
The second thing. If they code a handsome looking suit of armor, but never get around to submitting it for inclusion, I'd like to be able to throw it in where I think it might fit well.

Well that's just a nonexclusive licence then, that shouldn't be a problem to sort out.
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 93rd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Cratylus said:
One of the motivators for this arrangement was being able to test new stuff in the for-real production environment without it being the for-real production environment. If that makes any sense.

But if both versions share the same world, doesn't that mean that breaking it in one will also break it in the other? Also, what happens if two people are modifying the room at the same time, but on different ports? Wouldn't one be lost? Or do you have some sort of version-control checkin/checkout locking mechanism?


Yes, breaking one breaks the other, but in practical terms it's not so scary.

Because the world in an LP mud is composed of files that have to be
loaded into memory to be "in the game", you can break the file of something
already in the game but not break the thing-already-loaded. Thus you can
edit a room in the dev instance, and break it, and go "oh noes" and fix
it, while someone on the prime instance doesn't even notice because the
room is already loaded there and unbroken "in game."

The scenario of someone fiddling with in-game stuff on different instances
is pretty rare though. Once a builder's content is added to the game, it is
no longer accessible to them for editing on *any* instance, so it would
really only be admins doing that sort of thing, which should be pretty rare.

And since development shouldn't be happening on the prime instance anyway,
there really ought be no stepping on changes that happens.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Sep, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 94th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
If you want to stop looking like a cupla bullies picking on DH every chance
you get, then simply debate him on the points he raises and correct the
misimpressions he asks you to clarify.


The correct answer to DH asking, "Are you saying …?" or "You said that …" is a simple 'No' without any further explanation.
Trust me it works. :-)
25 Sep, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 95th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
One of the motivators for this arrangement was being able to test new stuff in the for-real production environment without it being the for-real production environment. If that makes any sense.

Cratylus said:
Yes, breaking one breaks the other, but in practical terms it's not so scary.

I don't really understand this. If breaking it on the test instance breaks it in the main instance, it seems that the whole point of the test instance has been dramatically reduced.
If editing something doesn't edit the instances already loaded (which is why you say it's ok in practice) why not just do that on the normal port as well? (Or does editing something cause all current objects to be refreshed in that instance?)
25 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 96th comment:
Votes: 0
DH said:
I don't really understand this. If breaking it on the test instance breaks it in the main instance, it seems that the whole point of the test instance has been dramatically reduced.
If editing something doesn't edit the instances already loaded (which is why you say it's ok in practice) why not just do that on the normal port as well? (Or does editing something cause all current objects to be refreshed in that instance?)


Editing the LPC files doesn't cause the change to propagate instantly,
the file must be re-loaded into memory explicitly for this.

The reason I find a dev instance helpful is primarily that I can let
Joe Schmoe off the street automatically gain the power to create, but
limit his ability to disrupt the game.

But also it is good for testing.

When I say this:

I said:
One of the motivators for this arrangement was being able to test new stuff in the for-real production environment without it being the for-real production environment. If that makes any sense.


I'm being somewhat unclear, sorry bout that. What I mean here is that
I have yet-another-instance running, and this is a "Test" instance.

On the "Dev" instance, people are auto-wiz and can do building without
having to ask permission.

On the "Prime" instance people log in and are just regular players.

On the "Test" instance, it's basically just me. When I make some big
new change (editing in an offline version of the mud on, say, my
PC at home) that I'm ready to roll out, I first roll it out to some
temporary muds to see that it works at all, then when I'm satisfied it's
probably good, I roll it out to the "Test" instance.

Since this instance uses the no-fooling-same-exact-code that the
dev and prime instances have, I can first reload the test instance after
applying the changes to make sure that not only does it work on the
temporary muds I checked it out, but also on the for real code that
is currently running live. And if it breaks everything because, say,
I forgot that the prod muds have a funny include path, I figure it out
and fix it there without screwing live players doing their live things.
Then once all is clean, I can reload everything on the other instances.

So, to recap, breaking files in one instance is:

1) Limited to the scope of what you CAN break, which as a rank-and-file
creator really isn't much.

2) Not immediately felt on other instances, allowing you to spot problems
before rolling them out to the other instances.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Sep, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 97th comment:
Votes: 0
Ah, that makes sense then. If the breakage must be deliberately propagated somehow, it does indeed make the problem of breaking-test-means-breaking-production go away (or at least be quite mitigated).

I have a dev port used to test things, but I'm not sure how comparable it is because of the differences regarding how LP treats object code etc. The dev port uses (or doesn't, if I choose not to) the same areas, same pfiles, etc., and potentially the same C++ (+ Lua) code, but normally the whole point is to run on different code. We don't really use the port for building; building would happen on the normal port, and the area didn't get linked into accessible areas until it was ready for release.
80.0/97