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Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:05 am
Redisplaying mud output with Color in tact. |
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Rorso
Wizard
Joined: 14 Oct 2000
Posts: 1368
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 Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:04 pm
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| Zugg wrote: |
I think making the Developer's forum open is something to consider. I might also change the name since the "zMUD" Development Forum is no longer really appropriate. We'll probably discuss stuff beyond MXP, so maybe just the "MUD Developers Forum" or something like that. Or, if everything in the future is seen as an extension to MXP, then the "MXP Developers Forum" would be fine too.
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You could have a Mud Dev forum and then add sub forums to it as it branch out but the noise ratio will probably be low enough that sub categorizing the discussions wouldn't be needed. |
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Zhiroc
Adept
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 246
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Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:13 am
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I think the key thing to the name of the forum is that it should emphasize that it is more focused on client-server topics like MXP, MSP, etc. "MUD Development" may invite threads about DIKU and TinyMUSH.
And yeah, I've seen the flame wars on the other forums. But the problem is that many of the stakeholders in this discussion happen to be people who can get pretty "heated". |
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FiendishX
Wanderer
Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Posts: 53
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:22 pm
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| alluran wrote: |
| i think fiendish found one about not being able to set width on right-docked windows, but i'll get him to post it. |
Yes, but I use zMUD. There's no point in my posting bugs that aren't going to get fixed. Occasionally if something is really important, like the ansi pattern #sub problem that I still haven't found a solution to, I'll post about it on the forum and see if someone has any smart ideas. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. The right-docked width issue wasn't really important, since I can just make the window floating and let the user dock it if desired, so I never posted about it.
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| Btw, looking at the setup of playing Aardwolf in Mushclient was kind of amusing because it looks like the setup I already use in CMUD. |
What, no bigmap? 
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| In fact, it was a lot of trouble to get the ascii map captured to it's own window and if I had know that I simply needed to email Lasher... |
Erm...really? The "maptags" option has been in for about as long as the map has. Maybe it needs to be publicized better?
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| I completely understand that Aardwolf needed to work with a *free* MUD client since they can't ask their players to all buy CMUD. But maybe CMUD could make this easier for both Aardwolf and other MUDs. |
I think most of us use zMUD. A few use CMUD. If you're looking for ways to drive CMUD adoption, this is probably it.
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| Do you really gain that much from the {tag} syntax? It's syntactic sugar and moves away from the xml-style. It also seem pretty confusing. |
The real answer is no, we don't gain a whole lot. But there was an issue with CMUD's default settings that made us change the format at the last minute because it was swallowing unknown XML style tags until the MUD can be made MXP compliant. |
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Zugg
MASTER
Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:44 pm
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Not yet, but I'm intrigued by some of that. I use the CMUD map more than the Ascii maps anyway. The local ASCII map is just there because it can show nearby mobs. That doesn't occur in the bigmap, so my CMUD map is more useful for me. I'm also waiting till CMUD has graphical tile-based mapping that will automatically convert the bigmap into a graphical map that will blow away other clients 
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| The "maptags" option has been in for about as long as the map has |
Yep, that's what I'm using. The tricky part was getting rid of the extra blank lines before and after the map so that the window didn't need to be so big. Looking back on it, it looks like I didn't know about maptags at first and was creating a bunch of #NOMAP and #CAPTURE triggers for it. Once I converted it to use maptags, it was much simpler, but I still have a bunch of un-needed #NOMAP triggers from when I was trying to make the CMUD mapper work (which I eventually did).
So yes, the maptags probably *should* be more publicized. I think it was someone in my clan that finally pointed me to it.
I think what I really meant in the above post was that setting up *mapping* for Aardwolf was a pain, and the {roomname} and {roomdesc} tags should make it a *lot* easier.
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| I think most of us use zMUD. A few use CMUD |
At some point, everyone using zMUD instead of CMUD should ask themselves "why?". I know there are some valid reasons, but a lot of people are just afraid of change. But CMUD has some *very* useful features in it that zMUD doesn't have, especially for making scripts much faster. Some people tried CMUD a long time ago, but a lot of problems have been fixed and if they haven't tried it recently, it's a lot better than it used to be.
After all, why are you using zMUD instead of plain Telnet? or even MUSHClient? Usually it's because zMUD's scripting is better or more powerful. Well, CMUD is mostly compatible with zMUD (more than any other client will ever be), and it has better scripting and fixes a ton of problems that zMUD had.
I think the new mapper will probably be the final straw to switch most zMUD users who use the map. But we'll see how it's going again in a few more months.
But if people are saying that they don't want to use CMUD because it's "buggy" or "unstable", find out what version they tried. It was probably an older buggy beta version. But once people have a bad experience, they remember it forever and complain about it even after it is fixed. |
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FiendishX
Wanderer
Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Posts: 53
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:50 pm
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| Quote: |
| At some point, everyone using zMUD instead of CMUD should ask themselves "why?". |
Because I tried using the trial of CMUD a week ago, and when I asked it to check the compatibility of my zMUD settings it crashed. I guess the bigmap script is just too much for it.
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Zugg
MASTER
Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:02 am
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It crashed?? Send me the *.MUD zMUD file that you tried to check the compatibility of so that I can figure out why. I'm not aware of any crash bugs in the Compatibility Report in CMUD. Email the file as an attachment to sales@zuggsoft.com.
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alluran
Adept
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 223
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:21 am
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BTW Zugg, mapstart/mapend tags were added at the same time the automapper was added (or a week after, may have been slight delay), just RTFAB! ;)
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The Drake Forestseer |
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FiendishX
Wanderer
Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Posts: 53
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:03 am
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| Zugg wrote: |
| It crashed?? Send me the *.MUD zMUD file that you tried to check the compatibility of so that I can figure out why. I'm not aware of any crash bugs in the Compatibility Report in CMUD. Email the file as an attachment to sales@zuggsoft.com. |
Sent.
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Zhiroc
Adept
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 246
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:13 am
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| Zugg wrote: |
At some point, everyone using zMUD instead of CMUD should ask themselves "why?". I know there are some valid reasons, but a lot of people are just afraid of change. But CMUD has some *very* useful features in it that zMUD doesn't have, especially for making scripts much faster. Some people tried CMUD a long time ago, but a lot of problems have been fixed and if they haven't tried it recently, it's a lot better than it used to be.
After all, why are you using zMUD instead of plain Telnet? or even MUSHClient? Usually it's because zMUD's scripting is better or more powerful. Well, CMUD is mostly compatible with zMUD (more than any other client will ever be), and it has better scripting and fixes a ton of problems that zMUD had.
I think the new mapper will probably be the final straw to switch most zMUD users who use the map. But we'll see how it's going again in a few more months.
But if people are saying that they don't want to use CMUD because it's "buggy" or "unstable", find out what version they tried. It was probably an older buggy beta version. But once people have a bad experience, they remember it forever and complain about it even after it is fixed. |
I'm still a very happy zMUD user. I'm all for change, but it has to buy me something.
- zMUD is plenty fast for me. I have zero performance issues. Never have had any.
- zMUD is rock solid for me. Sure it has a few bugs, but I have worked around them all. I know what they are, and how to avoid them. I grant that CMUD is fairly stable now, but there seems to be enough incoming bugs that discourages me from going through the next point:
- zMUD-to-CMUD conversion is onerous. Sure, it's "mostly" compatible. But with a 100+ KB .mud file, I have like 100 or so settings to change--most of the "%n" -> %n variety. I can't be bothered right now. I think my last conversion effort took around 1-2+ hours, and in the end, it was wasted since I gave up to keep using zMUD. The second thing is that I really need to use a shared package implementation since I use the inherited settings feature of zMUD a lot (for MUSH multiplaying). That's another huge conversion effort.
- The only CMUD feature I find immensely compelling to use is local variables. I would probably never want to use threads, because I know just how hard I'd have to work to make sure I was thread-safe. (My work in the past was with the granddaddy of all threaded programs, an OS kernel, so I know all about thread-safe.) Second to this, I'd probably love to use more Lua, too. But neither of this reach a level of compulsion to get me over the hurdle.
Thinking things over, it's probably the conversion factor that is the huge impediment. If it took more like 5 minutes to try out CMUD, then I'd be far more willing to give it another go.
FYI, the mapper isn't an issue for me one way or another. I think it's great, but doesn't work very well in MUSHes. It was tremendous in the MUD I used to play, but I don't do MUDs anymore. If it's made less squirrely and easier to configure, that will probably give a bit impetus to switch. |
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Caled
Sorcerer
Joined: 21 Oct 2000
Posts: 821
Location: Australia
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:57 am
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The conversion is the biggest hurdle, for sure. Its a pretty daunting task for some people, depending on the size, complexity and quality of the mud file in question.
I know in the end I rewrote from the ground up. My settings were a mishmash of 7 years worth of mudding across 4 muds, starting in 5.55 :s |
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Athlon 64 3200+
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Toxic
Adept
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 299
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 2:03 pm
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Yeah, IMO its much more appealing to rewrite from the ground up. Some things I brought over. Large dbvar's that were hand built. Things of this nature, but in general you will learn alot more and also end up with nicer and quicker scripts by just taking the time to rewrite everything from the ground up.
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Zhiroc
Adept
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 246
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:56 pm
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Heh, I just decided to try again... and I hit the "compatibility crashes" bug reported elsewhere. Which means I can't even begin to try to use CMUD 2.30, unless I want to port the settings by hand. Or try to find the offending setting to work around the bug.
I guess this brings up another problem in getting adoption: the release strategy. There are some bugs, like this one, that pretty much stops someone cold. But it's likely to be only fixed in the next round, which may include a number of enhancements, like the mapper. Obviously, significant development is always at risk for more bugs, and more stopper bugs (from a user's perspective). And this is even more the case if the next release has a different set of "stopper" bugs. This neverending cycle makes it hard on users to convert.
It seems to me that CMUD probably needs to branch. There needs to be a "stable" release, and then a "cutting edge" release. But more than just this, even the stable release needs to have fixes applied to it on an ongoing basis. Maybe not all, but serious bugs certainly. |
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Toxic
Adept
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 299
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:02 pm
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| Zhiroc wrote: |
Heh, I just decided to try again... and I hit the "compatibility crashes" bug reported elsewhere. Which means I can't even begin to try to use CMUD 2.30, unless I want to port the settings by hand. Or try to find the offending setting to work around the bug.
I guess this brings up another problem in getting adoption: the release strategy. There are some bugs, like this one, that pretty much stops someone cold. But it's likely to be only fixed in the next round, which may include a number of enhancements, like the mapper. Obviously, significant development is always at risk for more bugs, and more stopper bugs (from a user's perspective). And this is even more the case if the next release has a different set of "stopper" bugs. This neverending cycle makes it hard on users to convert.
It seems to me that CMUD probably needs to branch. There needs to be a "stable" release, and then a "cutting edge" release. But more than just this, even the stable release needs to have fixes applied to it on an ongoing basis. Maybe not all, but serious bugs certainly. |
Well, noone said it would be perfect. Or easy. Its not going to be. And just like you did in the beginning you will have to invest some time and effort into making it work correctly. The point is that at some point in time it is or will be worth the investment in time to do the conversion. |
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Rahab
Wizard
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 2320
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:35 pm
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| Quote: |
It seems to me that CMUD probably needs to branch. There needs to be a "stable" release, and then a "cutting edge" release. But more than just this, even the stable release needs to have fixes applied to it on an ongoing basis. Maybe not all, but serious bugs certainly.
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Zhiroc, Zugg does try to get fixes out as fast as possible for show-stopper bugs. Case in point, the compatibility crash bug should be fixed in v2.32, which is expected in the next day or two. |
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Zugg
MASTER
Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:08 pm
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Zhiroc, that is already done as well as I can. The "stable" release is the Public release. The "cutting edge" release is the Beta version.
Unfortunately, I'm just one person and I'm only going to be able to support a single Public release at a time. I cannot do "branches" and then try to maintain multiple branches at the same time. That's a huge effort for one person to do. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the current bug fixing, support, documentation, new features, etc.
But Rahab is correct that when I find a "show-stopper" bug, I try to fix that asap and stop everything else that I'm doing. In this particular case, however, I find it interesting that the "show-stopper" bug has been around for months and months and was only recently reported. So it probably wasn't really a show-stopper for most users. |
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