From frodo.cs.uct.ac.za!pvanheus Mon Jan  4 01:23:41 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "4" "January" "1993" "03:12:35" "-0800" "P A van Heusden" "pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za " nil "38" "Bits and Bytes" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 4 Jan 1993 03:12:35 -0800
From:	pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (MOO Cows Mailing list)
Subject: Bits and Bytes

Ok, this is my first posting, and I've got quite a lot to discuss and ask.

MOO Questions:

MOO is definetely an unusual system. Firstly it is running on a commercial
site, no less that at Xerox PARC. What role does PARC play, besides supplying
people like Haakon?

What is the history of MOO? Who started it, when and why?

Comments of a MUSH convert:

Well, I started my MUD career on MUSH. It took me about a week to pick up 
pretty well everything about the language. I am a RL programmer (3rd year
computer science student, versed in Unix and C, amongst others.) and I
have just finished reading through most of the MOO manual... its a wonderful
language, but one hell of a system for a beginner. MUSH is a grotesque 
language, but it has a simple basic command set. MOO seems to have a simple
core of commands, but they get clouded over by all the little details. Just
a comment, I'm not trying to offend everyone.

New mailing list:

Last night, myself (Razordeath), Comrade Porcupine, Mandrake and Chaos were
chatting about MOO, FMPL, TADS and various other world creation languages.
The topic flowed around MOO and the generic principles of good MUDs, what is 
needed, etc. I've had similar conversations with Jay, Hagbard and others. So,
someone, Mandrake I think, proposed a mailing list. So, Mandrake founded
a mailing list quickly. The address is mud-futures@gnu.ai.mit.edu... I expect
that *-request would be the admin, but I'm far from sure. Drop along, and bring
your ideas for what must change, and how. (BTW. I'm not sure if I got the names
of who did what right.)

Drop by for a chat on the subject on LambdaMOO if you want.

Cheers,
Razordeath


From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Mon Jan  4 11:17:43 1993
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Date:	Mon, 4 Jan 1993 05:26:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: @foo me is <value>

Amy / jaime writes:

> The message syntax is really handy.  
> (You can just create a property named foo_msg, and then the server
> automatically interprets "@foo <object> is <message>" to let you set the
> foo_msg of anything you own.  Permissions are handled automatically.)

Almost. If you have a property whose name ends in _msg, it's lucky enough
to be treated specially by various LambdaCore commands (@messages, for 
example).  If I give a command of the form 
  @<anything> <object> is <something>
and it doesn't match in any of the usual ways: player, location, dobj, iobj,
and (in the present LambdaCore) player's my_huh (features), location's
here_huh (exit names), it goes back to $last_huh:@* which will look for an
appropriately named property and assign the value if permissions allow.

> Here's my question:
> Why not generalize this, and drop the need for adding "_msg" to the 
> property name?  (The slot would now be named "foo" instead of "foo_msg", 
> and all slots could be set in this fashion.)  This would be done last, 
> so any existing @foo verbs would take priority, if they exist.  The server 
> would need to check the type of the <value> and produce an appropriate 
> error message.

I actually like this idea -- it has potential to eliminate the need for
the @set command (although @set should stay around for those who can't
set property values with eval).  Why not make $last_huh:@* check first
for the existance of a _msg property with the appropriate name and, if
that's not found, then check for the existance of a property with the name
as originally given?

This would not be too hard to implement, as I see it (I think I might just
go ahead and do it on OpalMOO, since we're ripping LambdaCore to shreds
anyway).

Seth / Blackbriar


From fwva.saic.com!WHITTEN Mon Jan  4 13:56:29 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "4" "January" "1993" "05:34:55" "-0800" "David Whitten" "WHITTEN@fwva.saic.com" nil "22" "Ideas about Trademarks" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 4 Jan 1993 05:34:55 -0800
From:	David Whitten <WHITTEN@fwva.saic.com>
To:	Moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Ideas about Trademarks

I was reading one of the news postings about someone who wreaked havoc
on a MU* by writing a virus that added new verbs to a person which made
page, mail, emote, etc into silent verbs. (ie: the user saw the message,
but no-one else in the room did...)

Anyway, one of the criticisms mentioned was that someone should have
noticed that the version of each of these that was being used did not belong
to the 'proper' writer of the the code.

Now since I have just recently gotten involved in MOO (at LambdaMOO) I realize
I have no idea of who the 'proper' person is for the verbs I normally use...

One way of combatting this problem could be to have a central registry of
verbs, along with the 'official' writer.

Another way might be to have a 'Patent office' where people can register their
Trademarks, and have a system call that couldn't be overridden which would
keep track of which 'trademarks' I want to be used for verbs I use.
This is a subtle kind of permission scheme, and may need some work.
Ideas anyone?

Dave (whitten@fwva.saic.com) US:(619)535-7764 "I don't speak for SAIC"

From stony-brook.scrc.symbolics.com!yduJ Mon Jan  4 14:22:11 1993
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Date:	Mon, 4 Jan 1993 14:05:00 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduJ@stony-brook.scrc.symbolics.com>
To:	WHITTEN@fwva.saic.com, Moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Ideas about Trademarks

On LambdaMOO we have taken the attitude that "if you don't trust the
parent's owner, don't chparent to it", and have given player class
owners, for example, rather a lot of power (they can change your name at
random, etc).  I think that a trademark office would become very quickly
unwieldy; the whole *point* of parenting objects is to easily modify
existing verbs.

But, *you* made the choice to chparent to some person's object, if you
don't trust them, don't do it.  You won't be affected by their verbs if
you don't have a child of their object.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ    yduJ@symbolics.com   'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Wed Jan  6 19:38:40 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "6" "January" "1993" "19:18:37" "-0800" "Tim Sailer" "jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com" nil "18" "YAY!" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: YAY!
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Thank you Chris (ccn@sco.com) and Pavel for the help in getting the
source compiled and running on my SCO system. NOW... can someone
send me code samples so I can figure out how to make this thing
do something? Like... robot characters, maybe the clock, some
simple games???

Thanks!!
Tim

-- 
       ________________________________________________________________
      {                        Tim Sailer                              }
      {  Internet: tps@jptcs.com        UUCP: ..!uu.psi.com!jptcs!tps  }
      {----------------------------------------------------------------}
      {            Time flies like and arrow....                       }
      {            Fruit Flies like a Bananna!                         }
      {________________________________________________________________}


From cheshire.oxy.edu!t_pascal Mon Jan 11 00:52:29 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "January" "1993" "00:42:38" "-0800" "C. Regis Wilson" "t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu " nil "30" "Sysadmin bit" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:42:38 -0800
From:	t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Sysadmin bit


I've been musing for a while on an idea for the server.  My idea is to add
a sysadmin bit in addition to programmer and wizard bits.  Any call which would
affect the server machine would be put in this class.  For example, the
following calls might (or might not) fall under the sysadmin access:

open_network_connection()
boot_player()    (probably best to leave it at wizard access)
server_log()     (again, wizard access is fine)
dump_databse()
memory_usage()  (I forget the exact name :)
connection_name()

And maybe others.  Someone wanted a call that would read a file from the site's
file structure, that would fall under the sysadmin bit.  Does this make sense?
It's not so useful now, but it gives a new class of access so some calls can
be made safely.  To me, the wizard bit is a tad more powerful than perhaps it
should be (but that's just me).  The sysadmin bit would take away the power of
the wizards to call the site specific routines, but they can still have
considerable db power.  At the same time, it would allow more system calls
to be added that would be considerable risks if wizards had access.

Disclaimer:  I haven't even thought about doing this in practice, so I don't
know how feasible/easy/useful/expensive it would be.
---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal    |  "The man on the moon told us he subsisted by
1600 Campus Road, Box 829    |   digging up cheese from his back yard.
Los Angeles, CA 90041        |   Unfortunately, he never told us what kind
                             |   it was."  -Word Perfect to PCWrite manual
   t_pascal@{{{cub,jaguar,cheetah}.math},bobcat,cheshire,tiger}.oxy.edu 

From cheshire.oxy.edu!t_pascal Mon Jan 11 01:29:43 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "January" "1993" "01:21:22" "-0800" "C. Regis Wilson" "t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu " nil "16" "Sysadmin bit part 2" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 11 Jan 1993 01:21:22 -0800
From:	t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Sysadmin bit part 2


Sorry about the two part post, but I forgot a key power that would move
from the wizard to the sysadmin:  Granting of wizard bits.  Thus, the
sysadmin has power to make more wizards, and wizard could make more
programmers.

One drawback which invalidates my whole thesis:  Adding such a bit to
server would probably make db's backward incompatible.  *sigh*

Too late to be posting, but I do it anyway,
---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal    |  "The man on the moon told us he subsisted by
1600 Campus Road, Box 829    |   digging up cheese from his back yard.
Los Angeles, CA 90041        |   Unfortunately, he never told us what kind
                             |   it was."  -Word Perfect to PCWrite manual
   t_pascal@{{{cub,jaguar,cheetah}.math},bobcat,cheshire,tiger}.oxy.edu 

From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Mon Jan 11 22:51:45 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "January" "1993" "22:33:25" "-0800" "Tim Sailer" "jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com" nil "13" "Help?" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 11 Jan 1993 22:33:25 -0800
From:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Help?
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I hope everyone will bear with me as I ask a series of stoopid questions.
To start with, is it possible to lock an exit with more than 1 key?

Tim

-- 
       ________________________________________________________________
      {                        Tim Sailer                              }
      {  Internet: tps@jptcs.com        UUCP: ..!uu.psi.com!jptcs!tps  }
      {----------------------------------------------------------------}
      {        Camp food always tastes better in the dark!             }
      {________________________________________________________________}


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jan 12 15:12:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "January" "1993" "15:02:10" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "26" "Re: Help?" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:02:10 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Help?

> Date:	Mon, 11 Jan 1993 22:33:25 -0800
> From:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
> 
> To start with, is it possible to lock an exit with more than 1 key?

I'm not entirely sure that I know what you mean, but I'll try anyway.  There
are two things I can think of that `locking something with more than one key'
might mean:
	-- Both keys are necessary to enter
	-- Either key is sufficient to enter
Since the `key expression' language includes the `&&' (logical `and') and `||'
(logical `or') operators, it should be straightforward to get either of these
two behaviors.

For example, suppose that I have two objects, an `orb' and an `amulet' and I am
interested in locking the `north' exit from my current room.  If I type
	@lock north with orb && amulet
then a player must possess *both* the orb *and* amulet to go north.  On the other
hand, if I type
	@lock north with orb || amulet
then any player holding *either* the orb *or* the amulet can go north.

If this isn't clear enough, feel free to send me a more detailed questions and
I'll try again.

	Pavel

From sco.com!chrisn Tue Jan 12 15:16:27 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "January" "1993" "15:18:59" "-0800" "\"The Horror, The Horror\"" "chrisn@sco.com" "<9301121519.aa06696@devsco.sco.COM>" "5" "Re: Help?" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:18:59 -0800
From:	"The Horror, The Horror" <chrisn@sco.com>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps@sco.com
Cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Help?

Is locking something against a property value possible?
Like, locking the door to the ladies room against players
with non-female gender?

ccn

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Jan 12 16:12:31 1993
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Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:05:12 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: dangers of open_network_connection


Can someone please explain to me what the security dangers of 
open_netowrk_connection are?

Someone just posted a message saying they were thinking of moving
o_n_c to a level higher than wizard.  Which is funny, because
we were just seriously considering moving it to a level *lower*
than wizard.  There are lots of talented people around here who are
excited about creating networked applications.

I'd like to find a secure way to let people with a "networker" bit
make nifty things.

Thanks!

-- Amy
	jaime@lots-o-places

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jan 12 16:20:32 1993
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Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:24:00 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	chrisn@sco.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com, uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps@sco.com
Subject: Re: Help?

> Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:18:59 -0800
> From:	"The Horror, The Horror" <chrisn@sco.com>
> 
> Is locking something against a property value possible?
> Like, locking the door to the ladies room against players
> with non-female gender?

Yes, but not with the simple @lock/@unlock commands.  To do this, the easiest
way is to override the `is_unlocked_for' verb on either the door (an exit) or
on the room itself.

See `help locking' for more explanation, but you could do this as follows:

	@verb here:is_unlocked_for this none this
	@program here:is_unlocked_for
	who = args[1];
	return is_player(who) && who.gender == "female"
	.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jan 12 17:55:34 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "January" "1993" "16:53:05" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "31" "Re: dangers of open_network_connection" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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References: <9301130005.AA15724@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:53:05 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: dangers of open_network_connection

> Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:05:12 -0800
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> Can someone please explain to me what the security dangers of 
> open_netowrk_connection are?

The only significant danger is if your server machine has TCP access to more
hosts than you would like your users to see.  For example, the machine running
LambdaMOO right now is located on the inside of a very strong network barrier,
which only allows packets in to a few very carefully-maintained machines (like
the MOO server).  If I allowed outbound connections from the server, then users
from outside would be able to reach machines on the inside of the wall, which
they otherwise couldn't do.  So, for now, I don't allow them.

I am, however, looking forward to moving the server onto the other side of that
wall, making it more-or-less like any other Internet host (i.e., cut off from
the Xerox internal net).  At that point, I'll enable outbound network
connections on LambdaMOO.

> I'd like to find a secure way to let people with a "networker" bit
> make nifty things.

Easy.  Add a wiz-only property to all players called `networker' and write a
wiz-owned verb called, say, $net_utils:open_connection, like this:

	who = caller_perms();
	if (valid(who) && $object_utils:isa(who, $player) && who.networker)
	  return open_network_connection(@args);
	else
	  $error:raise(E_PERM);
	endif

From xerox.com!eostrom.PARC Tue Jan 12 21:58:56 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "January" "1993" "20:47:19" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@osric.gac.edu " "<9301130447.AA08515@osric>" "17" "RE: dangers of open_network_connection" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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In-Reply-to: "asb@media.mit.edu's message of Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:05:12 PST
 <9301130005.AA15724@media.mit.edu>"
Message-ID: <9301130447.AA08515@osric>
Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:47:19 -0800
From:	eostrom@osric.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
Sender: eostrom.PARC@xerox.com
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: RE: dangers of open_network_connection

An additional danger of open_network_connection() is that a malicious person
(not that you'd give a .networker bit to anyone malicious) can cause massive
lag on your MOO.  Under certain circumstances, open_network_connection() can
take a long time to execute.  (Jonny says up to thirty seconds, which is
pretty long in MOO terms.)  This is a problem even in the absence of malice.
In addition, since seconds_left() is measured in terms of CPU time, the task
goes right on running when o_n_c() finishes, so someone who hated you could
just keep right on connecting to the same site, upping the lag more each
time.  (Actually, I don't know for sure whether repeated attempts to the
same site would cause the same problems--I'm not sure where the problem
lies.)

Okay, so networkers you don't trust are not a big concern.  The random lag
from open_network_connection() is still a big nuisance, as evidenced by the
shouting that goes on whenever it hits JaysHouseMOO.

--Erik/JF

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jan 13 00:13:44 1993
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References: <9301130005.AA15724@media.mit.edu> <9301130447.AA08515@osric>
Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:31:33 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eostrom@osric.gac.edu
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: RE: dangers of open_network_connection

> Under certain circumstances, open_network_connection() can
> take a long time to execute.

I was unware of this problem until now (shame on you, Joe and Jonny!).  I have
just made changes in the server code to limit the possible delay to about five
seconds; if the connection can't be made in that time, E_INVARG is raised.

	Pavel

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Jan 13 12:21:38 1993
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Message-ID: <9301132012.AA03293@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 12:12:55 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: dangers of open_network_connection


Ewww,
	Amy (asb@media.mit.edu) said:

> I'd like to find a secure way to let people with a "networker" bit
> make nifty things.

Does this mean that I'm about to become corefied?!?

Concernedly yours,

Networker @ ;)MOO


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Jan 13 12:22:38 1993
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Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 12:16:32 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: re: Re: dangers of open_network_connection


Ewwwwwwww!,

	Haakon sez:

> Easy.  Add a wiz-only property to all players called `networker' and write a
> wiz-owned verb called, say, $net_utils:open_connection, like this:

I KNEW I should have made the name copyright!

Networker (with permission).



From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Jan 13 12:38:10 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "January" "1993" "12:33:05" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "33" "onc() induced lag..." "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Message-ID: <9301132033.AA03303@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 12:33:05 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: onc() induced lag...


Haakon espouses: (espouses?  does that mean he's married or something?)

> I have just made changes in the server code to limit the possible delay
> to about five seconds; if the connection can't be made in that time,
> E_INVARG is raised.

Mmmm, I don't think five seconds will be enough.  Could you make it closer to
15 seconds for us folks in Europe and the rest of the world.  The internet
wasn't built by Ferrari you know.  At the very least it should be a 'tuneable'
(sp?) property which could be set at server-compile time.

Networker (a few seconds later).

Oh, on another, not entirely unrelated tack, can we have a wiz-only
built-in, 'set_maximum_task_ticks(<value>)', which can be used to alter
the number of ticks granted to a task before it is killed, or more often
before a :suspend_if_needed is called and fills up the task queue in LambdaMOO
lag fashion.  I've been reading up on my degree-level operating systems text
books and they reckon that simple scheduling mechanisms, specifically the
'round-robin' queue can frequently promote lag in the systems they exist to
manage.  The consensus solution in such circumstances is to INCREASE the
maximum task time for any task's running in near-lag conditions and so
reduce the liklehood of the task queue filling with suspended tasks.
  I'll give references if anyone wants them, sorry I don't have them on hand
right now.  Either way, I'm no expert, but what do people think about the idea
of there being some MOO-code way of influencing the behaviour of the queue
under lag conditions.  Of course :suspend_if_needed would need to be altered
to increase the tick allotment when it detected a lag.

:Networker_if_needed(<you know where to call>);



From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Wed Jan 13 13:48:47 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "January" "1993" "13:48:10" "-0800" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "9" "RE: dangers of open_network_connection" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"pavel@parc.xerox.com"
Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 13:48:10 -0800
From:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	pavel@parc.xerox.com
Subject: RE: dangers of open_network_connection

> if the connection can't be made in that time, E_INVARG is raised.

Hmm... E_INVARG might prove to be a bit confusing in some instances.
Perhaps another, more unique error code would be more appropriate.
Perhaps E_NACC would be a better choice.

Just adding my two cents.
-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!WOLFE Wed Jan 13 16:37:39 1993
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Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 16:28:37 -0800
From:	WOLFE@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: LambdaCore Reference
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  While the documentation for LambdaMOO is exeplary, it is really not
  sufficient for programming.  There exits documents on  parcftp detailing
  particulars of the LambdaCore.  Sadly, this document is out of date.
  This requires those of us who wish to become adept at using the db to
   figure it out the hard way.  

   I was wondering if anyone would be interested in updating the Core 
   reference.  I would, however, I neither adept enough with the core
   or at writing manuals.  If there isn't anyone willing to do this
    however, I would be willing to attempt it, and I would appreciate
    any information that could be provided.  Thanks. :)

 
 _______________________
| Nicholas E LaFlamme  |
|  Programmer, poet    |  Why, they come for tea, and for supper, and
|  Madman, and Vagrant.|    for you, burgler Baggins.
|______________________|               -Gandalf the Grey
 
Florian@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu   _______________________
Nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu     { I disclaim nothing! ;)}
Mandren@LambdaMOO

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jan 13 17:15:24 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "January" "1993" "17:08:30" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "27" "Re: open_network_connection patch" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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References: <9301132010.AA03535@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 17:08:30 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: open_network_connection patch

> Could I please have your patch to o_n_c?

The following patch, for version 1.7.0 of the server, should limit to 5 seconds
the amount of time that the server hangs waiting for an outbound network
connection to complete.  If it times out, then E_INVARG is raised.

The file is net_bsd_tcp.c; at the beginning of the definition of the function
`proto_open_connection', replace the line
	    int		s;
with the line
	    int		s, result;

Later in that same function, replace the line
	    if (connect(s, (struct sockaddr *) &addr, sizeof(addr)) < 0) {
with the following lines:
	    id = set_timer(5, name_server_timeout, 0);
	    TRY
		result = connect(s, (struct sockaddr *) &addr, sizeof(addr));
		cancel_timer(id);
	    EXCEPT (ns_timeout)
		result = -1;
		errno = ETIMEDOUT;
		reenable_timers();
	    ENDTRY

	    if (result < 0) {


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jan 13 19:30:14 1993
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Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 19:24:45 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: onc() induced lag...

> Date:	Wed, 13 Jan 1993 12:33:05 -0800
> From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> 
> > I have just made changes in the server code to limit the possible delay
> > to about five seconds; if the connection can't be made in that time,
> > E_INVARG is raised.
> 
> Mmmm, I don't think five seconds will be enough.  Could you make it closer to
> 15 seconds for us folks in Europe and the rest of the world.  The internet
> wasn't built by Ferrari you know.  At the very least it should be a
> 'tuneable' (sp?) property which could be set at server-compile time.

I will make it a parameter in the options.h file in the distribution.  However,
I think you'll be better off keeping it small and letting the MOO code do the
retrying instead of the kernel, since that way other MOO tasks will get a
chance to run while you're trying.

> 'set_maximum_task_ticks(<value>)'

If you want this to change the number of ticks allotted to *all* tasks in the
system, then it really ought to be called something like
`set_scheduler_parameters' and take four arguments, giving the numbers of
ticks/seconds for foreground/background tasks.  I'm not entirely averse to
providing such a facility.

If, on the other hand, you want this to apply just to the task calling this
function, I'm a bit less enthused.  I don't keep track of per-task limits right
now and would have to torque things around a bit to make it happen.

I'm not very enthused about the whole thing, though, since I'd rather not
encode too many assumptions about the scheduling algorithm into the language.
I'd like to be able to make significant changes to that algorithm without
breaking a lot of code.

> I've been reading up on my degree-level operating systems text
> books and they reckon that simple scheduling mechanisms, specifically the
> 'round-robin' queue can frequently promote lag in the systems they exist to
> manage.  The consensus solution in such circumstances is to INCREASE the
> maximum task time for any task's running in near-lag conditions and so reduce
> the liklehood of the task queue filling with suspended tasks.

This makes sense only if you have reason to believe that the queues are getting
filled up with tasks that, if ONLY given a bit larger quantum, would finish
sooner.  My feeling, though, is that most of our lag (that's not due to
external forces, like thrashing) is due to long-running tasks that would not
finish substantially sooner given larger quanta.

	Pavel

From uunet.uu.net!cbmvax!lynx!davidm Thu Jan 14 11:34:56 1993
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From:	David Miller <cbmvax!lynx!davidm@uunet.uu.net>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Cc:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: onc() induced lag...
Reply-To: cbmvax!lynx!davidm@uunet.uu.net
Content-Type: text

|I will make it a parameter in the options.h file in the distribution.
|
|...
|
|If you want this to change the number of ticks allotted to *all* tasks in the
|system, then it really ought to be called something like
|`set_scheduler_parameters' and take four arguments, giving the numbers of
|ticks/seconds for foreground/background tasks.  I'm not entirely averse to
|providing such a facility.
|
|...
|
|I'm not very enthused about the whole thing, though, since I'd rather not
|encode too many assumptions about the scheduling algorithm into the language.
|I'd like to be able to make significant changes to that algorithm without
|breaking a lot of code.

Having been burned numerous times by compiled-in limits and options in
many applications, I'm all for an interface to let me tweek these at
runtime.  Perhaps something like:

	value get_server_option(string)

		Returns the value of the named option.  If the string
		is "all", a list of the server option names is
		returned.  Returns E_VARNF if the string is not a
		server option or "all".

	bool set_server_option(string, value)

		Sets the passed server option to the passed value.
		Returns true if the change was made.  Returns E_PERM
		if the caller does not have wizard perms, E_VARNF if
		the string is not a valid option name, E_INVARG if the
		value is of the wrong type, or E_RANGE if the value is
		out of range.

The first time I built LambdaMOO, I used the defaults for foreground
and background ticks and seconds.  After a little use, I found I
needed to raise these values, since ``help index'' was running out of
time.  So I had to built it again with higher fg limits.  A little
while later, we added anonymous ftp to the server machine.  Lo and
behold, ``help index'' broke again.  Rebuild again with higher limits.

Typing:
	; set_server_option("FG-SECONDS", 20)

would have been much easier!


DavidM
-- 
DavidM			CATS - Commodore Applications and Technical Support
+1 215 431 9425		davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com
"Commodore Amiga 3000UX - Born to Run UNIX SVR4"

From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Thu Jan 14 23:39:20 1993
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Date:	Thu, 14 Jan 1993 22:04:48 -0800
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To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: More help
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Thanks for all the help on locking. Now, next question. How do I start
a program automaticlly when the MOO starts? I want to make a trolley that
just goes back and forth the whole time. 3rd question: Is it possible
to run outside programs (in a shell) from the MOO?

Thanks

Tim

-- 
       ________________________________________________________________
      {                        Tim Sailer                              }
      {  Internet: tps@jptcs.com        UUCP: ..!uu.psi.com!jptcs!tps  }
      {----------------------------------------------------------------}
      {       Life sucks... but sometimes that feels good.             }
      {________________________________________________________________}



From wg7j.ece.orst.edu!g6phf Fri Jan 15 04:22:52 1993
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Message-ID: <6287@wg7j.ECE.ORST.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:47:11 -0800
From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: dump interval

  Hi I guess this is a simple one! I have seen reference to it somewhere
but am blowed if I can find it! I would like to reduce the frequency of my
database dumps to something like 8 hours, at the moment is is 1 hour, far
too frewquent, I dont like my little disk thrashing away all that time!
  Another question, is there some program, maybe on Lambda that can generate
stats for users, e.g. most frequent players/builders etc etc
  Thanks in advance,
Mike

From frodo.cs.uct.ac.za!pvanheus Fri Jan 15 07:16:38 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "January" "1993" "09:05:45" "-0800" "P A van Heusden" "pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za " nil "7" "Astro MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 09:05:45 -0800
From:	pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (MOO Cows Mailing list)
Subject: Astro MOO

In the newspaper article quoted in the LambdaMOO museum, reference was made
to Haakon's attempt to start 'AstroMOO'. Was this ever started? I definetely
like the idea of using a MOO system for academic purposes, it was one I
was toying with myself.

Razordeath


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jan 15 11:49:21 1993
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References: <9301150104.aa19844@jptcs.COM>
Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 11:37:53 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: More help

> Date:	Thu, 14 Jan 1993 22:04:48 -0800
> From:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
> 
> How do I start a program automatically when the MOO starts? I want to make a
> trolley that just goes back and forth the whole time.

Just make it run normally; when the server checkpoints or shuts down, the
current task queue is saved, too, so those forked or suspended tasks that
existed when the DB dump was made will still exist when the server restarts.

> Is it possible to run outside programs (in a shell) from the MOO?

No, not as shipped.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jan 15 12:03:32 1993
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References: <6287@wg7j.ECE.ORST.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 11:41:47 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: dump interval

> Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:47:11 -0800
> From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
> 
>   Hi I guess this is a simple one! I have seen reference to it somewhere
> but am blowed if I can find it! I would like to reduce the frequency of my
> database dumps to something like 8 hours, at the moment is is 1 hour, far
> too frewquent, I dont like my little disk thrashing away all that time!

Change the value of the property #0.dump_interval to the desired number of
seconds between dumps; the change will take effect after the next checkpoint.

This is documented in the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, section 4.2.2,
Database Checkpointing Frequency.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jan 15 12:03:32 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "January" "1993" "11:43:49" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: Astro MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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References: <m0nCscG-00007YC@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za>
Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 11:43:49 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Astro MOO

> Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 09:05:45 -0800
> From:	pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden)
> 
> In the newspaper article quoted in the LambdaMOO museum, reference was made
> to Haakon's attempt to start 'AstroMOO'. Was this ever started?

This project, renamed Astro-VR, is currently in progress; we look forward to
having our first users on board by the end of February or so.  No further
details are easily available right now, though.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jan 15 13:43:43 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "January" "1993" "13:34:36" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "8" "Re: ctype" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 13:34:36 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: ctype

> Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 12:50:57 -0800
> From:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
> 
> When I @show a room, I see ctype: 3. I can't find an explanation
> for ctype in the help or programmers manual. What is this?

	@list $room:look_self
	@list $room:tell_contents

From poblano.gac.edu!eostrom Fri Jan 15 15:03:02 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "January" "1993" "14:15:09" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@poblano.gac.edu " nil "31" "RE: ctype" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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In-Reply-to: "Pavel Curtis's message of Fri, 15 Jan 1993 13:34:36 PST
 <93Jan15.133448pst.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <9301152215.AA08241@poblano.gac.edu>
Date:	Fri, 15 Jan 1993 14:15:09 -0800
From:	eostrom@poblano.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: RE: ctype

> > When I @show a room, I see ctype: 3. I can't find an explanation
> > for ctype in the help or programmers manual. What is this?
> 
> 	@list $room:look_self
> 	@list $room:tell_contents
> 
If you didn't have Haakon around to tell you where to look, you could
use two helpful tools: the help and @grep commands.

>help $room
...
(4)  Looking

dark  - true => contents are not visible
ctype - 1..4 for four different styles of .contents lists

:match         (string)        => exit or object in room's .contents
:tell_contents (objects,ctype) - format objects according to ctype, tell player

l*ook
...

>@grep ctype in $room
Searching for verbs in $room containing the string "ctype" ...

#3:tell_contents [Haakon (#2)]:  ctype = args[2];
#3:look_self [Haakon (#2)]:  this:tell_contents(setremove(this.contents, player), this.ctype);
#3:tell_contents(old) [Haakon (#2)]:  ctype = args[2];
#3:examine_contents [Geust (#24442)]:    this:tell_contents(this.contents, this.ctype);

Total: 4 verbs.

From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!WOLFE Sun Jan 17 12:56:07 1993
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Date:	Sun, 17 Jan 1993 12:44:16 -0800
From:	WOLFE@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LambdaCORE referance
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

 
    Greetings.
       I was wondering if anyone would be interested in providing
    information or assistance in writing a new LambdaCORE reference.
    The ones available for FTP from PARC are sorely out of date, and
    it's impossible to really begin to code on a compentant level without
    unserstanding the Core.  Thanks in advance.
 
 
 
 _______________________
| Nicholas E LaFlamme  |
|  Programmer, poet    |  Why, they come for tea, and for supper, and
|  Madman, and Vagrant.|    for you, burgler Baggins.
|______________________|               -Gandalf the Grey
 
Florian@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu   _______________________
Nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu     { I disclaim nothing! ;)}

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Jan 17 16:06:20 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "17" "January" "1993" "15:59:25" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: LambdaCORE referance" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sun, 17 Jan 1993 15:59:25 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	WOLFE@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: LambdaCORE referance

> Date:	Sun, 17 Jan 1993 12:44:16 -0800
> From:	WOLFE@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
>  
>        I was wondering if anyone would be interested in providing
>     information or assistance in writing a new LambdaCORE reference.

I think that the Right Thing would be for any new Core documentation to reside
*inside* the LambdaMOO database, so that it could most easily be updated
whenever changes are made to the Core code and then automatically extracted
along with the rest of LambdaCore.db whenever that happens.

If anyone finds something that isn't well enough documented in the Core (and
you won't have far to look...), then feel free to write something up about it
and send it to *Wizards on LambdaMOO.  One of us will add it into the help
system in an appropriate place and then everyone can enjoy it.

	Pavel/Haakon/Lambda

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Sun Jan 17 20:59:21 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "17" "January" "1993" "19:36:18" "-0800" "Michael Richardson" "mcr@latour.sandelman.ocunix.on.ca " nil "39" "Re: LambdaCORE referance" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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In-Reply-to: "Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
       \"Re: LambdaCORE referance\" (Jan 17,  6:59pm)0
	line "
Message-ID: <9301180336.AA16754@sandelman.ocunix.on.ca>
Date:	Sun, 17 Jan 1993 19:36:18 -0800
From:	mcr@latour.sandelman.ocunix.on.ca (Michael Richardson)
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: LambdaCORE referance

On Jan 17,  6:59pm, Pavel Curtis wrote:
} >        I was wondering if anyone would be interested in providing
} >     information or assistance in writing a new LambdaCORE reference.
} 
} I think that the Right Thing would be for any new Core documentation to reside
} *inside* the LambdaMOO database, so that it could most easily be updated
} whenever changes are made to the Core code and then automatically extracted
} along with the rest of LambdaCore.db whenever that happens.

  I was hacking around a week ago with some MOO and Emacs code to
convert Frand-style manuals to Info mode. I got stuck somewhere
converting ^_ to the actual control character. I think I might convert
to texinfo stuff instead, but I was hoping to do some magic with
buffer that I got and turn on Info-mode. It isn't that easy, so
running tex2info isn't such a problem I guess.
  If you will remember, I info-ized the first Moo Programming Language
reference, and wished it had been kept in that format rather than just
produce pretty ascii.

} If anyone finds something that isn't well enough documented in the Core (and
} you won't have far to look...), then feel free to write something up about it
} and send it to *Wizards on LambdaMOO.  One of us will add it into the help
} system in an appropriate place and then everyone can enjoy it.

  I didn't clue in at first as to what the Museum was all about until
I visited it today. That is a very good thing to have! All those
usefull objects in one ``place''. (I don't think their location is
necessarily in the museum)



-- 
   :!mcr!:            |  The postmaster never | So much mail, 
   Michael Richardson |    resolves twice.    |  so little time.
HOME: mcr@sandelman.ocunix.on.ca     Bell: (613) 237-5629
SCHOOL: 192228@physics.carleton.ca      




From lehigh.edu!tfv0 Mon Jan 18 10:58:13 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "18" "January" "1993" "10:49:37" "-0800" "Theodore F Vaida ][" "tfv0@lehigh.edu " nil "54" "Aliaser" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Message-ID: <199301181849.AA22778@ns3.CC.Lehigh.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 18 Jan 1993 10:49:37 -0800
From:	tfv0@lehigh.edu (Theodore F Vaida ][)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Aliaser

I asked this before, but somehow lost the replys, sorry:

I have a list of aliases on the $player  object, with a corresponding
list of the commands they are aliased to.
	$player.alias_list
	$player.alias_commands

When the my_huh verb executes, if finds if the unparsable string is
one of the aliases, and if so runs $player:eval_alias.  I use
$command_utils:parse_command to take the corresponding
$player.alias_command and parse it.  I then use

if ($object_utils:has_verb(player,verb, args))
  eval(tostr(player,":",verb,"(@args)"));
elseif ...

to run the verb, replacing the 'player' with the items going down the
list of objects to search for that corresponding verbs,

any suggestions on what I might be doing wrong?  I cant get a test
verb to execute (a simple test verb with no arguments etc...)
 
ahhh... so

---------=======================================================---------
                  ->POLAR CAPS<- or tfv0@lehigh.edu
Student Konsultant Making the world safe for computing!
"Never before have we owed so little to so many..."- R.T.Folk
"One must not confuse John Dunne's famous quote `No man is an Island' with
 New York Telephone's `We're all connected'" - Dad
"Trust no one, and be honest with all"  _Claudius_the_God_, and Dad
   Paranoid, but it'll keep you out of trouble...
---------=======================================================---------

Public PGP encryption key follows:

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From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Thu Jan 21 05:23:01 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "21" "January" "1993" "05:19:26" "-0800" "\"J.Watson\"" "cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "21" "I have started a new mud in Wolverhampton England." "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Via: uk.ac.wolverhampton.ccub; Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:15:43 +0000
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          Thu, 21 Jan 93 13:14:40 GMT
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Date:	Thu, 21 Jan 1993 05:19:26 -0800
From:	"J.Watson" <cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: <@ccub.wlv.ac.uk:cm8224@scitsc.wolverhampton.ac.UK>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: I have started a new mud in Wolverhampton England.

NOTICE:

   NEW MUD Running under LambdaMoo 1.7.0

ADDRESS:

   scitsc2.wlv.ac.uk
   (134.220.4.2)

PORT:

   4201

NAME:

   UWMud 3.00

NOTES:

   Full(?) Implementation of Combat, Skill, Character Classes and Races(not 
   finished), money.

From coos.dartmouth.edu!ewallace Thu Jan 21 07:17:42 1993
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Date:	Thu, 21 Jan 1993 07:09:42 -0800
From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Compiling MOO 1.7.0 on SGI Iris Indigo
Content-Type: text

Hi folks, got a problem compiling MOO on an Indigo.

I get the following compiling output:

aurora 14% make
        cc  -g -DMOO -c ast.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c db.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c db_property.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c db_verb.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c eval_env.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c eval_vm.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c exceptions.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c execute.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c functions.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c list.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c log.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -DMSTATS -Drcheck -Dbotch=panic -c malloc.c
        cc  -g -DMOO -c match.c
        touch net_single.o
        touch net_multi.o
        touch net_mp_selct.o
        touch net_mp_poll.o
        touch net_mp_fake.o
        touch net_bsd_tcp.o
        touch net_bsd_lcl.o
        touch net_sysv_tcp.o
        touch net_sysv_lcl.o
        cc  -g -DMOO -c network.c
my-tiuser.h:20: tiuser.h: No such file or directory
*** Error code 1

Stop.

--

I suspect this means that one of the 'standard' header files that my
system should have isn't where the MOO thinks it is (or some such). 
As you can tell. I'm no expert -- curious if anyone has any ideas?

It's being compiled under NP_TCP/NS_SYSV.

-- 
Ted Wallace '93 - Consultant, Computer Resource Center
Dartmouth College, department of Physics and Astronomy
---
"All science is either physics, or stamp collecting" - Rutherford
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it!" - Schroedinger

From coos.dartmouth.edu!ewallace Thu Jan 21 07:20:42 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "21" "January" "1993" "07:11:51" "-0800" "Edward L. Wallace" "ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu " nil "8" "Indigo and compiling" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Thu, 21 Jan 1993 07:11:51 -0800
From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Indigo and compiling
Content-Type: text

Ack. found my error.. sorry for crying 'wolf'.

-- 
Ted Wallace '93 - Consultant, Computer Resource Center
Dartmouth College, department of Physics and Astronomy
---
"All science is either physics, or stamp collecting" - Rutherford
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it!" - Schroedinger

From lynx.cbm.commodore.com!davidm Thu Jan 21 08:44:29 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "21" "January" "1993" "08:25:50" "-0800" "David Miller" "davidm@lynx.cbm.commodore.com" nil "90" "Re: onc() induced lag..." "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Thu, 21 Jan 1993 08:25:50 -0800
From:	David Miller <davidm@lynx.cbm.commodore.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: onc() induced lag...
Reply-to: davidm@lynx.cbm.commodore.com
Content-Type: text

[
	Apologies if you've seen this, but the admin of our
	mail host has been "tweaking" the sendmail.cf (with
	quite disasterous results)
]

Pavel Curtis:
|I have just made changes in the server code to limit the possible delay
|to about five seconds; if the connection can't be made in that time,
|E_INVARG is raised.
 
Andrew Wilson:
|Mmmm, I don't think five seconds will be enough.  Could you make it closer to
|15 seconds for us folks in Europe and the rest of the world.  The internet
|wasn't built by Ferrari you know.  At the very least it should be a
|'tuneable' (sp?) property which could be set at server-compile time.

Pavel Curtis:
|I will make it a parameter in the options.h file in the distribution.
|
|...
|
|If you want this to change the number of ticks allotted to *all* tasks in the
|system, then it really ought to be called something like
|`set_scheduler_parameters' and take four arguments, giving the numbers of
|ticks/seconds for foreground/background tasks.  I'm not entirely averse to
|providing such a facility.
|
|...
|
|I'm not very enthused about the whole thing, though, since I'd rather not
|encode too many assumptions about the scheduling algorithm into the language.
|I'd like to be able to make significant changes to that algorithm without
|breaking a lot of code.

Having been burned numerous times by compiled-in limits and options in
many applications, I'm all for an interface to let me tweek these at
runtime.  Perhaps something like:

	value get_server_option(string)

		Returns the value of the named option.  If the string
		is "all", a list of the server option names is
		returned.  Returns E_VARNF if the string is not a
		server option or "all".

	bool set_server_option(string, value)

		Sets the passed server option to the passed value.
		Returns true if the change was made.  Returns E_PERM
		if the caller does not have wizard perms, E_VARNF if
		the string is not a valid option name, E_INVARG if the
		value is of the wrong type, or E_RANGE if the value is
		out of range.

The first time I built LambdaMOO, I used the defaults for foreground
and background ticks and seconds.  After a little use, I found I
needed to raise these values, since ``help index'' was running out of
time.  So I had to built it again with higher fg limits.  A little
while later, we added anonymous ftp to the server machine.  Lo and
behold, ``help index'' broke again.  Rebuild again with higher limits.

Typing:
	; set_server_option("FG-SECONDS", 20)

would have been much easier!

DavidM/NightWalker

[									]
[    Since I first attempted to send this message, I've gone ahead      ]
[    and implemented set_server_option() and get_server_option().       ]
[    So far is supports the following options:                          ]
[									]
[	OOB-PREFIX							]
[	FG-TICKS							]
[	BG-TICKS							]
[	FG-SECONDS							]
[	BG-SECONDS							]
[	MAX-QUEUED-OUTPUT						]
[	CONNECT-TIMEOUT							]
[									]
[    If anyone wants the diffs, let me know.                            ]
[									]
[    DM/NW								]
[									]
-- 
DavidM			CATS - Commodore Applications and Technical Support
+1 215 431 9425		davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com
"Commodore Amiga 3000UX - Born to Run UNIX SVR4"

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jan 22 16:25:05 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "January" "1993" "16:16:04" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "20" "Recycling can be hazardous to your server's health..." "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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References: <9301222241.AA29323@microworld.media.mit.edu>
Date:	Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:16:04 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Recycling can be hazardous to your server's health...

There is a fatal bug in release 1.7.0 of the LambdaMOO server.

On line 385 of db.c, replace the line

	myfree(obj->propdefs.l, M_PROPDEF);

with

	if (obj->propdefs.l)
	    myfree(obj->propdefs.l, M_PROPDEF);

and recompile.

This fix (and much more) will be in my next release, version 1.8.0, in the next
week or so.  Before you ask, this upcoming release does *not* have disk-basing
in it, but it *does* have error-handling and *does* make it much easier for me
to add disk-basing in (perhaps) the next release.  Please don't ask for any
more details about disk-basing; I don't have them to give.

	Pavel

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sat Jan 23 04:46:44 1993
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Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 04:39:08 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: db.c?


Mmmm,

> On line 385 of db.c, replace the line

Where?  My 1.7.0 source doesn't have a db.c!

Andyworker.

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sat Jan 23 04:49:24 1993
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Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 04:43:38 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Ewww.


Guess who wasn't running 1.7.0 when he thought he was!

Ignore that last db.c? post.  Sorry.

Netuseless.

From coos.dartmouth.edu!ewallace Sat Jan 23 11:14:28 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "23" "January" "1993" "11:06:22" "-0800" "Edward L. Wallace" "ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu " nil "23" "Helpfiles" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 11:06:22 -0800
From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Helpfiles
Content-Type: text

Hi!

We're developing a MOO with a MUS* interface for the MOO-impaired to make
slow transitions with.

Part of the problem is that we'll need to have some extensive additions to
the helpfiles and we'd just as soon keep out of the core as much as possible
(this allows for easy upgrades to new cores).

So -- my question is: How does one add help, such that it's not modifying
the core in a huge way - thus preventing an upgrade - or losing the work
in a core upgrade.

Thanks!

Falryx

-- 
Ted Wallace '93 - Consultant, Computer Resource Center
Dartmouth College, department of Physics and Astronomy
---
"All science is either physics, or stamp collecting" - Rutherford
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it!" - Schroedinger

From coos.dartmouth.edu!ewallace Sat Jan 23 13:48:35 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "23" "January" "1993" "13:40:04" "-0800" "Edward L. Wallace" "ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu " nil "16" ":my_huh" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 13:40:04 -0800
From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: :my_huh
Content-Type: text

Using 1.7.0 and the latest core, we've been developing a MOO.

We're trying to stay away from modding the core too much, so we've got a
new player class (naturally) for our stuff.  We added :my_huh to it, and
now features _work_ but :my_huh also returns 'I don't understand that'.

(even a :my_huh of pass(@args); does this...)

Any ideas?

-- 
Ted Wallace '93 - Consultant, Computer Resource Center
Dartmouth College, department of Physics and Astronomy
---
"All science is either physics, or stamp collecting" - Rutherford
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it!" - Schroedinger

From symcom.math.uiuc.edu!schalk Sat Jan 23 17:14:27 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "23" "January" "1993" "17:07:14" "-0800" "Ken Schalk" "schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu" nil "34" "Technical quandry, regarding carried objects" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Message-ID: <199301240107.AA15762@orion.math.uiuc.edu>
Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 17:07:14 -0800
From:	Ken Schalk <schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects

    I would like to make an object which can see what's going on in
the room outside of the person who's carrying it, when it's being
carried.  I would especially like to be able to tell when the carrying
player has moved to another room, but general listening would also be
highly desirable.  (Yes, yes, it's for a puppet, so shoot me.)
Logically, it makes sense that a carried object (unless stuffed inside
some pocket, which is another issue entirely) should be able to
observe what goes on outside the player.  Basically, anything that
person hears/sees (well, almost, at least in terms of anything the
object could hear/see when in the same room as the player, but not
being carried) the object ought to be able to hear/see.

    I've been puzzling over this for a while now, and don't see a good
elegant solution in sight.  About the only thing I can think of (and
this is a horrible kludge) is to have some other, somehow invisible
object which sits in the room with this listening object, and will
keep track of whenever a player leaves the room with it, and will then
follow it to it's carrier's new location (by simply moving itself to
the new room).

    Does anyone have any better ideas/suggestions?  Has anyone done
anything like this before, and if so, where/how?

    (Somehow I have this feeling that I'm going to get a very terse
response to this that will amount to 'no, you can't do that,' but I
had to ask.)

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
\\ Kenneth C Schalk \\\\"Is conciousness just a special form of \\\\\\  //-\
//(aka Xorian@Lambda)///  hallucination?" -- Frank Herbert      ////// //-O|
\\ ken@imsa.edu \\\\\\\\"We're each other fragments...but each  \\\\\\ |   |
// kschalk@icomsim.com / fragment reveals the [whole] from a    //////  \_/
\\ k-schalk@uiuc.edu \\\ different angle..." -- William Gibson  \\\\\\
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

From cs.stanford.edu!mrhoten Sat Jan 23 18:47:08 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "23" "January" "1993" "18:40:06" "-0800" "Matthew Rhoten" "mrhoten@cs.stanford.edu" nil "33" "Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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From:	Matthew Rhoten <mrhoten@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects

> [ wants to make object see things outside carrying player ]
>     I've been puzzling over this for a while now, and don't see a good
> elegant solution in sight.  About the only thing I can think of (and
> this is a horrible kludge) is to have some other, somehow invisible
> object which sits in the room with this listening object, and will
> keep track of whenever a player leaves the room with it, and will then
> follow it to it's carrier's new location (by simply moving itself to
> the new room).

I wrote an object that needed to know when its carrier had moved. I
found a solution which seems to me a bit more elegant than extra
objects lying around. While I was at it, I implemented telling the
carried objects what the player heard via :tell as well.

Since the object needed to know basically when :moveto had been
called, I simply hacked on my character's :moveto. I put a
.moveto_xmit property on my character. If this was nonzero, the
:moveto iterated over each inventory object, calling the object's
:moveto_hook verb with the current and asked-for location. (It helps
if this :moveto is not set debug; that way you don't have to check
whether the verb's there when iterating.)

Similarly, I put a .tell_xmit on the character, and had my :tell do
something similar. Later, I decided I didn't need the object to know
everything I had heard, so I removed that code. The :moveto hack is
still present on Ozy@LambdaMOO and a wanderer he owns, #16865. An
object that uses the hook is #25588. Feel free to browse these.

Note that these objects only worked on players who had hacked their
:movetos (and, in your case, :tells). For them to work for any
character, $player or a suitable player class would need modification.

 -matt

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Jan 23 21:59:21 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "23" "January" "1993" "21:52:19" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: Helpfiles" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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References: <9301231906.AA06121@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:52:19 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Helpfiles

> Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 11:06:22 -0800
> From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
> 
> Part of the problem is that we'll need to have some extensive additions to
> the helpfiles and we'd just as soon keep out of the core as much as possible
> (this allows for easy upgrades to new cores).
> 
> So -- my question is: How does one add help, such that it's not modifying
> the core in a huge way - thus preventing an upgrade - or losing the work
> in a core upgrade.

>From your other recent post, I see that you have a new player class for your
modifications to the core.  Create a new child of $generic_help and set
<your-player-class>.help to that object.  Add all of your new help topics to
the new help database.  See `help $help' for more details.

	Pavel/Haakon

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Jan 23 22:03:32 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "23" "January" "1993" "21:57:31" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "27" "Re: :my_huh" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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References: <9301232140.AA09389@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:57:31 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: :my_huh

> Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 1993 13:40:04 -0800
> From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
> 
> We're trying to stay away from modding the core too much, so we've got a
> new player class (naturally) for our stuff.  We added :my_huh to it, and
> now features _work_ but :my_huh also returns 'I don't understand that'.
> 
> (even a :my_huh of pass(@args); does this...)

The huh-processing code (in $room:huh and, mostly, in $command_utils:do_huh)
checks the returned value of player:my_huh; if it's true, then it assumes
:my_huh handled the command and otherwise it assumes :my_huh *didn't* handle
it.  Thus, your :my_huh code should have this form:

	if ( <this command is one that this code is supposed to handle> )
	  <handle it>;
	  return 1;
	else
	  return pass(@args);
	endif

That way, if your code handles the command then the huh-processing will not try
any other interpretations and if your code *doesn't* handle it, you still give
the default :my_huh a chance *and* you let the generic huh-processing code know
whether or not the default :my_huh handled it.

	Pavel/Haakon

From symcom.math.uiuc.edu!schalk Sun Jan 24 20:06:01 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "24" "January" "1993" "19:57:33" "-0800" "Ken Schalk" "schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu" nil "27" "Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sun, 24 Jan 1993 19:57:33 -0800
From:	Ken Schalk <schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
To:	schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu, tfv0@lehigh.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects

    Well, certianly a modification of the core or a new 'transparent'
player class would make this possible, but I have no power to do the
former (and I'd rather not call for such drastic measures), and the
latter would only be useful if everyone would @chparent to it (which
seems unlikely).  I'd rather have some more general way to do this,
but as I said, it seems unlikely that there is a simple, elegant one.

    One other kludgey hack did occur to me in the interim.  It might
be possible to create an object which would contain a single other
object and take on all the outward appearances of it as well as making
it appear to the contained object that it was in the location of this
'shell' object.  (This would require a fair amount of careful hacking,
but I think it might be possible, but then I haven't given it
extensive thought.)  Then, when a player activated the 'get' verb on
the puppet object, they could be transparently put inside of this
'shell' and then removed from it when they drop the puppet.  Then, the
shell could relay what goes on in the room both to the player and to
the puppet.  (This solution would, unfortunately, still require the
use of another object in addition to the puppet.)

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
\\ Kenneth C Schalk \\\\"Is conciousness just a special form of \\\\\\  //-\
//(aka Xorian@Lambda)///  hallucination?" -- Frank Herbert      ////// //-O|
\\ ken@imsa.edu \\\\\\\\"We're each other fragments...but each  \\\\\\ |   |
// kschalk@icomsim.com / fragment reveals the [whole] from a    //////  \_/
\\ k-schalk@uiuc.edu \\\ different angle..." -- William Gibson  \\\\\\
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

From allink.com!paul Mon Jan 25 07:52:06 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "25" "January" "1993" "07:42:11" "-0800" "paul reiber" "paul@allink.com " nil "73" "Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 07:42:11 -0800
From:	paul@allink.com (paul reiber)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects

|>From schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu Sat Jan 23 20:15:57 1993
|>From: Ken Schalk <schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
|>To: moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
|>Subject: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects
|>
|>    I would like to make an object which can see what's going on in
|>the room outside of the person who's carrying it, when it's being
|>carried.  I would especially like to be able to tell when the carrying
|>player has moved to another room, but general listening would also be
|>highly desirable.  (Yes, yes, it's for a puppet, so shoot me.)
|>Logically, it makes sense that a carried object (unless stuffed inside
|>some pocket, which is another issue entirely) should be able to
|>observe what goes on outside the player.  Basically, anything that
|>person hears/sees (well, almost, at least in terms of anything the
|>object could hear/see when in the same room as the player, but not
|>being carried) the object ought to be able to hear/see.

Hi, Ken. I had almost the same problem.  Trying to make a communicator
pin a-la-Star Trek/next generation.  My end diagnosis of how this would
be achieved involved extensive mods to the player class. Basically, 
anywhere the player class received `important' information, it would
retransmit it to the contained object.  To prohibit `bug' objects from
being placed in unsuspecting persons inventory there's a lot of securing
that also has to go on.

Suffice it to say, the work estimate quadrupled. I never did end up
building the pin.

|>
|>    I've been puzzling over this for a while now, and don't see a good
|>elegant solution in sight.  About the only thing I can think of (and
|>this is a horrible kludge) is to have some other, somehow invisible
|>object which sits in the room with this listening object, and will
|>keep track of whenever a player leaves the room with it, and will then
|>follow it to it's carrier's new location (by simply moving itself to
|>the new room).

The invisible object solution is less elegant than the player class mods,
but may be less work.  The problem is:
	``Does the invisible object (or the room, for that matter)
	  actually receive everything you need''
... in the case of `what the player sees' I doubt it. For what they
    hear, maybe. (whispers and pages would be lost, though)
    
|>
|>    Does anyone have any better ideas/suggestions?  Has anyone done
|>anything like this before, and if so, where/how?

I think that hacking the player class is a more complete solution.
Though, like I said, it's a lot of work.  If you want some more
details of what'd be involved lte me know through regular email.

|>
|>    (Somehow I have this feeling that I'm going to get a very terse
|>response to this that will amount to 'no, you can't do that,' but I
|>had to ask.)
|>

Verbose enough for ya?   :)

|>//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
|>\\ Kenneth C Schalk \\\\"Is conciousness just a special form of \\\\\\  //-\
|>//(aka Xorian@Lambda)///  hallucination?" -- Frank Herbert      ////// //-O|
|>\\ ken@imsa.edu \\\\\\\\"We're each other fragments...but each  \\\\\\ |   |
|>// kschalk@icomsim.com / fragment reveals the [whole] from a    //////  \_/
|>\\ k-schalk@uiuc.edu \\\ different angle..." -- William Gibson  \\\\\\
|>//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
|>
 +---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+
 | Paul B. Reiber, Jr. | NYNEX Allink Company   | "To Invent, you need a good |
 |  (914)  644 - 7729  | 4 Gannett Drive,       |  Imagination and a Pile of  |
 |   paul@allink.com   | White Plains, NY 10604 |  Junk."     - Thomas Edison |
 +---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+

From ncm.ncm.interlan.com!bild Mon Jan 25 08:22:09 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "25" "January" "1993" "08:17:39" "-0800" "bilding at ncm" "bild@ncm.ncm.interlan.com " nil "19" "Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 08:17:39 -0800
From:	bild@ncm.ncm.interlan.com (bilding at ncm)
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Technical quandry, regarding carried objects
Reply-to: MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com

Another possible solution regarding telling objects about their
carrier's movement is to hack the rooms' :exitfunc verbs to
check each thing the person is carrying for a special verb
(like :xmit_exit() or whatever) and call it with standard
args (where the person is leaving from, I assume)...
If you choose this solution, I suggest you do it AFTER the 
pass(@args) to the parent enterfuncs, so that if it crashes
as the result of incorrectly programmed :xmit_exit() functions
(please take no offense, as I know not the number or skill
of other programmers who might write such functions)
most of the regular functionality of exitfunc will have already
happened.

If this MOO is a Role Playing type MOO, you might wish to
use encumbrance to limit the number of things that people can
carry, to save time since this check will go off with every exitfunc.

Later...
bild

From morticia.cnns.unt.edu!clay Mon Jan 25 10:39:20 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "25" "January" "1993" "10:25:20" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@morticia.cnns.unt.edu " nil "44" "RE>Technical quandry, regarding carried objects" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:25:20 -0800
From:	clay@morticia.cnns.unt.edu (Clay Luther)
Sender: cluther@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: RE>Technical quandry, regarding carried objects


>    I would like to make an object which can see what's going on in
>the room outside of the person who's carrying it, when it's being
>carried.  I would especially like to be able to tell when the carrying
>player has moved to another room, but general listening would also be
>highly desirable.  (Yes, yes, it's for a puppet, so shoot me.)
>Logically, it makes sense that a carried object (unless stuffed inside
>some pocket, which is another issue entirely) should be able to
>observe what goes on outside the player.  Basically, anything that
>person hears/sees (well, almost, at least in terms of anything the
>object could hear/see when in the same room as the player, but not
>being carried) the object ought to be able to hear/see.


We did this very easily in the GN with "events."  For instance, when an
object moved from one location to another, three events would be generated:
 event_move, event_leave, and event_enter.  The event_move was sent
directly to the object moving, whule the event_leave and event_enter would
be sent to any objects in the left and entered location that desired to be
notifed of events.

The events would carry enough information with them to tell the recipient
object what had moved and where to/from.

Events turned out to be a very powerful tool for the programmers in the GN,
and ended up being used for everything from npcs to furniture.

If you'd like to see the description of GN events, I can send the documentation.

It's actually pretty trivial code and is *very* handy for sending
notifications to carried objects like you want.

Clay

---
Clay W. Luther                                 clay@vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310
                             Also cluther@morticia.cnns.unt.edu

Well, it had been 987 years in outer space time when I got back.
Couldn't seem to find any of my friends to tell my interesting
stories to.


From nic.gac.edu!eostrom Mon Jan 25 16:32:20 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "25" "January" "1993" "16:16:15" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@nic.gac.edu " "<9301260016.AA08457@next-7>" "16" "Regular expressions, random thought" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Message-ID: <9301260016.AA08457@next-7>
Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:16:15 -0800
From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Regular expressions, random thought

>;substitute("%1", match("{foo}", "{%(.*%)}"))
=> "foo"
[used 7 ticks, 0 seconds.]
>;substitute("%1", match("{fo}", "{%(.*%)}"))
=> "fo"
[used 7 ticks, 0 seconds.]
>;substitute("%1", match("{f}", "{%(.*%)}"))
=> "f"
[used 7 ticks, 0 seconds.]
>;substitute("%1", match("{}", "{%(.*%)}"))
#-1:Input to EVAL, line 3:  Invalid argument

It seems to me the last substitute() call should return "".  Is there a good
reason why it doesn't?  (I guess I'd consider "It would require a bunch of
hacking on the GNU regexp code." a good reason, but I'd rather be shown why
the current behavior is Morally Superior.)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jan 25 17:20:53 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "25" "January" "1993" "17:13:45" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: Regular expressions, random thought" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:13:45 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regular expressions, random thought

> Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:16:15 -0800
> From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)

...

> >;substitute("%1", match("{}", "{%(.*%)}"))
> #-1:Input to EVAL, line 3:  Invalid argument
> 
> It seems to me the last substitute() call should return "".

This is a known bug in our wrapper around the GNU regexp code.  It's on my list
of things that will be fixed in the next release.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Mon Jan 25 23:40:24 1993
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Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:28:28 -0800
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows)
Subject: Debug mode?


Anyone miss the old "D"ebug mode on MUCKS? Can this be added to the MOO
server? Basically, it would show each line of code executed as the result.
Makes debugging a whole lot easier.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request
  Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux)
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If a girl rejects you, don't doubt it's part of the plan" -Deborah Ann Gibson

From dartvax.dartmouth.edu!tleg Tue Jan 26 07:40:05 1993
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	From:	Ted Wallace@dartvax.dartmouth.edu
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Date:	Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:28:51 -0800
From:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Debug mode?

Jonathan Bradshaw writes:
>Anyone miss the old "D"ebug mode on MUCKS? Can this be added to the MOO
>server? Basically, it would show each line of code executed as the result.
>Makes debugging a whole lot easier.

I've always found the debug bit on verbs to be enough to let me know
there's a problem.  By adding a few player:tell statements somewhere I can
get updates on the program and see where things are going wrong.

Would a debug mode slow things down significantly?

Falryx
Falryx (or some derivative thereof @ wherever)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't know about anyone else,  | "Childhood is short, and maturity lasts
but >I< came from my room, I'm a  | forever." - Calvin and Hobbes.
kid with big plans, and I'm going | 
outside!!!" - Calvin & Hobbes     | "The world is a complicated place..."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


From fwva.saic.com!WHITTEN Thu Jan 28 10:13:51 1993
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Date:	Thu, 28 Jan 1993 01:00:27 -0800
From:	David Whitten <WHITTEN@fwva.saic.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: debugger for MOO

Jonathan Bradshaw writes:
>Anyone miss the old "D"ebug mode on MUCKS? Can this be added to the MOO
>server? Basically, it would show each line of code executed as the result.
>Makes debugging a whole lot easier.

Ted Wallace@dartvax.dartmouth.edu writes:

>I've always found the debug bit on verbs to be enough to let me know
>there's a problem.  By adding a few player:tell statements somewhere I can
>get updates on the program and see where things are going wrong.

>Would a debug mode slow things down significantly?
>Falryx
>Falryx (or some derivative thereof @ wherever)

David Whitten:
When I read this, I thought that this would be a neat idea.
If we could use a different permission bit but kind of like 'r'ead 'x'ecute
'w'rite 'd'ebug. It could be 'D'ebug. or 's'ingle-step.

It is true that the debug mode could be slower to execute, since the server must
check for a particular line whether 'D'ebug mode is running. I think in the
most general case that the server should simply call a user defined debug
handler verb before it executes each command in a 'D' permissioned verb.

This would allow the maximal capability with the minimal changes in the server
code. The server already has to allow for saving context of an executing
process to allow for multiprocessing, so much of the existing code could be
used to allow for single stepping. (IE: it saves everything away, then calls
the debug handling verb with the code that was executing, with return telling
what to do. Probably something simple like the return must be an error type
since we can use E_NONE to say, go back to executing, and the other error
types to say 'stop execution with this error').

With the server calling MOO code to provide the debug handler, it would be 
easier to provide a dbx type debugging environment with single-step,
printing variable's values when given names, etc.

Some provision would have to be made to make the variables available to
the debugging environment, since there is not any (to my knowledge) method
of referring to variables in the scope of a different verb.

Comments appreciated,
David (whitten@fwva.saic.com) US:(619)535-7764 [I don't speak as a company rep.]


PS. I just realized that if we had several different permissions that do 
essentially the same as this, and the server would provide a way of accessing
the line that is about to be executed (so the handler could examine it, and
possibly return a different line to execute instead), we could extend the
MOO language without changing the server.
Therefore, we could get multiple inheritance code without Pavel having to
incorporate it into the MOO server!!

PPS. I suggested several different permissions so we could do things like this
in several orthogonal ways.

PPPS. Of course if the server provided multiple inheritance in this way, it
could be rather slow, since the server would have to compile to byte codes
any lines that were changed by the line modify handler before executing it.
but we would declare it in the header to the verb, so the overhead would
have to be paid only when the extension was used.

From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Thu Jan 28 15:04:25 1993
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Subject: Verbs on exits/entrances?
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Is it possible to have a verb attached to an exit or entrance? I've
been trying to get something to run as soon as a player enters a room,
but I can't figure it out. If it's addressed in the manual or help, 
someone PLEASE point me to it....

Tim

-- 
       ________________________________________________________________
      {                        Tim Sailer                              }
      {  Internet: tps@jptcs.com        UUCP: ..!uu.psi.com!jptcs!tps  }
      {----------------------------------------------------------------}
      {         Why am I soft in the middle,                           }
      {         and the rest of my life is so hard? - Paul Simon       }
      {________________________________________________________________}



From pyros.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Jan 28 15:09:15 1993
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From:	WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: debugger for MOO

Hmm, I think that what was requested would be adequately served not by a
debugger, but rather, something like setting the UNIX echo or verbose variables
where each verb call or each line of code (possibly long and ugly output) would
be echoed before being executed. To me, this seems the best way to do what
is asked however, I personally think the tracebacks are enough.

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From pyros.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Jan 28 15:12:46 1993
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From:	WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Verbs on exits/entrances?


>Is it possible to have a verb attached to an exit or entrance? I've
>been trying to get something to run as soon as a player enters a room,
>but I can't figure it out. If it's addressed in the manual or help, 
>someone PLEASE point me to it....

Well, you might want to write the verb on the room rather than the exit unless
the actiuon happens only when that particular exit is used and then put a call
to that verb in the room's enterfunc(). If its on the exit, then you could look
at the exit's invoke() verb and follow the path from there. Hope this helps.

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!WOLFE Thu Jan 28 15:21:17 1993
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Subject: MOO and debugging.
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   Hmmm.  Tracebacks are useful, but not ideal.  I'm constantly finding 
   myself placing debug code in my verbs to trace down problems.  Some
   sort of execution trace would be quite welcome, because places lines
   of extra code for debuging is tedious and sloppy if your forgettful and
   neglect to remove it.(as I am wont to do.)

 
 ______________________
| Nicholas E LaFlamme  |
|  Programmer, poet    |  Why, they come for tea, and for supper, and
|  Madman, and Vagrant.|    for you, burglar Baggins.
|______________________|               -Gandalf the Grey
 
Wolfe@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
G'ran@DragonsFire Mandren@KnownSpace

From nic.gac.edu!eostrom Thu Jan 28 22:07:13 1993
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 <01GU281O85I0A3DOWC@WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9301290558.AA02998@nim.gac.edu>
Date:	Thu, 28 Jan 1993 21:58:19 -0800
From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	WOLFE@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO and debugging.

WRT placing debug code in your verbs, one thing I've added to the
JaysHouseMOO core is $prog:debug--

   debug(value[, message])
   Print <value> to this, and return <value>
   If <message> is supplied, it is prepended to <value>; otherwise,
   the caller's object number is used as a prefix.

<value> can be of any type--it gets run through $string_utils:print
and then printed at the player with :tell or :notify.  This is
certainly no line-by-line (or expression-by-expression) debug mode,
but it has its advantages:

Over debug mode:
   You only pay the price of debugging where you need it.  The more I
   hear about superdebug mode on MOO-Cows, the more costly it sounds.

Over programmer:tell($string_utils:print(value)):
   It's transparent.  Because player:tell doesn't return a value, I
   found myself having to go through awkward contortions when I wanted
   to see a value that wasn't assigned to any variable, that was just
   used as part of a line.  Since :debug just returns its value, it
   can easily be inserted, like
      for object in (#73:debug(some complicated expression))
   rather than having to change to
      #73:tell(foo = some complicated expression);
      for object in (foo)
   and then back again.

   It's easy to find later on.  You mentioned neglecting to remove
   your debugging code; with a special verb reserved for debugging
   information, you can do something like
      @grep :debug( in player.owned_objects
   and find all your debug calls.

Hm, I had another advantage in mind, but I can't remember it now.
Anyway, now that I've gone and mentioned this in public, I'll probably
start working on porting it to LambdaMOO (after first checking for
:debug verbs with different purposes, etc).


From sage.cc.purdue.edu!kilgore Fri Jan 29 19:12:19 1993
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Date:	Fri, 29 Jan 1993 19:04:12 -0800
From:	kilgore@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Michael Kilgore)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO and debugging

Personally, I think a better feature to add would be breakpoints
instead of having the MOO single step through each line of code.


Amadeus@LambdaMOO


From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!WOLFE Fri Jan 29 19:24:00 1993
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Date:	Fri, 29 Jan 1993 19:17:22 -0800
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Subject: Breakpoints.
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   Breakpoints would be very helpful.  

From eigen.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Sat Jan 30 06:46:56 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "30" "January" "1993" "06:41:23" "-0800" "Jackie Hamilton" "hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov " nil "22" "debug nonsense, and the 'd' bit." "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sat, 30 Jan 1993 06:41:23 -0800
From:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov (Jackie Hamilton)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: debug nonsense, and the 'd' bit.


Well, I dont know what all the complaining about a debug mode
is about.  Ever heard of the 'd' bit on verbs?  Gives you a
nice traceback and the *exact* line where your program bombed.
I've done enough MOO code to tell almost instantly what the problem
is, and if I can't see it right off, a few print statements usually
clear it up.

I'd not be happy at all about yet another nifty feature to slow
down the MOO, which I'd lay odds debug mode *would*.  Perhaps the
folks at Lambda actually LIKE having 5 seconds of lag when typing
in every command?  Lets get even more ridiculous and go to 10-20 
seconds.  

Altho I guess when MOO goes diskbased we wont have a choice.  Think
I'll keep an old copy archived somewhere safe so I can stay with
a RAM-based version.  Personally, I like it fast.

Just my 2c worth.

-j.


From media.mit.edu!asb Sat Jan 30 13:45:39 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "30" "January" "1993" "13:39:57" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "32" "fun with pass()" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sat, 30 Jan 1993 13:39:57 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: fun with pass()



I have a question about pass()

I have a subclass of room, call it nifty_room, with lots of verbs and
properties on it.  One is a look_self property, which looks roughly like this:

this:do_cool_stuff();
pass(@args);

The default room look_self then gets called, which is:

1:  player:tell(this:title());
 2:  if (!(args && args[1]))
 3:    pass();
 4:  endif
 5:  if (player.show_exits)
 6:    this:tell_exits();
 7:  endif
 8:  this:tell_contents(setremove(this.contents, player), this.ctype);

Notice that that has a pass in it too.  Here's the problem:

I want to make a room which inherits from nifty_room, but doesn't use
nifty_room's look_self method.  So the natural thing to do is to put a
look_self method on that room.  But the issue is, I still want to use other
methods further up in the hierarchy.  Basically, I want to pass to 
two levels up, skipping the look_self on nifty_room but getting
the methods on room and the parents of room.  Is this possible?
How do I get around this problem?

-- Amy

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sat Jan 30 15:24:07 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "30" "January" "1993" "15:19:24" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "194" "Re: (not enough) fun with pass()...LONG!!" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sat, 30 Jan 1993 15:19:24 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
Subject: Re: (not enough) fun with pass()...LONG!!



Amy sez:

> I want to make a room which inherits from nifty_room, but doesn't use
> nifty_room's look_self method.  So the natural thing to do is to put a
> look_self method on that room.  But the issue is, I still want to use other
> methods further up in the hierarchy.  Basically, I want to pass to 
> two levels up, skipping the look_self on nifty_room but getting
> the methods on room and the parents of room.  Is this possible?
> How do I get around this problem?

Mmm, yep, well the sort of thing you want is called (amongst other things)
COERCION.  COERCION is something which:
	a) Is VERY useful and can save you having to copy acres of code
	when you don't reallly want to have to copy.
and
	b) MOO doesn't seem to be able to do.

Here's an example of the use of coercion.  Let's say we have a $player
hierarchy which looks like this:

	$player
	   ^
	   |
	   | (.parent)
	   |
	$slightly_modified_player
	   ^
	   |
	   | (.parent)
	   |
	$heavily_modified_player

And that, in addition, we have typed the following commands:

	@create $player named Andy
	@create $slightly_modified_player named Andrew
	@create $heavily_modified_player named Andrew_Wilson

And, to keep things simple, we'll also set each player's description to be
the same value.

Now let's say that the following verbs are defined:

	@program $player:look_self
	player:tell(this:description());
	.

	@program $slightly_modified_player:look_self
	pass(@args);
	player:tell("However ", this:title(), " has been slightly modified.");
	.

	@program $heavily_modified_player:look_self
	pass(@args);
	player:tell("In fact, ", this:title(), " has been HEAVILY modified!");
	.

So, by looking at each of the players in turn we get:

	look Andy
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?

	look Andrew
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	However, Andrew has been slightly modified.

	look Andrew_Wilson
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	However, Andrew_Wilson has been slightly modified.
	In fact, Andrew_Wilson has been HEAVILY modified!

Ok?  Well, so far, this is much like what we already know.

Fine, now suppose someone wanted to write a verb to give a brief description
of every player connected to the MOO.  Let's say that they'd also prefer
each description to be in the same $player-like format, without any
embellishment of any sort.  Something like this would be a good place to
start, don't you think?:

	@program me:@describe_everyone
	for Person in (connected_players())
		player:tell(Person:title(), ":");
		Person:look_self();
	endfor;
	player:tell("(finished)");
	.

When run, this verb would give the following output, assuming that the three
players were connected:

	@describe_everyone
	Andy:
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	Andrew:
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	However, Andrew has been slightly modified.
	Andrew_Wilson:
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	However, Andrew_Wilson has been slightly modified.
	In fact, Andrew_Wilson has been HEAVILY modified!
	(finished)

Mmmm, well :@describe_everyone seems to have got everyone's details as requested
but it's a bit confusing to read, because the modified $player's :look_self
verbs have added extra information that the writer of :@describe_everyone doesn't
want to know about.  If only there was some way of telling MOO to call a player's
:look_self verb so that the verb ALWAYS behaved in a certain way, regardless of
how the verb's original semantics had been overriden by redefinitions in
sub-classes.

Too much jargon there for you?  I'm confused certainly, this is like recursion
but with bigger teeth!  Let's re-write :@describe_everyone assuming that there's
a new MOO built-in that we can use, called 'coerce()':

	@program me:@describe_everyone
	for Person in (connected_players())
		player:tell(Person:title(), ":");
		coerce(Person, $player, look_self);
	endfor;
	player:tell("(finished)");
	.

When this new :@describe_everyone is run we get the following report:

	@describe_everyone
	Andy:
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	Andrew:
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	Andrew_Wilson:
	He seems to be a pretty much average sort of a guy, don't you think?
	(finished)

There!  That looks much more like what the verb writer wanted.  We get just the
players' descriptions, without any of the extra stuff that might have been
confusing.  Ok, that was easy because I made the example up, but if this was
really going to work then what would the coerce() built-in actually do?

	help coerce()
	Syntax:  coerce(obj <what>, obj <ancestor>, string <verb>, <args>)
		=> <value>

	Using your imagination, take an object and for a single, foolish
	moment assume that its parent has been changed.  Then call a verb
	which exists on the object, and it will be executed using the verb-code
	for the new parent.  Then assume that the object has, just as magically,
	regained it's real parent again, and carry on as normal!

	In hypothetical MOO-code terms it would look something like this:

		Class = <what>.parent
		@chparent <what> to <ancestor>
		ReturnValue = <what>:(<verb>)(@args);
		@chparent <what> to Class
		return ReturnValue;

	If <ancestor> is not in :ancestors(<what>) then the value E_COERCE is
	returned.  If <verb> is not in verbs(<ancestor>) then return E_VERBNF.
 
Now, there have been several arguments recently in favor of NOT complicating
the poor old MOO any more that it has already been, and in this spirit I suggest
the much more friendly coercion syntax <what>::<ancestor><:verb/.property>.
Using this syntax for a coerced access to an object, the :@describe_everyone verb 
ends up looking like this:

	@program me:@describe_everyone
	for Person in (connected_players())
		player:tell(Person:title(), ":");
		Person::$player:look_self();
	endfor;
	player:tell("(finished)");
	.

It doesn't take a genius incidentally, to find scenarios where coercion might
compromise the integrity of existing classes on LambdaMOO, but this DOES NOT
mean that coercion is worthless.  I happen to think that coercion is a useful
tool and that in a right-thinking world it would form part of MOO's available
abilities.

Finally, by using coercion, Amy would be able to construct :look_self
verbs which COULD perform the tasks she describes.  It would go something like
this:

	@create nifty_room named fabulously_nifty_room
	@program fabulously_nifty_room:look_self
	this::$room:look_self();
	.

What could be more simple?

Andy - Networker


From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Sat Jan 30 17:37:02 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "30" "January" "1993" "17:26:16" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "99" "Re: (not enough) fun with pass()...LONG!!" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Sat, 30 Jan 93 15:19:24 -0800.
             <9301302319.AA17023@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>"
Message-ID: <9301310126.AA19305@frumious-bandersnatch.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Sat, 30 Jan 1993 17:26:16 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: (not enough) fun with pass()...LONG!!


> It doesn't take a genius incidentally, to find scenarios where
> coercion might compromise the integrity of existing classes on
> LambdaMOO, but this DOES NOT mean that coercion is useless.  I
> happen to think that coercion is a useful tool and that in a
> right-thinking world it would form part of MOO's available
> abilities.

I will engage my non-genius mental facilities to find a particular
such a scenario: suppose I inherit from "generic fancy player", which
inherits from "generic player".  Generic fancy player overides the
:tell() verb on generic player, adding, among other things, support
for in-server gags.  However, after I "@gag Munchkin" (I've never
spoken with the guy, but he seems to be the butt of most MOO examples
I've seen :) ) Munchkin can still write to me by doing
Player::Greg:tell(text).

(Actually, LambdaMOO implements in-server gagging on the generic
player object, so my example is hypothetical.)

If I were really concerned about this, I believe your model would
allow me to override the :tell() verb on myself, but then I
essentially have to copy the generic fancy player code in order to
guarantee that people don't override it when calling verbs on me.
Overriding all the verbs and just calling pass(@args) wouldn't help,
since my parent would be (in the abstract) temporarily different.  And
I shouldn't have to do either, since I might not even be a programmer.

If you acknowledge the security hole, why do you think coercion is
still a useful tool?  One strength of the object-oriented model--and
of MOO, to the extent that it utilizes it--is that it is very secure
in a multi-user environment.  Even in a single-user environment where
security is not an issue, the object-oriented model aids in localizing
bugs related to data corruption.  Coercion is essentially a blow to
the integrity of the object-oriented model, and thus to its benefits
in both of those realms.

Of course, MOO's security model is more permissions-based than
object-oriented, since opcodes can modify objects other than the
current object, but what there is of the object-oriented security
model should remain, in my opinion.

I also disagree conceptually with calling this 'coercion', since it's
really coercing an object's parent, not the object itself.  I find
this vaguely bizarre--transforming an object into itself inheriting
from an arbitrary one of its ancestors--but that's probably just me.

> Finally, by using coercion, Amy would be able to construct
> :look_self verbs which COULD perform the tasks she describes.  It
> would go something like this:

>         @create nifty_room named fabulously_nifty_room
>         @program fabulously_nifty_room:look_self
>         this::$room:look_self();
>         .

> What could be more simple?

A less intrusive solution to Amy's problem is to support a pass
expression with an explicit target:

	pass_expr	: PASS '(' argument-list ')'
			| PASS '(' argument-list ')' TO expr
			;

Or perhaps something more restrictive than 'expr' in the second case,
although you're going to have to check at run-time if the object is
actually a parent anyway, because of chparent().

'pass() to' would return E_INVIND if its target is not an ancestor.
The method executed is the same as the method that would be executed
if a message were passed to the target object.  The current object
remains the same, of course, just as with pass().

So, to answer the question, "What could be more simple?", it is:

	pass(@args) to $room;

I don't think there are any security problems.  I could have just
copied the code the target ancestor would have run.  I suppose there
might be a problem if you're using inheritance to write a 'safe
wrapper' around an object you don't let programmers look at or inherit
from.  I can't think of any situation where I'd do this in practice,
though, and since the code is going to run with my permissions on my
object (or with child permissions on child objects), I don't see why
it matters where I get it from.

I'll also point out that some kind of explicit-target pass() will be
necessary if MOO goes multiple-inheritance.  Naturally, coercion would
handle this as well (explicit-target pass() is essentially coercion
with the message recipient restricted to the current object), but in
my opinion, not as cleanly.

As to Andrew's earlier example about :look_self(), I think such
problems will not arise if programmers preserve the interface and
conceptual behavior of parent verbs when writing overrides.

--GBH


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Jan 31 06:39:34 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "31" "January" "1993" "06:35:50" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "203" "pass(@args) to $room && this::$room:<verb> WAY LONG" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Message-ID: <9301311435.AA17296@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 31 Jan 1993 06:35:50 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: pass(@args) to $room && this::$room:<verb> WAY LONG


Greg (ghudson@athena.mit.edu) says:

> So, to answer the question, "What could be more simple?", it is:
> 
> 	pass(@args) to $room;
> 
> I don't think there are any security problems.  I could have just
> copied the code the target ancestor would have run.  I suppose there
> might be a problem if you're using inheritance to write a 'safe
> wrapper' around an object you don't let programmers look at or inherit
> from.  I can't think of any situation where I'd do this in practice,
> though, and since the code is going to run with my permissions on my
> object (or with child permissions on child objects), I don't see why
> it matters where I get it from.

My model of 'coercion', using the obj::parent<.property/:verb> syntax, IS
explicitly designed to override any redefined semantics of a verb in favor
of the semantics of one of the verb's parent definitions.  As such, this
approach WILL definately upset any carefully constructed 'safe wrapper'
which may be present in the redefining verbs of sub-classes, ie. @kids.
A good example of such a 'safe wrapper' given by Greg is the redefined
:tell verb which some LambdaMOO player classes support to implement gagging.

In some scenarios, where 'safe wrappers' don't exist, coercion causes
no real problems.  The example I gave was of a verb which was 'neutral'
as far as coercion was concerned.  In my example, it didn't matter WHICH
:look_self verb was called, just as long as A :look_self verb was called.

My hypothetical programmer's :@describe_everyone verb:

	@program me:@describe_everyone
	for Person in (connected_players())
		player:tell(Person:title(), ":");
		Person::$player:look_self();
	endfor;
	player:tell("(finished)");
	.

treated everyone as if they were $players, regardless of what their
'actual class' really was, ie. if they were really a $slightly_modified_player
or not.  In writing this verb the programmer was aware that by coercing the
:look_self verb he/she/it could be loosing out on some of the refinement
in description offered by the redefining :look_self verbs supported by
$slightly_modified_player and $heavily_modified_player.  The programmer could
have decided in favor of coercion in this instance for several reasons:

	a) Because :look_self is a 'neutral' verb.  One which doesn't alter
	the value of any properties on the Person.  Calling this verb in
	any of its forms will not 'bother' the Person.

	b) Because the programmer wants a consistantly constructed result,
	in terms of either behaviour or actual returned value, when a verb
	is accessed.  For the programmer's purposes the behaviour of
	$player:look_self is perfectly adequate, for all objects which
	inherit their verbs and properties from $player.

	c) Because the programmer doesn't want to have to rewrite the
	:@describe_everyone verb, every time a NEW subclass of $player is
	constructed, in order to take account of any additional behaviour
	or values which that verb might return.

[Actually, a better example of a neutral verb would be :title() or
:description().  The :look_self verbs on some LambdaMOO objects WILL inform
the object that it's been scanned, and as such are 'safe wrapped'.]

It is true to say that verbs which 'safe wrap' their objects, like :tell
would be compromised by coercion.  Nasty programmers would be able to bypass
the security which MOO's current verb/property access regimen offers.  On the
face of it, the sudden arrival of coercion in LambdaMOO could cause pretty
horrendous problems for just about everyone!  So, just supposing that coercion
IS deemed useful enough to be implemented in MOO, what steps can be taken
to ensure that its arrival does not insantaniously crucify the security
mechanisms which we all rely upon?

Consider the relationship between the root class and $player:

	#1 (Root Class)
	   ^
	   |
	   | (.parent)
	   |
	$player

$player:tell implements @gagging, to prevent players from being pestered by
other players or objects that they wish to ignore.  If I (naturally being
nasty) wanted to use coercion to pester someone with annoying text then I
could simply type something like:

	;#<enemy>::#1:tell("Hey!  Dog breath!")
	=> 0

And Enemy would be justifiably upset!  This is because #1:tell implements
no form of gagging. [Or if it does in your implementation then keep quiet
about it till I've finished mouthing off ;)]  Anyways, the upshot is that
coercion will cause problems.

I've shown that there ARE situations where coercion can be of use, but that
there are just as many situations (possibly more) where it'd be a problem.
What would be nice is a means of making a verb coercable or un-coercible
to suit the situation.

Ok, lets say that we add a flag to the already-far-too-damned-many flags
which the MOO server supports.  We already have r, w, x, d, f and c, so let's
call the new flag 'n' for 'NO coercion of this verb allowed'.  Then we can say:

	@chmod $player:tell rxdn

which will mean that an attempt to coerce an access to the :tell verb of any
@kid of $player will result in an error, 'E_COERCE' say.  Now we get:

	;#<enemy>::#1:tell("Hey!  Dog breath!")
	=> E_COERCE (Coercion denied)

and suddenly everything's wonderful in MOO land again.  Mmm, but HOW does it
work?

When an attempt is made to coerce a verb, the server constructs a list which
describes the 'life' of the verb in question, in its various incarnations,
from its original definition to its possibly redefined meaning on the object
for which it was called.  Using the example of my annoying poor old Enemy, the
following list would be constructed and analysed.  This next bit is what
the server thinks when it sees what I've typed.

	Mmm, ok, so the d00d typed:

		;#<enemy>::#1:tell("Hey!  Dog breath!")

	Which means that he's trying to coerce a call to #<enemy>:tell!

	Making a list to describe the life of :tell from Enemy to the first
	place that :tell got defined I get:

		{ #<enemy>, $player, #1 }

	Ok, looking through this list I know the following things:

		a) #<enemy>:tell is just the same as $player:tell, because
		there is NO redefined :tell verb on #<enemy>.

		b) $player:tell is a 'n' verb, and I haven't even got round
		to looking at #1:tell yet so that means that I can't allow the
		coerced call to be made.

		c) If $player:tell hadn't been a 'n' verb then I could have
		Okayed it, just so long as I hadn't found any other 'n' verbs
		before I got to the end of the list.

	Sorry d00d, but hey, at least you win a E_COERCE.

If coercion was going to be foisted upon the masses then of course the
current state of existing databases would have to be taken into consideration.
Adopting an strategy similar to that used when .fertile turned up, we could
say that all verbs are, by default 'n', which means that existing security
wouldn't break.  Then the neutral verbs, like :title, :description and perhaps
:look_self could be made '!n', by, for example:

	@chmod #1:title !n
	@chmod #1:description !n
	@chmod #1:look_self !n

Of course, for added security, it should, perhaps, not be possible to do the
following:

	@create $player named "Slightly Modified Player"
	@verb "Slightly Modified Player":tell this none this
	@chmod "Slightly Modified Player":tell !n

by which I mean, once a verb is made un-coercable (n) then it stays un-coercable
in all it's redefining incarnations.  This way the owner of the original verb
can impose the semantic restriction of un-coercability [lovely, big words all
covered in honey, brown sugar and little silver frosted stars] on all the
descendants of the verb's object.  Buy, hey, HOW you do it is up to you, the WHY
is 'because its useful'.

> So, to answer the question, "What could be more simple?", it is:
> 
> 	pass(@args) to $room;

Serves me right for asking silly questions doesn't it.  Greg's solution
addresses Amy's problem perfectly.  It expands the useful vocabulary of MOO
without presenting its users with the 'horrifying' problems that 'my' brand of
coercion possibly could.  However for my own purposes, specifically for the
implemenation of a :@describe_everyone verb, I feel that Greg's solution
alone would not be sufficient.  It is very rarely, if ever, that we find
problems which MOO syntax can not address adequately.  I feel though, that
coercion, in whichever form it is needed, understood or implemented IS something
which MOO should be able to handle.

Andy - Networker

ps.

> As to Andrew's earlier example about :look_self(), I think such
> problems will not arise if programmers preserve the interface and
> conceptual behavior of parent verbs when writing overrides.

If.

You been on LambdaMOO recently? ;) A.




From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Sun Jan 31 08:13:51 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "31" "January" "1993" "07:52:59" "-0800" "Tim Sailer" "jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com" nil "22" "enterfunc" "^Date:" nil nil "1"])
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Date:	Sun, 31 Jan 1993 07:52:59 -0800
From:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: enterfunc
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I must be missing something... I created a verb:

@verb #888:enterfunc()

and even 

@verb #888:enterfunc

@program #888:enterfunc()
player:tell("testing the enterfunc verb");
.
 
same program for #888:enterfunc


Neither seems to work. What am I doing wrong????

-- 
Tim Sailer
JPT Computer Solutions - SCO Sales/Consulting/Administration and Mangling
Port Jefferson Station, NY
(516) 331-9001

From eigen.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Mon Feb  1 05:54:41 1993
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Date:	Mon, 1 Feb 1993 05:43:49 -0800
From:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov (Jackie Hamilton)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com

>From: Tim Sailer <uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps>
>
>I must be missing something... I created a verb:
>
>@verb #888:enterfunc()
>
   Dont define verbs with the parenths. :)  It isnt necessary.

>and even
>
>@verb #888:enterfunc
>
Next time try:

@verb #888:enterfunc this none this  

Those verb arguments are important. :)  If you already have the verb
programmed, you can change the args by doing:

@args #888:enterfunc this none this

Of course all this is in the programmers manual so I won't ramble,
but 'this none this' args are for internal verbs that are meant to
be called only by other verbs.  Its not a verb that can be run at
the command line.  This is usually the first reason why verbs of
whatever type dont run: incorrect verb arguments.

I think you can also get around it by cheating and setting the
verb 'rxd' (the 'x' bit is the important one), but its better to
do it right and use the correct verb arguments.

-j.



From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Feb  1 09:59:40 1993
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Date:	Mon, 1 Feb 1993 07:19:02 -0800
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Sender: <@ccub.wlv.ac.uk:cm8224@scitsc.wolverhampton.ac.UK>
To:	cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, cm5067@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cs5106@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5345@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, cm1828@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5105@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5206@uk.ac.wlv.ccub.wlv.ac.ukk,
	cs5112@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cs5133@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cs5095@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cs5110@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5211@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5231@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5258@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5335@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5015@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5016@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, me5033@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cs5146@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5232@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5012@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, jrd.yoshi@handheld.com,
	cs5322@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm4254@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, me5010@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	I.c.Gifford@bradford.ac.uk, jechance@whale.st.usm.edu,
	cs5126@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, jade@moe.bu.edu, whoopie@wam.umd.edu,
	lgreen@lonestar.utsa.edu, friedpw@wam.umd.edu, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Change of Address.

Due to judicious termination of our mud running on scitsc2.wlv.ac.uk I have moved
it to a new address.

It is now 

    scitsc.wlv.ac.uk 4201

or
    134.220.4.1 4201

I don't know how long it will remain here.

From media.mit.edu!asb Mon Feb  1 17:35:34 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "February" "1993" "17:30:11" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "6" "mud.el code for MOOMail" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 1 Feb 1993 17:30:11 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: mud.el code for MOOMail


Does anyone have mud.el code for local editing of MOOMail?

Thanks!

-- Amy

From media.mit.edu!asb Mon Feb  1 21:56:31 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "February" "1993" "21:50:12" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "37" "MOOmail from mud.el" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 1 Feb 1993 21:50:12 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOOmail from mud.el


In a brave attempt to answer my own question....

Here's a patch for mud.el that will do a bit of moo mail.
It has these problems:
* You want to use ^c^c to finish and never ^c^s, or you'll
  insert lines into your message more than once.
* If you type ^c^] you're still in the mailer.
* If you use it while you have an unfinished editing session,
  it will be unhappy
* I mapped it to ^c^a for mAil, since ^cm is used for opening
  a MUD connnection.  Anyone have a better key suggestion?

Suggestions on how to improve it welcome!

(defun moo-mail ()
  "Semi-functional way to send MOO mail."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((person (read-string "Send MOOmail to:  "))
        (subject (read-string "Subject:  ")))
    (setq
        mud-current-process (get-buffer-process (current-buffer))
        moo-buffer (get-buffer-create subject)
        moo-state 'waiting)
    ; put the subject in quotes, if it isn't already
    (if (not (equal (aref subject 0) 34))
        (setq subject (concat "\"" subject "\"")))
    (moo-set-delimiter moo-suffix)
    (pop-to-buffer moo-buffer)
    (moo-code-mode)
    (erase-buffer)
    (insert "enter\n\n.\nsend\n")
    (goto-line 2)
    (mud-send-string
     (concat "@send " person " subject=" subject "\n")
     mud-current-process)))


From eigen.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Tue Feb  2 06:05:45 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "February" "1993" "05:58:37" "-0800" "Jackie Hamilton" "hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov " nil "19" "Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Tue, 2 Feb 1993 05:58:37 -0800
From:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov (Jackie Hamilton)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)


I'm wondering if there isn't any way to set a players .location 
property unreadable.  I suppose it looks like a server change is
the only way to do it.

We're also wanting to add the ability to hide on our MOO... i.e.
not show up on who listings, and to anyone but a wizard it'd seem
like you're not connected.  Problems:  connected_players(), 
connected_seconds(), and idle_seconds() are all builtin, requiring
yet another server hack to make it work.

It'd be nice to see a future version support this, or else have a
wiz-settable option as to whether players can really hide or not,
rather than forcing us to go in and change the server itself.  One
of the reasons I like MOO so much is cuz it doesnt usually *need*
server mods.

-j.


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Feb  3 13:11:05 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "February" "1993" "13:03:56" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "29" "Re: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <9302032103.AA02099@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Wed, 3 Feb 1993 13:03:56 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)


Jackie (hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov) says:

> We're also wanting to add the ability to hide on our MOO... i.e.
> not show up on who listings, and to anyone but a wizard it'd seem
> like you're not connected.  Problems:  connected_players(), 
> connected_seconds(), and idle_seconds() are all builtin, requiring
> yet another server hack to make it work.

Mmm, now there's a thought.  Why not have a general mechanism for making
built-ins optionally .wizard only.  Is it possible to add a compile-time
option to the server which would make certain built-ins be protected?
That way, when someone installs their server they'll be able to pick and
choose which built-ins are 'free' and which can only be accessed through
a wizarded verb.  Mmm, this doesn't make much sense does it?!

Ok, suppose that someone wants ther server to be like the standard one, but
with the connected_players(), connected_seconds() and idle_seconds() all hidden
from non wizard verbs.  When they compile their system they provide options
like:

	cc -o server server.c -DPROTECT_connected_seconds \
		-DPROTECT_connected_players\
		-DPROTECT_idle_seconds

Or whatever, you get the general idea?  Is this a sensible thing to do
Mr Curtis?  It might be useful.

A.

From fwva.saic.com!WHITTEN Wed Feb  3 13:58:21 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "February" "1993" "05:23:29" "-0800" "David Whitten" "WHITTEN@fwva.saic.com" nil "35" "Re: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Feb 1993 05:23:29 -0800
From:	David Whitten <WHITTEN@fwva.saic.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)


Andrew Wilson was suggesting a compile time flag to specify which built-ins
should be compiled with wizard privileges.

He suggested that -DPROTECT_name_of_builtin be included on the compile line.

An alternate idea is to have a C function that is called when 'registering' 
the built-in. There could be a standard everything is the same as the released
version function defined, that links in to the other code, but we could have
a different version built as a result of running a 'server options' program
separate from the MOO-server. The program that builds the server options 
function could be run first, and then the server could be compiled using the 
function generated.

The program that builds the server option function could have the -Dblah
type options, but I don't see how adding all that to the server would be the
most reasonable.

I like this option better since there is a record of which options were chosen
in a compilable fashion, and it leans more to the you're not required to be a 
hacker to set up a MOO train of thought.

The program that builds the server options function could have a nice interface
to it, and make it easier to modify the options than remembering to put a
#define in a particular routine or so forth.
If the installer wants the plain 'normal' permissions system, all they say is
yes to the first question "do you want the standard permissions for built-ins ?"
and the program just copies the standard server options to the name that the
MOO is expecting the info to be stored in.

I think the MOO is really cool, and that pavel has done a great job, I'm just
looking toward a more 'user-friendly' install....

David (whitten@fwva.saic.com) US:(619)535-7764 [I don't speak as a company rep.]


From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!WOLFE Wed Feb  3 14:03:01 1993
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Date:	Wed, 3 Feb 1993 13:47:33 -0800
From:	WOLFE@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
To:	Moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player security and all that rot.
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   Hmmmmm.  Perhaps the option shuld be made available, tho I really
   think it's unnecessary.  If a Wizard wants to make himself that
   inaccessable, they prolly ought to find a new line of business.
   As to security, Normally one does not give a prog bit to those one
   doesn't trust, and therefore, there is no problem.

   On a footnote, Wizards are supposed to be highly visible admin type.
   excessive hiding mean that person loses touch with the people he or
   she is supposed to be governing, at which point the cease to be
   effective.  I'n my brief spate as a wizard, I have on many occasions
   been annoyed to the point of tears by certain players, but I don't
   see this as justification for hiding from them.  If I really want to
   see this as justification for hiding from them.

 
 ______________________
| Nicholas E LaFlamme  |
|  Programmer, poet    |  Why, they come for tea, and for supper, and
|  Madman, and Vagrant.|    for you, burglar Baggins.
|______________________|               -Gandalf the Grey
 
Wolfe@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
G'ran@DragonsFire Mandren@KnownSpace
PS:  Just my 2 cents. :)

From ncm.ncm.interlan.com!bild Wed Feb  3 14:37:43 1993
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Date:	Wed, 3 Feb 1993 14:26:58 -0800
From:	bild@ncm.ncm.interlan.com (bilding at ncm)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: All that rot

...perhaps I missed the point, but from what I gathered,
the applicant wanted to be able to set builtin 'properties'
!r, except by wizard owned verbs, which would control to
that extent how a programmer that info.
While their stated application is 'hiding', they could
just as well be wanting to make major changes to $room,
or containers, or whatnot.  Further, hiding is a desirable
ability on an RPG oriented MOO, thieves hiding in shadows,
etc, etc.

On lambda, !r .contents is not an option, so we have come
up with hackarounds.  The most successful involves using
a meta-room, which is not distributed with the core, but
basically is on $room object which through verb manipulation
gives the effect of many rooms, with exits, descriptions,
'properties', specific enterfuncs, etc, and :contents().
While a programmer can still get .contents, the meta-room
can contain potentially hundreds of sub-rooms, so that
information is not particularly useful or relevant.

The other tack to which WOLFE alludes is not to make most players,
or untrusted players, programmers.  Admittedly restrictive,
but in some MOO situations, it facilitates development by
letting trusted programmers write without adding extra security
code or making verbs !r so noone can see how they did what they
did.  Then you could just hack @who and be done with it.

bild

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Feb  3 17:11:30 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "February" "1993" "17:01:50" "-0800" "Ray Nawara" "rnawara@tusol.cs.trinity.edu " "<9302040101.AA08256@tusol.cs.trinity.edu>" "5" "old databases..." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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From:	rnawara@tusol.cs.trinity.edu (Ray Nawara)
Sender: <@vm1.tucc.trinity.edu:rnawara@tusol.cs.trinity.EDU>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: old databases...

I probably missed the discussion of this topic when it was pertinent
(i.e. when 1.7.0 was new) but how does one transfer a 1.6.x database to
1.7.1? my database doesnt recognize the fertile property, and i'm wondering
if im going to have to start over from the core to fix this...
	Ray Nawara (rnawara@tusol.cs.trinity.edu/ Ash@LambdaMOO)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb  3 17:37:24 1993
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Date:	Wed, 3 Feb 1993 17:31:03 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	rnawara@tusol.cs.trinity.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: old databases...

> Date:	Wed, 3 Feb 1993 17:01:50 -0800
> From:	rnawara@tusol.cs.trinity.edu (Ray Nawara)
> 
> I probably missed the discussion of this topic when it was pertinent
> (i.e. when 1.7.0 was new) but how does one transfer a 1.6.x database to
> 1.7.1? my database doesnt recognize the fertile property, and i'm wondering
> if im going to have to start over from the core to fix this...

There aren't very many changes to make.  Look first in the ChangeLog.txt file
in the 1.7.0 distribution (there is no version 1.7.1 available...) and then
look at the messages in the MOO-Cows archive for the rest.

For those who don't know, all non-administrative messages sent to the MOO-Cows
mailing list are stored for anonymous FTP on host `parcftp.xerox.com' in the
directory `pub/MOO/mail'.  There is one file for each year; the file for the
current year is updated every night with the new messages.

	Pavel

From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Thu Feb  4 21:18:28 1993
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To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Players following players
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Has anyone figured out how to let player2 follow player1 when they
move?


-- 
       ________________________________________________________________
      {                        Tim Sailer                              }
      {  Internet: tps@jptcs.com        UUCP: ..!uu.psi.com!jptcs!tps  }
      {----------------------------------------------------------------}
      {         Why am I soft in the middle,                           }
      {         and the rest of my life is so hard? - Paul Simon       }
      {________________________________________________________________}



From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Fri Feb  5 10:09:21 1993
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	cs5110@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5211@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5231@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5258@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5335@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5015@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5016@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, me5033@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cs5146@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	cm5232@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm5012@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, jrd.yoshi@handheld.com,
	cs5322@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, cm4254@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, me5010@ccub.wlv.ac.uk,
	I.c.Gifford@bradford.ac.uk, jechance@whale.st.usm.edu,
	cs5126@ccub.wlv.ac.uk, jade@moe.bu.edu, whoopie@wam.umd.edu,
	lgreen@lonestar.utsa.edu, friedpw@wam.umd.edu, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mud Address Change Again - UWMud

Dear Mudders,

UWMud has been moved again, this time it is running on

    ccub.wlv.ac.uk 4201 or (134.220.4.200 4201)

I hope this is the last time it has to be changed.

Yours

James Watson

Dudley@UWmud

From morticia.cnns.unt.edu!clay Fri Feb  5 10:39:24 1993
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From:	clay@morticia.cnns.unt.edu (Clay Luther)
Sender: cluther@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
To:	harris@cs.uchicago.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Events

>You replied to MOO-Cows:
>> >Has anyone figured out how to let player2 follow player1 when they
>> >move?
>> 
>> Again, another problem *trivially* handled by the events code.  Toot-toot.
>
>Funny that you should mention this, because I was just thinking last
>night how easy it would be to do to make a follow command that would
>rely on the events sent out by room exits.  Alas, no-one's done it yet
>on my stomping grounds (OpalMOO).  Does the code already exist?
>
>This makes me wonder what other capacities events are used for.  Where
>else besides opal have events been core-ified?  What is used to send
>out calls?
>
>I ask this not because I am confused about events, just because I'm
>not creative enough about their implementation.  Opal is also young
>enough to be able to make pretty sweeping changes easily...
>
>Just a little question--

Events are easy to implement.  We first implemented them on the GodNet and
I am rewriting and cleaning them up at the present for Wu Han's House of
Wax.


An event is a verb sent to any object that wants one when a certain "event"
occurs.  The basic events I've reimplemented in WHHOW are event_move,
event_enter, event_exit, event_look, and event_parse.  Again these are the
basic events, and the event architecture allows you to, at any time, create
any new event you need.

EVENT_MOVE: This is a special event sent to the object moved.
        NUM event_move(LIST {OBJ where_from, OBJ where_to})

EVENT_ENTER: This is a room event generated when an object enters a room.
        NUM event_enter(LIST {OBJ who_entered, OBJ room_entered})

EVENT_EXIT: This is a room event generated when an object leaves a room.
        NUM event_exit(LIST {OBJ who_left, OBJ room_left})

EVENT_LOOK: This is a room event generated whenever the room is looked at.
        NUM event_look(LIST {OBJ who_looked, OBJ room_looked_in})

EVENT_PARSE: This is a special room event generated whenever an unparsable
             string is entered by the user.
        NUM event_parse(LIST {OBJ player, OBJ room, LIST unparsed_strings})




SETTING UP EVENTS

First, create the "catch-all" event handler on the root object:

@list #1:event_* without numbers
#1:"event_*"   this none this
return 0;

This allows any child of $root to handle any event without error.

All "handled" events by objects are therefore simply overrides of the basic
event handler.


Now that objects can handle events, we must devise some way of posting
events to them.  Since all player action within a (lambda)moo takes place
within the context of a room, it seems logical to make rooms the source of
events.  Also, it is conceivable that some objects won't care to be
notified of *any* events and that some objects would like to hear about
events in rooms they do not currently occupy.

To handle both of these cases, you must create a new property on $room:

@prop $room.event_list {}

To handle the posting of events, we create a new room method:

@list $room:post_event without numbers
#3:"post_event"   this none this
"** CWL Send an event to all objects in the this.event_list";
"** USAGE: post_event(STR event, LIST args)";
event_name = "event_" + args[1];
arg_list = args[2];
for o in (this.event_list)
  if ($recycler:valid(o))
    o:(event_name)(arg_list);
  else
    this.event_list = setremove(this.event_list, o);
  endif
endfor



You also need two more methods on $room, one to add objects to the
event_list and one to remove objects from the event_list:

@list $room:add_to_event_list without numbers
#3:"add_to_event_list"   this none this
"** CWL Add an object to this room's event list";
"** USAGE: add_to_event_list(OBJ object || LIST objects)";
o = args[1];
if (typeof(o) != LIST)
  o = {o};
endif
for oo in (o)
  if ($recycler:valid(oo) && !(oo in this.event_list))
    this.event_list = setadd(this.event_list, oo);
  endif
endfor
return this.event_list;


@list $room:remove_from_event_list without numbers
#3:"remove_from_event_list"   this none this
"** CWL Remove an object from the event list";
"** USAGE: remove_from_event_list(OBJ o || LIST objects)";
o = args[1];
if (typeof(o) != LIST)
  o = {o};
endif
for oo in (o)
  if ($recycler:valid(oo) && oo in this.event_list)
    this.event_list = setremove(this.event_list, oo);
  endif
endfor
return this.event_list;




INSTALLING THE BASIC EVENTS

EVENT_ENTER
To install event_enter, modify the $room:enterfunc to be:

@list $room:enterfunc without numbers
#3:"enterfunc"   this none this
object = args[1];
this:post_event("enter", {object, this});
if (is_player(object))
  player = object;
  this:look_self(player.brief);
endif
if (object == this.blessed_object)
  this.blessed_object = #-1;
endif


The post_event line was added.


EVENT_EXIT
To install the event_exit, modify the $room:exitfunc to be:

@list $room:exitfunc without numbers
#3:"exitfunc"   this none this
this:post_event("exit", {args[1], this});
return;


EVENT_LOOK
To install the event_look, modify the $room:look_self to be:

@list $room:look_self without number
#3:"look_self"   this none this
player:tell(this:title());
if (!(args && args[1]))
  pass();
endif
this:tell_contents(setremove(this.contents, player), this.ctype);
this:post_event("look", {player, this});


Moving on to the slightly more tricky EVENT_PARSE...

To install EVENT_PARSE, you must add another method to $room and modify the
$room:here_huh method:

@list $room:here_huh without numbers
#3:"here_huh"   this none this
":here_huh(verb,args)  -- room-specific :huh processing.  This should
return 1 if it finds something interesting to do and 0 otherwise; see
$command_utils:do_huh.";
"For the generic room, we check for the case of the caller specifying an
exit for which a corresponding verb was never defined.";
set_task_perms(caller_perms());
if (args[2] || $failed_match == (exit = this:match_exit(verb = args[1])))
  "** Before we give up, let's try sending an event_parse";
  if (this:huh_event_parse(args[1], args[2]))
    return 1;
  endif
...etc unchanged...



Now add the method $room:huh_event_parse:

@list $room:huh_event_parse without numbers
#3:"huh_event_parse"   this none this
"** Try to see if some object in the event_list wants to take a stab at this.";
parse_list = {args[1], @args[2]};
for o in (this.event_list)
  if ($recycler:valid(o))
    if (o:event_parse({player, this, parse_list}))
      return 1;
    endif
  else
    this.event_list = setremove(this.event_list, o);
  endif
endfor
return 0;



The last basic event method you need to add is EVENT_MOVE.  Modify #1:moveto:

@list #1:moveto without numbers
#1:"moveto"   this none this
set_task_perms(this.owner);
this:event_move({this.location, args[1]});
return move(this, args[1]);




HOW DO EVENTS FUNCTION?

Here is a sample of how events work.  In WHHOW I have built an object
called "Tester."  It has a simple override of event_* which prints out to
the player that an event has occured.  I have added white space to the log
make it more readable.

Notes surrounded by ** ** are comments.

@d tester:
Tester (#84) [ ]
  Child of generic thing (#5).
  Location Ballard (#2).
   #84:event_*                  Ballard (#2)         rxd    this none this
-------------------------------- finished ---------------------------------

@list tester:event_* without numbers
#84:"event_*"   this none this
l = $string_utils:english_list(args[1]);
this.location:announce_all(verb, " ", l);
return 1;
** In other words, whenever tester receives an event_* call, it **
** will print the string "event_foo args...." **

drop tester
event_move #2 and #11
** event_move is always sent to the object being moved. **
** #2 is the previous location, #11 is the new location **

You drop Tester.
;#11:add_to_event_list(#84)
=> {#84}

** Now, a Guest (#76) connects to the moo **

event_enter #76 and #11
** All event messages now come from Tester unless otherwise noted **
** The guest #76 entered room #11 **

event_look #76 and #11
** Guest #76 looked at room #11 **
Guest has connected.

event_exit #76 and #11
** Guest #76 left room #11 **
Guest enters the door into the ticket booth.

event_enter #76 and #11
event_look #76 and #11
** Guest #76 entered room #11, again a look was performed **
Guest leaves the ticket booth.

event_look #76 and #11
** Guest #76 looks at the room #11 again **

event_parse #76, #11, and {list}
** Guest #76 entered a command that could not be normally parsed in room #11 **

** At this point, I'll add a event_parse verb to myself **

@verb me:event_parse this none this
Verb added (0).
.program #2:event_parse
**** WARNING: The `.program' command is obsolete and will be removed soon.
Now programming Ballard:event_parse(0).  Use "." to end.
who = args[1][1];
where = args[1][2];
plist = args[1][3];
pstr = $string_utils:english_list(plist);
this:tell(who, " sent \"", pstr, "\" in ", where);
.
0 error(s).
Verb programmed.

** Now, I'll add myself to the room's event list and remove tester **
;#11:add_to_event_list(#2)
=> {#84, #2}
;#11:remove_from_event_list(#84)
=> {#2}

** Now, Guest will enter the command "Play with my nose" **
** The server will fail to parse this command at hand it to my event_parse **

#76 sent "Play, with, my, and nose" in #11
** Guest #76 typed in "Play..." in room #11 **

** Now, clear the event_list by passing the entire list to the remove method **
;#11:remove_from_event_list(#11.event_list)
=> {}

get tester
event_move #11 and #2
** This event is sent to tester directly, so tester's event_* method responds **
** Tester was moved from object #11 to object #2 **
You take Tester.



Ta-da.




---
Clay W. Luther                                 clay@vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310
                             Also cluther@morticia.cnns.unt.edu

Well, it had been 987 years in outer space time when I got back.
Couldn't seem to find any of my friends to tell my interesting
stories to.


From morticia.cnns.unt.edu!clay Fri Feb  5 16:08:23 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "5" "February" "1993" "15:58:40" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@morticia.cnns.unt.edu " nil "247" "Full names" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Errors-to: clay@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
Message-ID: <9302052352.AA11965@charon.vortech.com>
Date:	Fri, 5 Feb 1993 15:58:40 -0800
From:	clay@morticia.cnns.unt.edu (Clay Luther)
Sender: cluther@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Full names


Here again is another completely unsolicitedly code section.

Fullnames in (lambda)moo.  Toot-toot.


Some muds allow the users to have full names for their characters. 
Unfortunately, (lambda)moo is not one of them, forcing players who want to
have english-like multiple names to do ugly things like use no spaces or
add underscores for spaces.  Ugh.

Consider, if I want my character's name to be Lancelot du Lac, which looks
more aesthetically pleasing, and, indeed, more readable?

LancelotDuLac
Lancelot_du_Lac
Lancelot du Lac

It's as plain as blancmange.

However, never fret.  Feat of Clay(tm) Software presents Moo fullnames.
Toot-toot.

Moo fullnames require a few modifications to the core db, all for the
better of course.  The first modification is to add the :name() method to
#1.  Following Better Object Oriented Programming Practices(tm), or BOOPP,
you should avoid accessing object properties directly anyway (such as using
player.name).  Instead, you should always think about adding appropriate
access methods for properties, such as player:name().  (lambda)Moo makes a
half-hearted stab at this.  For instance, the :description() access method
is provided for .description but not for, say, .name.  

But it's never too late to start.

However, as we will see, there are times when using the access method is
perhaps less desirable than using the property itself.


STEP 1 - Create the name access method on #1.

@list #1:name without numbers
#1:"name"   this none this
return this.name;


Immediately modify #1:title() so that it is

@list #1:title without numbers
#1:"title"   this none this
return this:name();

(instead of returning this.name)


STEP 2 - Create the ability to assign, remember, and keep fullnames on $player.

Moo uses the player's name property as a sort of account id.  This
implementation doesn't wish to change that, since that would require a
major overhaul to the server login functions.  Instead, we will add (YA)
property to $player which will hold the player's full name.

@prop $player.fullname ""


Next, we must modify $player:name() so that it will use the fullname when set.

@list $player:name without numbers
#6:"name"   this none this
return this.fullname ? this.fullname | this.name;


That's fine.  Any method which calls player:name() now (instead of
accessing player.name) will get either the player's userid name or his full
name.


Next, player's need some way of setting their name.  Again, in this
implementation we assume that the player's .name is a sort of userid. 
Therefore, to keep the division obvious and to add complexity, always a
good thing you know, we add a new $player verb, @fullname.

The Rules of @fullname:
        Only a wizard or the player himself may set the player's fullname.
        The fullname is limited to three names.
        Each name is limited to 16 characters.
        Names may not contain punctuation.
        At least one of the names must match exactly the player's userid name.
        Each name, excluding obvious prepositions/articles like "the" are
                made aliases to the player.

Syntax (code follows examples)
@fullname <this> is <any>

Examples:
        
Ballard tries @fullname me is "Mister Ballard"
        
This works.  Ballard's .fullname is set to "Mister Ballard" and his aliases
are set to {"Mister Ballard","Mister","Ballard"}.


Ballard tries @fullname me is "Mister Johnson"

This does not work "Mister Johnson" does not contain the name "Ballard."


Ballard tries @fullname "Ballard from Dingly Dell"

This does not work - 4 names.


Ballard tries @fullname "Ballard from London"

This works, and his aliases are set to {"Ballard from London", "Ballard",
"London"}.


THE CODE FOR @FULLNAME

@list $player:@fullname without numbers
#6:"@fullname"   this is any
"** Allow a player to set his fullname property.";
"** USAGE: @fullname <who> is <Name>";
if (!player.wizard && player != this)
  player:tell("I don't understand.");
  return;
endif
punc = {".", "!", ",", ":", ";"};
for p in (punc)
  if (index(iobjstr, p))
    player:tell("You cannot have punctuation in your name.");
    return;
  endif
endfor
"** OK, we might have a pretty good name here.";
names = $string_utils:explode(iobjstr, " ");
if (length(names) > 3)
  player:tell("You may only enter up to three names.");
  return;
endif
for n in (names)
  if (length(n) > 16)
    player:tell("A name may only be up to 16 characters long.");
    return;
  endif
endfor
oldfname = this.fullname;
this.fullname = "";
oldaliases = this.aliases;
this.aliases = {};
found = 0;
for n in (names)
  if (n == this:name())
    found = 1;
  endif
endfor
if (!found)
  player:tell("Your name did not match any sub-name of that full name.  Try
again, please.");
  this.fullname = oldfname;
  this.aliases = oldaliases;
  return;
endif
prepositions = {"a", "the", "an", "of", "from"};
for n in (names)
  if (!(n in this.aliases))
    if (!(n in prepositions))
      this.aliases = {@this.aliases, n};
    endif
  endif
endfor
if (iobjstr == this:name())
  this.fullname = "";
  player:tell(this:name(), "'s fullname is reset.");
else
  this.fullname = iobjstr;
  this.aliases = {@this.aliases, this.fullname};
  player:tell("You have set the fullname to \"", iobjstr, "\".");
endif



USING FULLNAMES:

There are several places in (lambda)moo where fullnames increase the
aesthetic quality of the moo.  Says and emotes are the obvious start; for
instance

Jean Malraux thinks it is time to go.

is nicer than

Malraux thinks it is time to go.

Especially if my name is indeed "Jean Malraux."


The above is handled by changing player.name to player:name() in
$room:emote(). A similar change to $room:say would produce similar results.


Because we have handily thought ahead and changed #1:title(), room
descriptions will now automatically include the player's fullname in the
description, ala...


Lying on the ground you see a copy of the London Times, besmudged by mud
and heavily trampled.  To the left of the revolving door is the ticket
booth, inhabited by a tired and tawdy woman dressed like a Gallic empress. 
She looks very bored.  Beneath her window is a sign which reads "Adults
1/-."

Mister Ballard is here.



As you find .name statements in moo-code, you could change them, if
required by the purpose of the verb, to :name() calls.  It is dangerous to
do this automatically with substitution, however, since many player.name
statements are *assignments*.  Uncareful substitution would give you
something like

player:name() = some_string;

which would be a Very Bad Thing(tm).


In general, FOC Software has determined that any place where the
player/object's name is displayed as part of the virtual reality of the
moo, it is best to call :name().  In other verbs, mainly maintenance verbs
used by programmers and wizards, accessing the player.name directly is
sufficient.

After all, wizards do not care about fluffy things like this.

Enjoy.

---
Clay W. Luther                                 clay@vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310
                             Also cluther@morticia.cnns.unt.edu

Well, it had been 987 years in outer space time when I got back.
Couldn't seem to find any of my friends to tell my interesting
stories to.


From eigen.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Mon Feb  8 06:23:17 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "8" "February" "1993" "06:13:00" "-0800" "Jackie Hamilton" "hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov " nil "21" "checkpoint interval" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <9302081413.AA10456@eigen.jsc.nasa.GOV>
Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 06:13:00 -0800
From:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov (Jackie Hamilton)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: checkpoint interval


I've noticed in the logs of our MOO that the MOO is checkpointing
every 20 minutes or so, yet the $dump_interval is clearly at 3600,
should be once an hour, right?  Is there something else that needs
to be set besides $dump_interval?

from the log:

Feb  3 12:11:08: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#5# finished
Feb  3 12:31:11: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#6# ...
Feb  3 12:31:29: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#6# finished
Feb  3 12:51:32: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#7# ...
Feb  3 12:51:49: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#7# finished
Feb  3 13:11:52: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#8# ...
Feb  3 13:12:10: CHECKPOINTING on lc.db.new.#8# finished

etc etc.... every 20 minutes.  Not that it's that serious of a 
problem, I'm just wondering why its happening. :)

-j.


From cheetah.math.oxy.edu!t_pascal Mon Feb  8 11:15:53 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "February" "1993" "11:05:29" "-0800" "t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu" "t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu" nil "28" "Re:  Dump Interval" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 11:05:29 -0800
From:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  Dump Interval

>I've noticed in the logs of our MOO that the MOO is checkpointing
>every 20 minutes or so, yet the $dump_interval is clearly at 3600,
>should be once an hour, right?  Is there something else that needs
>to be set besides $dump_interval?
>
As far as I know, $dump_interval should be all you need to set.  However,
I'd like to bring up a point about the dump interval.  It's not a bug, _per se_,
but I think it could be changed.

Once, as a joke among us bored MOO administrators :), I set $dump_interval
to $maxint.  I thought it would never dump again, that was part of the joke.  The next
time the server dumped, it started spawning dump processes up the kazoo (pardon
my french).  Luckily, I have a disk quota set for my directory, and nothing came of it
except 9845 aborted dumps and wasted cpu :)

My point is that the server could be a little more careful about what values it accepts
in $dump_interval.  In my opinion, it should never be below 3 or 5 minutes, and 

shouldn't exceed, say, one months.

---

---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal          | "He travels fastest who travels alone,
1600 Campus Road, Box 829          | but not when the frost drops below zero
Los Angeles, CA 90041              | fifty degrees or more."
                                   |         -Old eskimo saying
       t_pascal@{{{cub,cheetah,jaguar}.math},tiger,cheshire}.oxy.edu

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Feb  8 13:41:41 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "February" "1993" "13:33:38" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: checkpoint interval" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <9302081413.AA10456@eigen.jsc.nasa.GOV>
Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 13:33:38 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: checkpoint interval

> Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 06:13:00 -0800
> From:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov (Jackie Hamilton)
> 
> I've noticed in the logs of our MOO that the MOO is checkpointing
> every 20 minutes or so, yet the $dump_interval is clearly at 3600,
> should be once an hour, right?  Is there something else that needs
> to be set besides $dump_interval?

No, that should do it.  I have heard of this problem before, with the same
constants (20 minutes and $dump_interval = 3600), but I've never been able to
reproduce the problem.

Jackie, would it be possible for me to connect to your machine to try to debug
this one?

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Mon Feb  8 14:54:08 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "February" "1993" "14:06:33" "-0800" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " "<9302082206.AA23265@nova.decio.nd.edu>" "10" "Update?" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 14:06:33 -0800
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows)
Subject: Update?


Did I miss something? I saw a patch posted for recycle and was told it was
to be in the next release in about a week? I've seen nothing since. Is
1.8.0 (or whatever the next release is) delayed?

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request
  Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux)
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If a girl rejects you, don't doubt it's part of the plan" -Deborah Ann Gibson

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Feb  8 15:20:13 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "February" "1993" "15:12:35" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: Update?" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <9302082206.AA23265@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 15:12:35 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Update?

> Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1993 14:06:33 -0800
> From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows)
> Subject: Update?
> 
> Did I miss something? I saw a patch posted for recycle and was told it was
> to be in the next release in about a week? I've seen nothing since. Is
> 1.8.0 (or whatever the next release is) delayed?

You haven't missed anything.  I've just been too busy to finish the release.
It should be out sometime this month.

	Pavel

From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Thu Feb 11 20:08:10 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "11" "February" "1993" "19:46:48" "-0800" "Tim Sailer" "jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com" nil "14" "Crash!" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Thu, 11 Feb 1993 19:46:48 -0800
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To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Crash!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Well, my 1.5 Gig went splat this weekend..... in the middle of backups. I now
have partial files. Can someone email me the code that was just sent out
for full names and events? Thanks!

-- 
       ________________________________________________________________
      {                        Tim Sailer                              }
      {  Internet: tps@jptcs.com        UUCP: ..!uu.psi.com!jptcs!tps  }
      {----------------------------------------------------------------}
      {     I have abandonded my search for the Truth....              }
      {     and now am looking for a good fantasy.......               }
      {      - Ashleigh Brilliant -                                    }
      {________________________________________________________________}


From cool.vortech.com!clay Mon Feb 15 11:13:43 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "15" "February" "1993" "11:04:02" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com " nil "19" "$login:connect" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 15 Feb 1993 11:04:02 -0800
From:	clay@cool.vortech.com (Clay Luther)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: $login:connect


OK, I'm missing something here...

Why is it that *sometimes* when a player logs in, $login:connect gets
called and he sees the message "Okay...Foo is in use.  Logging you in as
Foo." and other times he just sees the "*** Connected ***" message.  Where
is the "*** Connected ***" message coming from anyhow?

Could someone slowly explain to my poor dim self what is going on?


---
Clay W. Luther                            clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310

* IFO * IFO * We are trying to make contact * Can you hear me *
* We'd like to conduct a fax orgy * What's your 10-4 * Can you hear me * 


From cs.stanford.edu!crew Mon Feb 15 11:35:24 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "15" "February" "1993" "11:29:03" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "crew@cs.stanford.edu" nil "22" "Re: $login:connect" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 15 Feb 93 11:04:02 PST.\"
             <199302151906.AA15827@cool.vortech.com>"
Message-ID: <9302151929.AA21925@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 15 Feb 1993 11:29:03 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <crew@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	clay@cool.vortech.com (Clay Luther)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: $login:connect

>   OK, I'm missing something here...
>   
>   Why is it that *sometimes* when a player logs in, $login:connect gets
>   called and he sees the message "Okay...Foo is in use.  Logging you in as
>   Foo." and other times he just sees the "*** Connected ***" message.  Where
>   is the "*** Connected ***" message coming from anyhow?
>   
>   Could someone slowly explain to my poor dim self what is going on?

The "*** Connected ***" message comes straight from the server, and then only if 
$login:connect (really #0:do_login_command) returns an actual player objectid.

$login:connect is always being called (at least, whenever you use the
"connect" command).  The "Okay...Foo is in use" message comes from
$guest:defer which gets called if you are trying to login a guest
character that is already logged in and we manage to find some other
child of $guest that is available.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   crew@CS.Stanford.EDU
LambdaMOO:  Rog

From cool.vortech.com!clay Mon Feb 15 17:03:18 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "15" "February" "1993" "16:58:13" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com " nil "19" "mud.el.yduJ" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 15 Feb 1993 16:58:13 -0800
From:	clay@cool.vortech.com (Clay Luther)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: mud.el.yduJ


I've been trying to use mud.el.yduJ but it appears to have a very annoying
bug in the edit-field routines.  ^C^I seems to fail to reconstruct a list
property properly, putting extraneous " and } at the front and end, making
it impossible to send the text to the moo (the moo complains about a parse
error).

Is their a fixed version floating around?

Thanks.

---
Clay W. Luther                            clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310

* IFO * IFO * We are trying to make contact * Can you hear me *
* We'd like to conduct a fax orgy * What's your 10-4 * Can you hear me * 


From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Tue Feb 16 11:44:21 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "16" "February" "1993" "07:37:51" "-0800" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca" nil "25" "Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <9302161537.AA06306@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1993 07:37:51 -0800
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: PARC.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Permissions system of moo

I was contemplating the permissions system of the moo language and I was
wondering about the feasibility of separating the perms of the owner from the
id of the owner.  The set_task_perms system of changing task permissions seems
to be a bit limiting to me.  What I have in mind exactly is the user/group/
other permission system of unix translated into a form for moo.

Instead of a verb just having a owner field perhaps it could also have a group
field, from a group list defined on a system object. Entries such as wizard
programmer builder guest rpg etc...

The motivation behind this is to separate the ownership from the permissions
issue of calling verbs. That may not be the best reason for having such a
system but I think it would be handy for other reasons as well, group ownership
by programmers for projects comes to mind.

[To Pavel Curtis] Would this be extremely hard to do?  Would it be possible to
do it in such a way as to retain compatibility with current cores? Pros? Cons?

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        Remember how she said that we would meet again,      \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Feb 16 12:34:10 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "16" "February" "1993" "12:29:01" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "26" "Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <9302162029.AA26634@glia.biostr.washington.edu>
Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:29:01 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Permissions system of moo


Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>:

| What I have in mind exactly is the user/group/other
| permission system of unix translated into a form for moo.

As both a unix and moo novice, perhaps I should keep quiet :)...
but I have the impression groups are one of the less successful
unix constructs.  I tend to oscillate between not implementing
them all in a mud context, or else implementing a more general
procedural hook that can be used to implement groups, but isn't
restricted to doing so.

Speaking as a _very_ new reader of moo design/implementation,
one of the most attractive aspects of moo is precisely it's
>lack< of hair -- just the essential stuff in the server, not
oodles of feeps randomly hacked in because they looked intriguing
one week.

(It >does< sound as though perhaps the debug flag didn't work
out as well as hoped... I'd be curious to hear a retrospective
of what the moo designers would/n't do differently in light of
hindsight...)

Jeff


From cool.vortech.com!clay Tue Feb 16 15:10:35 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "16" "February" "1993" "15:05:24" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com " nil "25" "More confunc() foo...." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <199302162308.AA00263@cool.vortech.com>
Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1993 15:05:24 -0800
From:	clay@cool.vortech.com (Clay Luther)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: More confunc() foo....



Mystery:

I thought that when a player connects, $room:confunc() is always called. 
However, I have been able to prove that $room:confunc() is not being
called.

Instead, a message "<Player> has connected." is printed out.  I know this
isn't coming from $room:confunc() (and the room connected to does not
override the method).

Have I again missed something in the intricacies of logging in?  Please
clarify if you can.

Thanks.

---
Clay W. Luther                            clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310

* IFO * IFO * We are trying to make contact * Can you hear me *
* We'd like to conduct a fax orgy * What's your 10-4 * Can you hear me * 


From cool.vortech.com!clay Tue Feb 16 15:17:45 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "16" "February" "1993" "15:10:03" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com " nil "15" "Please ignore" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <199302162312.AA00268@cool.vortech.com>
Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1993 15:10:03 -0800
From:	clay@cool.vortech.com (Clay Luther)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Please ignore


Please ignore last message from me ;).

Spurious fititudes on my end.

Sorry.

---
Clay W. Luther                            clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                             Vortech Data, Inc
Office (214) 994-1377                        Fax (214) 994-1310

* IFO * IFO * We are trying to make contact * Can you hear me *
* We'd like to conduct a fax orgy * What's your 10-4 * Can you hear me * 


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Feb 18 16:25:44 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "February" "1993" "16:20:39" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "21" "Re: Showing Wizards" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <9302181419.aa08408@jptcs.COM>
Date:	Thu, 18 Feb 1993 16:20:39 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Showing Wizards

> Date:	Thu, 18 Feb 1993 11:18:58 -0800
> From:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
> 
>  According to the help, who and @who are NOT supposed to show the
> wizards logged in. I've implemented a 'hidden' property, and did
> a real simple mod to #3:tell_contents to not show hidden wizards.
> The only problem is that @who SHOWS them, and where they are! Is there
> a simple way to implement this?

Without changing the server to make connected_players() and idle_seconds()
wizard-only functions, or to make .location a wizard-only property, there is
nothing to prevent any programmer from writing their own versions of @who that
shows everyone.

At one time, we had code in @who on LambdaMOO that prevented wizards from
showing up if the requestor wasn't yet logged in, and that code did go out in
some version of the LambdaCore DB, but we've since removed that support from
LambdaMOO.  Check the code on $login:who for what the @who command does for
un-logged-in players on your MOO.

	Pavel

From cs.stanford.edu!crew Thu Feb 18 17:30:49 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "February" "1993" "17:30:46" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "crew@cs.stanford.edu" nil "14" "Re: Showing Wizards " "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 18 Feb 93 16:20:39 PST."
             <93Feb18.162043pst.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Thu, 18 Feb 1993 17:30:46 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <crew@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Showing Wizards 

>   At one time, we had code in @who on LambdaMOO that prevented
>   wizards from showing up if the requestor wasn't yet logged in, and
>   that code did go out in some version of the LambdaCore DB, but
>   we've since removed that support...

Actually, it's still there.  There's a property $login.who_masks_wizards 
that can be set to some true value if you want to enable this behavior.
I don't know offhand whether it's in the current LambdaCore or you'll have
wait for the next one (though it's simple enough to write a $login:who that
does whatever you want).
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   crew@CS.Stanford.EDU
LambdaMOO:  Rog

From steamer.clam.com!jeff Fri Feb 19 11:46:44 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "11:38:26" "-0800" "Jeff d'Arcy" "jeff@steamer.clam.com " "<9302191938.AA100936@steamer.clam.com>" "29" "Loop strangeness" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 11:38:26 -0800
From:	jeff@steamer.clam.com (Jeff d'Arcy)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Loop strangeness


I just ran the following two code segments on LambdaMOO, with interesting
results (arr is a 100-element array with each element equal to my .aliases):

	"Step through an array using a simple loop";
	for i in [1..100]
		for int in (arr)
			foo = int;
		endfor
	endfor

	"Step through an array using indices";
	for i in [1..100]
		for int in [1..length(arr)]
			foo = arr[int];
		endfor
	endfor

Either version takes about 20300 ticks.  The first version takes 0 seconds,
while the second takes 10; that's the part I didn't expect.  It seemed to me,
at first glance, that the implicit copy in the first version would be more
expensive than the array index in the second, but the opposite seems to be
true.

For those interested in writing efficient MOO code, this information may be
helpful.  I'd be interested in any explanations or comments from server
hackers, though.

	jeff

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Feb 19 12:48:08 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "12:39:54" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "36" "Re: Loop strangeness" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Fri, 19 Feb 1993 11:38:26 PST.\"
             <9302191938.AA100936@steamer.clam.com>!!"
Message-ID: <9302192039.AA04591@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 12:39:54 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	jeff@steamer.clam.com (Jeff d'Arcy)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Loop strangeness

>   I just ran the following two code segments on LambdaMOO, with
>   interesting results (arr is a 100-element array with each element
>   equal to my .aliases):
>   
>   	"Step through an array using a simple loop";
>   	for i in [1..100]
>   		for int in (arr)
>   			foo = int;
>   		endfor
>   	endfor
>   
>   	"Step through an array using indices";
>   	for i in [1..100]
>   		for int in [1..length(arr)]
>   			foo = arr[int];
>   		endfor
>   	endfor

I'm slightly mystified since the second version should be taking
twice as many ticks (foo = int is 1 tick, whereas foo = arr[int] 
should be 2 ticks).

Before Pavel implemented reference counting the first version was 
*much* faster, since the first loop only copied each element of arr
into int once whereas the second loop was copying all of arr for
each index operation.  Even with reference counting in place, I 
expect that you still have a certain amount of interpretive overhead
for each index operation (and with the length() function for that 
matter).  I'm not sure whether this accounts for all of the difference, 
though...

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From cs.und.nodak.edu!hylander Fri Feb 19 13:30:51 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "13:21:38" "-0800" "\"Jay P. Hylander\"" "hylander@cs.und.nodak.edu" nil "6" "Generic sittable room" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 13:21:38 -0800
From:	"Jay P. Hylander" <hylander@cs.und.nodak.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows Mailing List <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: Generic sittable room
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Does anybody know what the object number for the generic sitable room is I
can't find it anywhere.  Also as a second related question where do I find
things like this that are not it the @classes lists.




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Feb 19 16:43:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "16:37:17" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "62" "Re: Loop strangeness" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <9302191938.AA100936@steamer.clam.com>
Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 16:37:17 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jeff@steamer.clam.com
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Loop strangeness

> Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 11:38:26 -0800
> From:	jeff@steamer.clam.com (Jeff d'Arcy)
> 
> I just ran the following two code segments on LambdaMOO, with interesting
> results (arr is a 100-element array with each element equal to my .aliases):
> 
> 	"Step through an array using a simple loop";
> 	for i in [1..100]
> 		for int in (arr)
> 			foo = int;
> 		endfor
> 	endfor
> 
> 	"Step through an array using indices";
> 	for i in [1..100]
> 		for int in [1..length(arr)]
> 			foo = arr[int];
> 		endfor
> 	endfor
> 
> Either version takes about 20300 ticks.  The first version takes 0 seconds,
> while the second takes 10; that's the part I didn't expect.  It seemed to me,
> at first glance, that the implicit copy in the first version would be more
> expensive than the array index in the second, but the opposite seems to be
> true.

I was unable to reproduce your results on LambdaMOO just now.  I first created
a property on myself containing 100 copies of your player's alias list, which
is a list of two short strings.  I then added the line

	arr = player.arr;

to the front of each of the above code pieces and typed them as `;' (eval)
commands.  The second one ran out of ticks, so I reran both programs using 90
as the limit in the `for i' loop instead of 100.  Both tests succeeded then, so
I ran each one six times.  For the first one, I got these numbers of seconds:

	0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1

and 18183 ticks.  For the second one, I got these numbers of seconds:

	1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1

and 27363 ticks.

The difference in ticks is due to the 90 calls to `length(arr)' and the
90 * 100 uses of indexing in `arr[int]':

	90 * 2 + 90 * 100 * 1 = 9180 = 27363 - 18183

The slight difference in running times is also attributable to the extra
operations performed by the second program.

There is no copy performed of any list or sublist in executing this piece of
code, since the server now uses reference-counting instead of copying wherever
it can.

Conclusion: it does not appear that there is an appreciable CPU time benefit to
writing in one style or the other, but a possibly significant ticks benefit
accrues to code written in the first style.

	Pavel

From iastate.edu!jsmart Fri Feb 19 16:48:50 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "16:36:37" "-0800" "jsmart@iastate.edu" "jsmart@iastate.edu" nil "22" "Re: Generic sittable room" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Fri, 19 Feb 93 13:21:38 -0800.
             <Pine.3.05.9302191538.B4216-8100000@agassiz.cas.und.NoDak.Edu>"
Message-ID: <9302200036.AA18488@iastate.edu>
Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 16:36:37 -0800
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	"Jay P. Hylander" <hylander@cs.und.nodak.edu>
cc:	MOO-Cows Mailing List <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: Re: Generic sittable room



To find things like that on lambdamoo, I would suggest
@add-feature #29148
@branches $room

This won't give you a complete list, because it runs out of ticks.  I suggest doing
a @kids of $room and try to go down the tree as much as possible, then
@branches <object>

I could program this to suspend if needed to get around the tickout problem, but
that would be a Very Spammy Verb(tm).

John Smart@rl
jsmart@iastate.edu
Cassnak@lambdamoo
Cassnak@Monohaze


P.S.  The only other verb on #29148 I'd suggest for major use is
	company <person>
which (in a nut shell) does a @who listing of person.location.contents.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Feb 19 18:52:59 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "18:44:43" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "56" "Re: fun with pass()" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <9301302139.AA01018@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 18:44:43 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: fun with pass()

> Date:	Sat, 30 Jan 1993 13:39:57 -0800
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> I have a subclass of room, call it nifty_room, with lots of verbs and
> properties on it.  One is a look_self property, which looks roughly like
> this:
> 
> this:do_cool_stuff();
> pass(@args);
> 
> The default room look_self then gets called, which is:
> 
>  1:  player:tell(this:title());
>  2:  if (!(args && args[1]))
>  3:    pass();
>  4:  endif
>  5:  if (player.show_exits)
>  6:    this:tell_exits();
>  7:  endif
>  8:  this:tell_contents(setremove(this.contents, player), this.ctype);
> 
> Notice that that has a pass in it too.  Here's the problem:
> 
> I want to make a room which inherits from nifty_room, but doesn't use
> nifty_room's look_self method.  So the natural thing to do is to put a
> look_self method on that room.  But the issue is, I still want to use other
> methods further up in the hierarchy.  Basically, I want to pass to 
> two levels up, skipping the look_self on nifty_room but getting
> the methods on room and the parents of room.  Is this possible?
> How do I get around this problem?

I meant to answer this earlier, but never got around to it.

Amy, the problem here is that you've put too much into nifty_room for some of
your clients.  Don't feel badly, though; this kind of mistake is rife in MOO
programming, especially because we lack multiple inheritance (notably, the
mix-in variety).  The fix is to break nifty_room into two pieces, one
containing most of the code (I'll continue to call this one nifty_room) and
another one, child of the first, containing just the :look_self verb and its
supporting code (call this one nifty_looking_room).  Then you make your new
room a child of nifty_room, not nifty_looking_room:

			  $room
			    |
			nifty_room
			/        \
		  your_room   nifty_looking_room

Alternatively, you rewrite nifty_room:look_self to conditionalize its behavior
in some way that children can affect, such as the value of some property.

All this stuff folks were spouting about coercion seems to me a violation of
good object-oriented program design, in the areas of encapsulation,
abstraction, and information hiding.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Feb 19 18:58:19 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "February" "1993" "18:48:08" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "35" "Re: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <93Feb19.185004pst.58378@mu.parc.xerox.com>
References: <9302021358.AA00954@eigen.jsc.nasa.GOV>
Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 1993 18:48:08 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)

> Date:	Tue, 2 Feb 1993 05:58:37 -0800
> From:	hamilton@eigen.jsc.nasa.gov (Jackie Hamilton)
> 
> I'm wondering if there isn't any way to set a players .location 
> property unreadable.  I suppose it looks like a server change is
> the only way to do it.

That's right.

> We're also wanting to add the ability to hide on our MOO... i.e.
> not show up on who listings, and to anyone but a wizard it'd seem
> like you're not connected.  Problems:  connected_players(), 
> connected_seconds(), and idle_seconds() are all builtin, requiring
> yet another server hack to make it work.

Right again.

> It'd be nice to see a future version support this, or else have a
> wiz-settable option as to whether players can really hide or not,
> rather than forcing us to go in and change the server itself.  One
> of the reasons I like MOO so much is cuz it doesnt usually *need*
> server mods.

Some future version of the server (not the next one, 1.8.0, but maybe the one
after that) will have most of the built-in functions be wizard-only, so that
you can set up whatever kinds of permissions checking you want on your MOO
without having to hack the server.  In that same version of the server, the
.location and .contents properties and the move() function will cease to exist,
being moved into the database as well.  Again, this allows you to set up
whatever permissions for them you like (and, of course, also whatever
location-tracking data representation you want).

Until then, server hacking is the only way to get what you want.

	Pavel

From dartvax.dartmouth.edu!tleg Sun Feb 21 14:30:16 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "February" "1993" "07:17:32" "-0800" "Ted Wallace" "tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu " nil "24" "MOO Questions." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 07:17:32 -0800
From:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Ted Wallace)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	dfwizzes@dartvax.dartmouth.edu
Subject: MOO Questions.

Hi, I'm on the administration of a MUSE currently considering a server
change, and MOO is on the list of possilbities.  Aside from the normal
difficulties of your averaged TinyMU* player moving to MOO, I have concerns
about MOO...

One: How efficient is MOO wrt to softcoding everything?  That is, since new
things are added into the database, rather than the server code, it might
be less efficient (MUSH and MUSE have commands based in the server and it
takes C hacking to add new stuff).  That is - I've seen considerable server
lag on LambdaMOO (~86 people were on that night). What kind of Machine is
Lambda on?  And is large server lag just an accepted consequence of MOO?
How long would a typical delay be on a typical machine for 40 users, and
what is the max delay on a typical machine for a max number of users of,
say, 80 people?

Any additional insights you might give to efficiency/stability/ease of use
issues would be GREATLY appreciated.

Respond to me, or feel free to respond to dfwizzes@dartmouth.edu.

Falryx @ LambdaMOO
F'lyr  @ DragonsFire MUSE



From eos.ncsu.edu!dwharper Sun Feb 21 17:29:36 1993
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	From:	dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu<dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu>
				     ^-missing end of mailbox
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Message-ID: <9302220120.AA03467@c00112-100lez.eos.ncsu.edu>
Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 17:20:15 -0800
From:	dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: 2 things.  Simple things.


I'm from an experimental educational project at NC State University -- we're
using LambdaMOO to run a virtual english class.  I have two questions -- well,
three, actually:

   1.   We have personal notebooks for the students, that are dividing their
books up with property/topics (Dave Van Buren, thankyou).  In any case, we want
to be able to copy the contents of one property on one notebook  to another
notebook; permissions problems aside, the syntax for this is escaping me.  An
 example verb use...

           teach MyNotebook.dogs to YourNotebook

Would (theoretically,) add a property to YourNotebook called dogs and fill it
with what was in MyNotebook.dogs .   Is this feasable at all?  Is there some
nice propery copying utility I should know about?

   2.  Does anyone out there care to share some mud hooks for emacs' Pavel
Curtis' major mode?  We'd like the be able to exchange TeX files and graphics
files and were wondering about others that have done this or want to do this.

   3.  Is there any better place to be asking these decidedly newbie
questions?  I don't know where else to post.  Sorry, thanks.

(Mail me back, I don't want to abuse bandwidth any worse than I have.)

thanks
dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu

From nic.gac.edu!eostrom Sun Feb 21 18:03:20 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "February" "1993" "17:50:44" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@nic.gac.edu " nil "73" "2 things.  Simple things." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: <dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu>'s message of Sun, 21 Feb 1993 17:20:15 PST
 <9302220120.AA03467@c00112-100lez.eos.ncsu.edu>
Message-ID: <9302220150.AA14673@osric>
Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 17:50:44 -0800
From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: 2 things.  Simple things.


>    1.  We have personal notebooks for the students, that are dividing
> their books up with property/topics (Dave Van Buren, thankyou).  In
> any case, we want to be able to copy the contents of one property on
> one notebook to another notebook; permissions problems aside, the
> syntax for this is escaping me.  An example verb use...

>     teach MyNotebook.dogs to YourNotebook

> Would (theoretically,) add a property to YourNotebook called dogs and
> fill it with what was in MyNotebook.dogs .  Is this feasable at all?
> Is there some nice propery copying utility I should know about?

This is fairly simple to write in MOO-code.  Some basic pointers,
since I don't know how proficient you are:

@verb generic_notebook:teach any to this
to add the verb itself.

Within the verb, you'll want to:
  (1) use $code_utils:parse_propref to split dobjstr into an "object"
      part and a "property" part.
  (2) use player.location:match_object(deststr) to match the "object"
      part to an object.
  (2) use add_property() to add the new property to the notebooks.
      This is a tricky part; for it to work, you have to either (a)
      make the "teach" verb wizardly or (b) make the notebooks all
      owned by the same person.  Come to think of it, how are you
      adding topics to the notebook now?
  (3) have a line like
        destination.(topic) = source.(topic);
      to actually copy the text.  You need to put the variable `topic'
      in parentheses to make it clear that you want to refer to the
      property named by the value of the variable `topic', rather than
      the property named "topic".
  (4) provide messages to the player to indicate when something's gone
      wrong.  For example, if :parse_propref returns a false value,
      you probably want to print out a usage message:
         player:tell("Usage:  teach <notebook>.<topic> to <other notebook>");
      And you may want to use
         $command_utils:object_match_failed(iobj, iobjstr);
      to print a message if iobj isn't a useful object.

Feel free to mail me more questions, if this doesn't help.

>    2.  Does anyone out there care to share some mud hooks for emacs'
> Pavel Curtis' major mode?  We'd like the be able to exchange TeX files
> and graphics files and were wondering about others that have done this
> or want to do this.

I'm currently working on a revision to mud.el that provides a
generalized protocol for MOO-to-client communications, like
local-editing and ftp-fetch requests.  I would hold off on any
specific variations on this theme until that's released.  (It
shouldn't be too long now, really.)

I need to revise the documentation I have of this; I can send it to
interested people when I finish the revision.

>    3.  Is there any better place to be asking these decidedly newbie
> questions?  I don't know where else to post.  Sorry, thanks.

MOO-Cows is a fine place for these questions.

> (Mail me back, I don't want to abuse bandwidth any worse than I have.)

I decided to send to the list because I thought the warning about
client stuff might be of general interest.

> thanks
> dwharper@eos.ncsu.edu

Erik/JF

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Feb 21 20:54:58 1993
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References: <9302212219.AA18217@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 20:44:41 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu
cc:	dfwizzes@dartvax.dartmouth.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO Questions.

> Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 07:17:32 -0800
> From:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Ted Wallace)
> 
> One: How efficient is MOO wrt to softcoding everything?  That is, since new
> things are added into the database, rather than the server code, it might
> be less efficient (MUSH and MUSE have commands based in the server and it
> takes C hacking to add new stuff).  That is - I've seen considerable server
> lag on LambdaMOO (~86 people were on that night).  What kind of Machine is
> Lambda on?  And is large server lag just an accepted consequence of MOO?
> How long would a typical delay be on a typical machine for 40 users, and
> what is the max delay on a typical machine for a max number of users of,
> say, 80 people?

LambdaMOO is running on a Sun SPARCstation IPX with 128 Mbytes of physical
memory and 1.4 Gbytes of local disk space.  The database file is currently
weighing in at about 70 Mbytes on disk.

The vast majority of lag on LambdaMOO is caused by the large number of
long-running, CPU-intensive, background tasks running there, especially related
to the role-playing game system some folks wrote.  Tasks created to execute
player commands usually finish in a small fraction of a second, not
contributing to lag hardly at all, even with many (~80) users.  The difficulty
comes when tasks that require a lot of compute-time get started.  The server
currently uses a fixed timeout of 30,000 ticks or 15 seconds for `foreground'
tasks (like player commands) and 20,000 ticks or 5 seconds for `background'
tasks (forked or suspended).  Long-running tasks (e.g., ones that search the
entire database for various kinds of information or perform very complicated
computations) usually use up all of their assigned time each time they get a
chance to run, locking out executions of play commands for that time.  The many
tasks spawned by the RPG system are frequently of this sort and thus slow down
interactive response.

The answer to your specific questions about response with 40 or 80 users,
therefore, almost entirely depends on what's being done in the commands those
users are typing and how many and what kinds of tasks are being done in the
background.  Absent any background tasks, normal MUDding commands (say, emote,
page, text-editing, programming, sending mail, digging, describing, etc.)
induce essentially no perceptible lag.  On a SPARCstation 2 or similar machine
(25 MIPS?  I can't remember) with sufficient physical memory (approximately 1.5
times the size of the DB file on disk), a server running only such commands and
handling 50 or so users should be able to provide delays under a second.

Of course, sometimes the Internet itself provides lag time; these predictions,
of course, assume no such added problems.

> Any additional insights you might give to efficiency/stability/ease of use
> issues would be GREATLY appreciated.

I have no experience running any other kind of MUD server, but I have been told
that the LambdaMOO server code is better written, more easily read and
modified, and much more stable than most others.  LambdaMOO commonly runs for
weeks at a time without being rebooted and has had no crashes attributable to
the server code for many months (unless I'm forgetting something, but I don't
think I am).

Also, because the LambdaMOO server is at the heart of my own professional
research interests (applications of social virtual realities to
non-recreational settings), I am constantly on the lookout for ways to improve
the performance, reliability, and functionality of the server.  While I am very
busy, and thus do not (alas) have the time to make new releases of the code as
frequently as I would like, I do try to respond very quickly to reports of
critical bugs in the code, usually providing fixes via email within hours of my
hearing about the problem.  Thus, I think the server is generally pretty
stable.

Of course, all of the above commentary is coming to you from the author of the
code and not an independent user, so you must take it all with a grain of
salt.

	Pavel/Haakon/Lambda

From switch.g6phf.ampr.org!g6phf Mon Feb 22 01:43:43 1993
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Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 01:26:35 -0800
From:	g6phf@switch.g6phf.ampr.org
To:	moo-cows%xerox.com@kelvin.uk22.bull.com
Subject: Server Crash ??



  Hi, my server crashed recently with the following taken from the log file,
can anyone tell me what signal 10 is please? I am running ver 1.7, on a pc386
running ISC SysV3.2, Oh if its any use, I think there was only myself logged
on, I think I had been idle for a while.

P.S. Please DONT do a reply to this message as it probably wont find me :)
send to the list or to g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
 Thanks, Mike

----logfile-----
Feb 20 04:22:00: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#17# ...
Feb 20 04:23:45: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#17# finished
Feb 20 06:22:01: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#18# ...
Feb 20 06:23:22: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#18# finished
Feb 20 08:22:02: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#19# ...
Feb 20 08:24:17: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#19# finished
Feb 20 10:03:16: *** PANIC: Caught signal 10
Feb 20 10:03:26: PANIC-DUMPING on l.db.new.PANIC ...
Feb 20 10:03:30: *** PANIC: Caught signal 10
Feb 20 10:03:30: *** RECURSIVE PANIC: aborting
----end-log-----

g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu

-- 

+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Mike Dent:-  Morecambe, LANCS UK. | Internet:-  g6phf@kelvin.uk22.bull.com |
| NTS Mail:- G6PHF@GB7ULV.#14.GBR.EU| Amprnet:-   g6phf@g6phf.ampr.org       |
+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------+




From lehigh.edu!tfv0 Mon Feb 22 04:50:44 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "04:42:25" "-0800" "Theodore F Vaida ][" "tfv0@lehigh.edu " nil "23" "Regarding suspend(0) and lag" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <199302221242.AA56881@ns3.CC.Lehigh.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 04:42:25 -0800
From:	tfv0@lehigh.edu (Theodore F Vaida ][)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

Since the Lambda MOO server is non-premptive on task execution, it implicitly
relies on progammers to be nice and include "suspend(0);" or such inside
loops or breaking up secions of code to allow for smoother operations.
Have you checked the code on the LambdaCore for these?  I remember
something in one of your release otices about a new execution style for
suspend() instructions within the server.  Do they actually cost a process
any time?  I'm considering just going stright through my MOO with a
surgical hand and adding a suspend(0); in EVERY verb that loops or takes
any signifigant time.  Anyone have any reasons I should not?



---------=======================================================---------
                  ->POLAR CAPS<- or tfv0@lehigh.edu
Student Konsultant Making the world safe for computing!
"Never before have we owed so little to so many..."- R.T.Folk
"One must not confuse John Dunne's famous quote `No man is an Island' with
 New York Telephone's `We're all connected'" - Dad
"Trust no one, and be honest with all"  _Claudius_the_God_, and Dad
   Paranoid, but it'll keep you out of trouble...
	   PGP2.0 Public encryption key is availble on request.
---------=======================================================---------


From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Mon Feb 22 07:57:01 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 02:44:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

> Since the Lambda MOO server is non-premptive on task execution, it 
> implicitly relies on progammers to be nice and include "suspend(0);" or 
> such inside loops or breaking up secions of code to allow for smoother 
> operations. 

I confess I don't know quite what you mean here.  Spammy verbs will
generally require a suspend() of some sort, else run out of ticks and
die unhappily.  I would like to think that LambdaMOO implicitly relies
on programmers to write good code, as opposed to relying on them to 
properly handle spammy code.

> Have you checked the code on the LambdaCore for these?  

I think that
  $command_utils:suspend_if_needed()
is a quite suitable LambdaCore construct that doesn't actually put the
server to the trouble of suspending the task if it doesn't need to be
suspended.

> I remember something in one of your release otices about a new execution 
> style for suspend() instructions within the server.  Do they actually cost 
> a process any time?

Not that I'm a server hacker, but I believe this is correct.  I remember
reading somewhere that a suspended task starts with a fresh set of ticks 
(albeit a smaller set than a new task) and a new taskid.

> I'm considering just going stright through my MOO with a surgical hand and 
> adding a suspend(0); in EVERY verb that loops or takes any signifigant 
> time.  Anyone have any reasons I should not?

Sticking a suspend(0) in a spammy verb that has an unpleasant loop will
make that verb spam the MOO forever and ever.  IMO, suspend() should be
used sparingly when it's being used to save ticks (I favor the use of
$command_utils:suspend_if_needed for the preservation of ticks) and it 
should only be put in where it's -needed- -- not just everywhere.

Seth / Blackbriar


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Mon Feb 22 10:09:08 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:59:15 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: fun with pass()


> All this stuff folks were spouting about coercion seems to me a violation of
> good object-oriented program design, in the areas of encapsulation,
> abstraction, and information hiding.
>
>	Pavel

Mmm, well, ok, I'm nailed.

N.


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Feb 22 11:49:47 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 11:42:45 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

| Since the Lambda MOO server is non-premptive on task execution, it implicitly
| relies on progammers to be nice and include "suspend(0);" or such inside
| loops or breaking up secions of code to allow for smoother operations.

Shades of MacOS!  ...  Seems like every new software environment has to
repeat this particular bit of history.  Any ETA estimate for a fix?


From cool.vortech.com!clay Mon Feb 22 12:57:58 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "12:45:02" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "25" "Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)
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Forwarded message:
> From parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com Mon Feb 22 13:54:45 1993
> Date: 	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 11:42:45 PST
> From: jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
> Posted-Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 11:42:45 -0800
> Message-Id: <9302221942.AA10454@glia.biostr.washington.edu>
> To: moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
> Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag
> 
> | Since the Lambda MOO server is non-premptive on task execution, it implicitly
> | relies on progammers to be nice and include "suspend(0);" or such inside
> | loops or breaking up secions of code to allow for smoother operations.
> 
> Shades of MacOS!  ...  Seems like every new software environment has to
> repeat this particular bit of history.  Any ETA estimate for a fix?
> 
> 

I'd prefer it not to be "fixed."  There is a certain safety in the current
way of during things - that being, you are always certain that (if you
don't suspend()) your data will not change beneath you.

If preemption was added to the server, you'd have to add memory protection 
and locking as well.  Yuck.
 

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Feb 22 13:30:21 1993
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From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

clay@cool.vortech.com:
| I'd prefer it not to be "fixed."  There is a certain safety in the current
| way of during things - that being, you are always certain that (if you
| don't suspend()) your data will not change beneath you.
|
| If preemption was added to the server, you'd have to add memory protection
| and locking as well.  Yuck.

Hmm.  I frankly can't imagine switching to a non-premptive unix.  *grin*.
I'd be curious for a concise proof of the "you'd have to add memory protection
and locking as well.  Yuck." assertion, and/or an explanation of why this
merits a 'yuck'.  I'd not want the application-level programmer to have to
deal much with locking, but I can't see a clear proof that this is needful.
Then again, it's been a decade or two since I studied this stuff, possibly
Clay is more up to speed on this than I ... ?


From netcom.com!dwb Mon Feb 22 13:36:52 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "13:35:09" "-0800" "David W. Berry" "dwb@netcom.com " nil "16" "Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 13:35:09 -0800
From:	dwb@netcom.com (David W. Berry)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

At 0442 2/22/93 -0800, Theodore F Vaida ][ wrote:
>Since the Lambda MOO server is non-premptive on task execution, it implicitly
>relies on progammers to be nice and include "suspend(0);" or such inside

Which brings up an interesting point.  How much code would be broken, and
how much simpler would life be for programmers if looping constructs such
as for and while included an implicit suspend_if_needed at the server
level?





David W. Berry           dwb@netcom.com         (408) 321-0154
Greenwing Enterprises;  394 Southbay Dr.;  San Jose, CA  95134


From cool.vortech.com!clay Mon Feb 22 13:56:04 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "13:52:28" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "40" "Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Forwarded message:
> 
> clay@cool.vortech.com:
> | I'd prefer it not to be "fixed."  There is a certain safety in the current
> | way of during things - that being, you are always certain that (if you
> | don't suspend()) your data will not change beneath you.
> |
> | If preemption was added to the server, you'd have to add memory protection
> | and locking as well.  Yuck.
> 
> Hmm.  I frankly can't imagine switching to a non-premptive unix.  *grin*.
> I'd be curious for a concise proof of the "you'd have to add memory protection
> and locking as well.  Yuck." assertion, and/or an explanation of why this
> merits a 'yuck'.  I'd not want the application-level programmer to have to
> deal much with locking, but I can't see a clear proof that this is needful.
> Then again, it's been a decade or two since I studied this stuff, possibly
> Clay is more up to speed on this than I ... ?

Well, take two copies of a task that work on the same data.  At some point,
the task will enter a critical section (where it wishes to read and write the
data, for instance).  Suppose I read the data, then am pre-empted, and then
you write to the data, then I get the pointer again and I write out the
data copy I had.  Boom.  Poof.  Your changes are gone.

That's in an unlocked system, like Moo is now.  You'd have to add some sort of
data locking to keep the above from happening.  And even then, without good
programmers, or good hand-holding by the server, you are threatened with
deadlock.

Yuck.

Even Unix, a multi-tasking operating system, must bow to the God of 
Sequentiality.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Feb 22 14:38:57 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "14:33:32" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "87" "Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:33:32 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)

(Apologies to those who find this uninteresting.  But lags due to lack
of proper pre-emption affect most of the mudding community, so this
seems of sufficiently general interest to warrant general posting for
awhile longer.)

clay@cool.vortech.com:

| Well, take two copies of a task that work on the same data.  At some point,
| the task will enter a critical section (where it wishes to read and write the
| data, for instance).  Suppose I read the data, then am pre-empted, and then
| you write to the data, then I get the pointer again and I write out the
| data copy I had.  Boom.  Poof.  Your changes are gone.

*nod*.  The generic Databases 101 explanation of why we need to
enforce serializability on transactions...

| That's in an unlocked system, like Moo is now.
| You'd have to add some sort of
| data locking to keep the above from happening.

Clay, I'm still vague on what you are defining as 'locking', and why
you're confident the cure would be worse than the disease.  As someone
who expects to be tackling this problem in a month or so, I have more
than an academic interest in this: If I'm about to waste time trying
to square the circle, I'd just as soon know about it ahead of time.

Back when I took database theory, it was considered sufficient that a
sequence of transactions be serializable: That their total effect be
equivalent to some serial sequence of them.  It was not required that
all transactions actually run in serial sequence non-preemptively, nor
was the implementor required to use explicit or implicit locks.  All
that was required was that serializability be maintained, by whatever
means.

Clay:

(1) Is the serializability criterion used in the database world
    insufficient for the requirements of the mud world for some
    reason?  I don't see why this would be, but I admit it's
    entirely possible within my limited understanding.  You're
    not being very clear on the semantics you're trying to enforce
    (or perhaps I'm being too dense to follow?) so I'm simply
    assuming serializability, without meaning to put words in your
    mouth...

(2) When you say 'locking', are you using the term loosely to
    encompass all possible means of enforcing serialability (or
    whatever semantics you have in mind), or are you specifically
    asserting that nonlocking protocols from the database world
    will fail in the mud context?  I don't see why this would be,
    but again, this may reflect my limited understanding.

| And even then, without good
| programmers, or good hand-holding by the server, you are threatened with
| deadlock.

I'm unclear whether you refer to good application-language
programmers, or good server programmers.  Deadlock is certainly a
problem some serializability mechanisms need to deal with; and in fact
the database world has been doing this for some years now.  (I invite
you to read the literature if you don't believe me.)  Is there
something about the mud environment which makes the problem more
intractable?

| Yuck.

Um.  Is this 'yuck' at the concept of having good programmers around,
or at having "good hand-holding by the server"?  We appear to already
have the former, and if the latter means a well-implemented server
that handles preemptive multi-tasking well, I don't quite follow why
this would be disgusting per se... ?

| Even Unix, a multi-tasking operating system, must bow to the God of 
| Sequentiality.

*blink*.  I confess the point of this comment completely escapes me.
Unix appears to me a nice demonstration of the benefits of pre-emptive
multitasking, I'm running a long compile in the background as I type
this, and am grateful that I don't have to wait for it to finish
before seeing the characters echo.  Yes, unix contains mechanisms to
deal with problems raised by pre-emptive multitasking.  It also plays
host to database systems that implement multithreading internally, and
various other multi-threaded programs.  The success of all this tends
more to incline me to believe that pre-emptive tasking has proven
benefits, than to drive me back to non-preemptive CP/M (say) ... :)



From soda.berkeley.edu!lim Mon Feb 22 14:54:38 1993
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From:	Lincoln Myers <lim@soda.berkeley.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: nonpreemptiveness

jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero) says:
> Shades of MacOS!  ...  Seems like every new software environment has to
> repeat this particular bit of history.  Any ETA estimate for a fix?

I can certainly agree with that view with respect to operating systems.
Having all other programs stop when you're selecting from a menu in MS
Windows makes it hard to make programs with significant external
constraints.  (e.g.  music players, communication programs, ...)

However, in a mud where these requirements are few and there are many shared
resources (e.g. all properties), having actions be non-preemptive seems a
good choice, since too-long-running verbs can be tolerated or fixed better
than deadlocking-verbs can, I would think.

TinyMUSE (and probably all TinyMUDs) does something similar to what Lambda
does, but the only way to loop or call verbs or otherwise call many commands
repeatedly is with @trigger or @wait, which add new commands to the end of
the queue, thereby acting sorta like suspend().  Thus I don't find Lambda's
non-preemptive system to be unusual.

CoolMUD is the only mud that I know of that has lock/unlock, and that's
because it's made to run on distributed systems.  It deals with protection
and mutual exclusion by having properties only readable by the object in
question--others have to use the object's verbs to get/set.  Naturally the
maker of the object must still be careful.

Lincoln

From cool.vortech.com!clay Mon Feb 22 15:05:09 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "14:57:00" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "22" "Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:57:00 -0800
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)
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In reply to Jeff's endless replies:

Sigh.
 
Look, I'd prefer not to have to deal with the problems
raised by pre-emption of moo tasks unless they are significantly reduced
to the level of the individual programmer needing no concern for them,
whereas you seem to think that pre-emption in any form is a Good Thing(tm).

And it's not like my opinion has any weight anyway.  

I stated my opinion.  It is contrary to yours.

Enough said.


-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From aero.org!obrien Mon Feb 22 15:13:10 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 15:09:32 -0800
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

clay@cool.vortech.com:
>| If preemption was added to the server, you'd have to add memory protection
>| and locking as well.  Yuck.

jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero):
>Hmm.  I frankly can't imagine switching to a non-premptive unix.  *grin*.
>I'd be curious for a concise proof of the "you'd have to add memory protection
>and locking as well.  Yuck." assertion, ...

Well, the first real multi-user (the PDP-6 ran two users) version of UNIX
ran on a PDP-11/20, which had no hardware memory protection.  Of course, all
the terminals were in the same room, so one person would raise his head and
ask, "a.out?"  And everyone else in the room would save the file they were
editing...

In a correctly coded MOO server, processes are already encapsulated and can't
mess up each other's data items.  Preemption would require the installation
of server-mediated semaphores so that processes acting on behalf of the
DB in general would be able to lock critical code sections, it's true.

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Feb 22 15:29:41 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "11:03:30" "-0800" "\"J.Watson\"" "cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "39" "Strange problem." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 11:03:30 -0800
From:	"J.Watson" <cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: <@ccub.wlv.ac.uk:cm8224@scitsc.wolverhampton.ac.UK>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Strange problem.

I will explain this carefully so that you will understand.

I am Arch-Wizard at this mud in Wolverhampton England, today Whilst playing I
found that a character was moving me around the mud at will. This may not at
first seem strange, however I had removed the @move command from all players,
so
there was no way it should of happened. Builders also have the @move command
limited to those items they control as Destinations, I checked the characters
and
they were ordinary characters.

I tried a test with another character and found that he too could move me
(normal
player again) This is strange, since I should not be able to me moved by mere
mortals. I eventually had to add an @move command to $player which returned
E_PERM, this seems to have aleviated the problem.

I was wondering weither anyone else had had similar problems.

Yours
James Watson
Dudley@UWMud

Sex is not the answer.  Sex is the question.  "Yes" is the answer.
        - Swami X

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account
be allowed to do the job.
        - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion.  Not only do
they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also
on ability.
        - T Lehrer

ASSEMBLER is a language.  Any language that can take a half-dozen keystrokes
and compile it down to one byte of code is all right in my books.  Though for
the REAL programmer, assembler is a waste of time.  Why use a compiler when you
can code directly into memory through a front panel.

From phyvs0.anu.edu.au!dxb105 Mon Feb 22 18:20:04 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "February" "1993" "19:05:05" "-0800" "David Bofinger" "dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au" nil "17" "RPG CPU hogging" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 19:05:05 -0800
From:	David Bofinger <dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au
Subject: RPG CPU hogging

I never realised it was that serious. The problem is that #46:time_trouble()
has to work either for a direct player-initiated task or for a fork/suspended
task. Because the only method it has for telling whether it is using too much
time or not is by seeing how much it has left, the algorithm, which works fine
for background tasks (uses a few seconds at most) tends to use up to 13 or so
seconds on a foreground task. Maybe this is sloppy coding, for my own sake I'll
hope it's been caused by server changes since it was written.

I can hack around this, in an ugly fashion, but maybe tasks need more info
about this, e.g. builtins that tell them what the task's initial limit was. Or
maybe they already exist and I've forgotten/never knew.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Bofinger	AARNet:	dxb105@phys.anu.edu.au
                Snail:	Dept. of Theoretical Physics, RSPhysSE, ANU, ACT, 2601
		MOO:	The apologetic ballhog.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Tue Feb 23 10:52:03 1993
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Date:	Tue, 23 Feb 1993 01:42:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

> Which brings up an interesting point.  How much code would be broken, and
> how much simpler would life be for programmers if looping constructs such
> as for and while included an implicit suspend_if_needed at the server
> level?

I suspect life would be -much- simpler, but I also suspect that people would 
end up with constantly running tasks and never notice it (I find running out 
of ticks to be a USEFUL thing, because it tells me where I'm being 
inefficient).  The tick restriction is a -useful- thing.

Seth / Blackbriar














From netman.widener.edu!jrp Tue Feb 23 11:40:18 1993
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Date:	Tue, 23 Feb 1993 11:26:15 -0800
From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Call for Submissions: Questions and Answers for a MOO FAQ


Okay folks, there's plenty of interest in such a beast. I'd like to get
ideas, suggestions, questions, and answers to build a MOO FAQ. Haakon's
Manual is a reference, and the users are demanding cheat sheets.

So, please send me your ideas, experiences, and well-known tricks and
traps for the users of MOO. :)

Thanks, --JRP [Shirgall@LambdaMOO]


From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Tue Feb 23 14:28:19 1993
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Sender: <@ccub.wlv.ac.uk:cm8224@scitsc.wolverhampton.ac.UK>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Strange Problem

> This has prolly been answered already, but...
>
> When Generic Random Player typed @move <you>, they were in fact invoking the
@> move verb on YOUR character (since nothing on theirs or the rooms matched
@move)...

I noticed this, but the first line set_caller_perms should have taken care of
the permissions so that it shouldn't happen.

James Watson
Dudley@UWMud

Sex is not the answer.  Sex is the question.  "Yes" is the answer.
        - Swami X

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account
be allowed to do the job.
        - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion.  Not only do
they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also
on ability.
        - T Lehrer

ASSEMBLER is a language.  Any language that can take a half-dozen keystrokes
and compile it down to one byte of code is all right in my books.  Though for
the REAL programmer, assembler is a waste of time.  Why use a compiler when you
can code directly into memory through a front panel.

From iastate.edu!jsmart Wed Feb 24 00:12:28 1993
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Date:	Tue, 23 Feb 1993 23:57:36 -0800
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Parser Madness


I am currently helping to program an rpg moo.  This moo won't allow
players to ever see object numbers, since it would be a peek 'behind
the stage'.

Therefore, if there are 3 dogs in the room {#501, 502, 503}, Joe
Player won't be able to "look #501".  He'll have to type what he
knows, which is "look dog" and the server will come back "I don't know
which dog you mean."

Has anyone done a reliable way of overcoming this?


John@RL
jsmart@iastate.edu
Cassnak@lambdamoo
Kade@Monohaze

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Feb 24 06:40:10 1993
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 06:25:52 -0800
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	jsmart@iastate.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows)
Subject: Re: Parser Madness

> 
> 
> I am currently helping to program an rpg moo.  This moo won't allow
> players to ever see object numbers, since it would be a peek 'behind
> the stage'.
> 
> Therefore, if there are 3 dogs in the room {#501, 502, 503}, Joe
> Player won't be able to "look #501".  He'll have to type what he
> knows, which is "look dog" and the server will come back "I don't know
> which dog you mean."
> 
> Has anyone done a reliable way of overcoming this?
> 
> 
> John@RL
> jsmart@iastate.edu
> Cassnak@lambdamoo
> Kade@Monohaze
> 
As long as your players are not .programmers then editing $string_utils
:literal_object() which is called by the matching routines:

$string_utils:literal_object   this none this
string = args[1];
if (!string)
  return $nothing;
elseif (string[1] == "#" && E_TYPE != (object = $code_utils:toobj(string)))
  if ($object_utils:has_property(player, "builder") && player.builder)
    return object;
  else
    return $nothing;
  endif
elseif (string[1] == "$" && ($object_utils:has_property(#0, pn =
 string[2..length(string)]) && typeof(object = #0.(pn)) == OBJ))
  return object;
else
  return $failed_match;
endif

----
I have a .builder bit that the program checks which programmers also inherit,
so you could change that to:

  if (player.programmer)
    return object;
  else
    return $nothing;
  endif;


-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request
  Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux)
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If a girl rejects you, don't doubt it's part of the plan" -Deborah Ann Gibson

From whyanext.com!eric Wed Feb 24 09:34:16 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "09:22:11" "-0800" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " "<9302241722.AA02753@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>" "18" "vm_allocate failed" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:22:11 -0800
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: vm_allocate failed

I've had this problem 2 or 3 times now in the past few days.  I'm  
quite new to this, so can someone give me some tips on resolving the  
problem?

Thanks,

Eric


Feb 24 00:39:11: CREATED: Dominator (#564) on 6 from 192.83.245.254
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
Feb 24 00:54:52: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 760) failed!
Feb 24 00:54:52: PANIC-DUMPING on output.db.PANIC ...
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
Feb 24 00:55:04: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 1280) failed!
Feb 24 00:55:04: *** RECURSIVE PANIC: aborting
IOT trap

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Feb 24 09:54:38 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "09:47:53" "-0800" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "65" "Re: vm_allocate failed" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-To: <9302241722.AA02753@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>; from "Eric Schwartz" at Feb 24, 93 9:22 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:47:53 -0800
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
Cc:	moo-cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows)
Subject: Re: vm_allocate failed

> 
> I've had this problem 2 or 3 times now in the past few days.  I'm  
> quite new to this, so can someone give me some tips on resolving the  
> problem?
> 
> 
> Feb 24 00:39:11: CREATED: Dominator (#564) on 6 from 192.83.245.254
> memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
> Feb 24 00:54:52: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 760) failed!
> Feb 24 00:54:52: PANIC-DUMPING on output.db.PANIC ...
> memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
> memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
> Feb 24 00:55:04: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 1280) failed!
> Feb 24 00:55:04: *** RECURSIVE PANIC: aborting
> IOT trap
> 

Well, your the only other person who has this problem apart from me it
seems!!!!! In fact, its nice to know I'm not the only one. Maybe with
you, me and Pavel we could isolate the problem. The error is coming
from the kernel it appears. It is caused by a malloc() returning a 
nil pointer. It can happen at anytime that a malloc() is called. Although
normally it happens after a large memory request it does not always happen.
I have a feeling it may be due to fragmentation and contigous memory. There
is no one else using the machine at the time of the crashes (it makes no
difference) and plenty of virtual memory available. I am running a NeXT
Color Slab running 2.1 Nextstep with 12mb of memory. The reason for the
RECURSIVE panic is because when the database dumps the VERBS it needs
to allocate memory to write them (it expands them as they are written)
which causes the second panic. [Pavel - is this expansion needed?]

Pavel - Can we get this fixed somehow? I'm an idiot when it comes to
debugging. I would welcome giving you any needed resources to fix this.

Example from my current log:

Feb 22 15:18:21: CLIENT DISCONNECTED: Lister (#580) on 6 from 141.241.4.25
Feb 22 15:21:05: ACCEPT: #-30 on 6 from 137.82.43.9
Feb 22 15:21:07: DISCONNECTED: #-30 on 6 from 137.82.43.9
Feb 22 15:53:08: ACCEPT: #-31 on 6 from 128.210.10.8
Feb 22 15:53:08: CONNECTED: Phaedrus (#755) on 6 from 128.210.10.8
Feb 22 15:58:11: ACCEPT: #-32 on 7 from 128.54.30.38
Feb 22 15:58:26: CONNECTED: Usagi (#298) on 7 from 128.54.30.38
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
Feb 22 15:59:17: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 496) failed!
Feb 22 15:59:17: PANIC-DUMPING on dump.PANIC ...
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
Feb 22 15:59:42: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 24) failed!
Feb 22 15:59:42: *** RECURSIVE PANIC: aborting
.....(and later)......
Feb 23 14:35:55: ACCEPT: #-36 on 6 from 128.123.62.4
Feb 23 14:35:58: CONNECTED: Druid (#641) on 6 from 128.123.62.4
Feb 23 14:36:03: DISCONNECTED: Druid (#641) on 6 from 128.123.62.4
Feb 23 14:36:55: ACCEPT: #-37 on 6 from 128.210.10.8
Feb 23 14:36:56: CONNECTED: Phaedrus (#755) on 6 from 128.210.10.8
Feb 23 14:37:05: ACCEPT: #-38 on 7 from 130.160.232.75
Feb 23 14:37:07: DISCONNECTED: Phaedrus (#755) on 6 from 128.210.10.8
Feb 23 14:37:10: CONNECTED: Angelo (#409) on 7 from 130.160.232.75
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
Feb 23 14:40:06: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 24) failed!
memory allocation error: vm_allocate failed
Feb 23 14:40:06: *** PANIC: memory allocation (size 12) failed!
Feb 23 14:40:06: *** RECURSIVE PANIC: aborting


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 09:58:29 1993
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:50:47 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eric@whyanext.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: vm_allocate failed

Your operating system refused a request for more memory by the server.  Perhaps
you have run out of swap space?  If you have the option LOG_COMMANDS turned on,
you should turn it off, since it uses a fair amount of memory unless you
checkpoint pretty frequently.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Feb 24 09:59:29 1993
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:53:06 -0800
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Subject: Re: vm_allocate failed

> 
>Your operating system refused a request for more memory by the server.  Perhaps
>you have run out of swap space?  If you have the option LOG_COMMANDS turned on,
>you should turn it off, since it uses a fair amount of memory unless you
>checkpoint pretty frequently.

Since the OS refused a request when my DB was half the size it is now,
and it still does. It does not seem the size is the problem (swap file
can grow on the NeXT to 160MB and its only at 20MB the default right now)
it seems the fragmentation of malloc() and release may be the problem.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request
  Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux)
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If a girl rejects you, don't doubt it's part of the plan" -Deborah Ann Gibson

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 10:09:20 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "09:59:49" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "39" "Re: Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:59:49 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

> Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1993 07:37:51 -0800
> From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
> 
> I was contemplating the permissions system of the moo language and I was
> wondering about the feasibility of separating the perms of the owner from the
> id of the owner.  The set_task_perms system of changing task permissions
> seems to be a bit limiting to me.  What I have in mind exactly is the
> user/group/ other permission system of unix translated into a form for moo.
> 
> Instead of a verb just having a owner field perhaps it could also have a
> group field, from a group list defined on a system object. Entries such as
> wizard programmer builder guest rpg etc...
> 
> The motivation behind this is to separate the ownership from the permissions
> issue of calling verbs. That may not be the best reason for having such a
> system but I think it would be handy for other reasons as well, group
> ownership by programmers for projects comes to mind.
> 
> [To Pavel Curtis] Would this be extremely hard to do?  Would it be possible
> to do it in such a way as to retain compatibility with current cores? Pros?
> Cons?

I don't think I understand the motivation behind your suggestion, but I do have
some comments on it.  First, I believe that it is very important that the
permissions with which a verb runs be the same as the set of people who can
change the verb's code.  Otherwise, there is no responsibility built into the
system and trojan horses become too easy.

Rather than add groups to the system, I intend simply to remove the current
restriction that only `players' can own things.  This will open up the
possibility of creating what I call `corporations,' entities that own things
and have their own separate identities from the set of players who are their
`members.'  Simple DB code would keep track of who's allowed to work on behalf
of what corporations and, also, of which corporation a given player is acting
for at any given moment.  In essence, this allows the same kind of
collaboration as a bunch of players getting together and creating a
pseudo-player that they share, but much more conveniently.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 10:16:23 1993
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References: <9302241722.AA02753@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>
	<9302241747.AA23007@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 10:06:18 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu
cc:	eric@whyanext.com, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: vm_allocate failed

> Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:47:53 -0800
> From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> 
> The reason for the RECURSIVE panic is because when the database dumps the
> VERBS it needs to allocate memory to write them (it expands them as they are
> written) which causes the second panic. [Pavel - is this expansion needed?]

In the current database format, yes, since the verbs are maintained in compiled
form internally and in source form on disk.  The probability of needing to
allocate during checkpointing could be lowered by keeping track of a pool of
buffers, but it could not easily be reduced to zero.

However, since the disk-based server maintains verbs in compiled form on disk,
this problem won't exist any longer once that's released, so I'm none too hot
to try to fix it now.

> Pavel - Can we get this fixed somehow? I'm an idiot when it comes to
> debugging. I would welcome giving you any needed resources to fix this.

The only way I could try to fix it would be to look at the kernel sources for
your machine, and that only if I had much more time than I do.  Have you
considered complaining to NeXT?

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 10:22:04 1993
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 10:13:13 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

> Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:29:01 -0800
> From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
> 
> (It >does< sound as though perhaps the debug flag didn't work
> out as well as hoped... I'd be curious to hear a retrospective
> of what the moo designers would/n't do differently in light of
> hindsight...)

The debug flag was part of the server I inherited from Ghond back in the summer
on 1990.  I didn't like it then and I don't like it now, but help is finally on
the way.  In release 1.8.0, coming `soon', a far better system of exception
handling is implemented and use of the debug flag is, as we say, `deprecated'.
As of the release after that, the debug flag will be history.

	Pavel

From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Wed Feb 24 10:56:50 1993
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From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

Pavel comments:

> Rather than add groups to the system, I intend simply to remove the 
> current restriction that only `players' can own things.  This will open up 
> the possibility of creating what I call `corporations,' entities that own 
> things and have their own separate identities from the set of players who 
> are their`members.'

I'm not clear what this will gain.  It's simple, for example, to implement
an in-DB version of multiple ownership.  On OpalMOO, we've created what
we call $ownership_utils, which contain the important server builtins
(e.g. $ownership_utils:add_verb and $ownership_utils:add_property) and which 
work off of a corified and protected .owners property.  Properties can be 
`shared' in a similar way by adding two more fake `builtins' which are 
$ownership_utils:property_value() and $ownership_utils:set_property_value().  
There are, to be sure, some more security issues, for example ownership of 
verbs after editing, which have been handled in what I consider satisfactory 
ways.

This works around the server requirements, yet it still makes players own 
things themselves.  And rather than creating a communal owner for groups of 
objects, it's the groups of objects having -sets- of owners.  We've found 
this to be terribly useful as we work on several large collaborative 
projects.

> Simple DB code would keep track of who's allowed to 
> work on behalf of what corporations and, also, of which corporation a given 
> player is acting for at any given moment.  In essence, this allows the same 
> kind of collaboration as a bunch of players getting together and creating a
> pseudo-player that they share, but much more conveniently.

While I think this sounds like a neat idea, I'm not sure what real use it 
would be.  The -easiest- way to handle this, it seems, is through multiple 
ownership, simply put, and this is quite doable in-DB.  It seems that more 
and more complications would be added if we had to keep track of the `mode' 
or `corporation' a player's acting in/for at any given time.

Seth / Blackbriar (all i want is diskbasing, mamma)


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Feb 24 11:02:51 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "11:02:33" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" "<9302241902.AA09451@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>" "6" "Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-To: Pavel Curtis's message of Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:59:49 PST <93Feb24.100107pst.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:02:33 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Permissions system of moo

>Rather than add groups to the system, I intend simply to remove the current
>restriction that only `players' can own things.

Does this mean that it will be possible to set_task_perms to a
non-player object?  Hurrah, bugs that make puppets not able to use the
"take" verb go away!

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Feb 24 11:17:25 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "11:08:55" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "4" "Parser Madness" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "jsmart@iastate.edu's message of Tue, 23 Feb 1993 23:57:36 PST <9302240757.AA04114@iastate.edu>"
Message-ID: <9302241908.AA10202@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:08:55 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	jsmart@iastate.edu
cc:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Parser Madness

On LambdaMOO there is a Matching Room (it's one of the base parents of
the RPG rooms; I don't remember the number offhand).  This provides
support in its :huh verbs for "look first dog" and "take second dog's
sword" and so forth.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 11:23:26 1993
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References: <9302241902.AA09451@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
	<93Feb24.100107pst.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:12:26 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu
cc:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

> Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:02:33 -0800
> From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
> 
> >Rather than add groups to the system, I intend simply to remove the current
> >restriction that only `players' can own things.
> 
> Does this mean that it will be possible to set_task_perms to a
> non-player object?  Hurrah, bugs that make puppets not able to use the
> "take" verb go away!

Right.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 11:52:52 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "11:43:00" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "31" "Re: Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <2B8BC25D@campgate.onet.edu>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:43:00 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

> Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 05:45:00 -0800
> From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
> 
> This works around the server requirements, yet it still makes players own 
> things themselves.  And rather than creating a communal owner for groups of 
> objects, it's the groups of objects having -sets- of owners.  We've found 
> this to be terribly useful as we work on several large collaborative 
> projects.

The question is with whose permissions a group-owned verb operates.  I
certainly don't want any verbs that I own with a group of others to run with
*my* permissions.  By symmetry, that verb couldn't be owned by *any* of the
members of the group, so who is there to own it?  In my system, the corporation
owns it, so the verb can only read and modify the things that the corporation
can read or modify, which seems just right to me.

> While I think this sounds like a neat idea, I'm not sure what real use it 
> would be.  The -easiest- way to handle this, it seems, is through multiple 
> ownership, simply put, and this is quite doable in-DB.  It seems that more 
> and more complications would be added if we had to keep track of the `mode' 
> or `corporation' a player's acting in/for at any given time.

Fortunately, the only operations you need to know this for is
verb/property/object creation.  Editing the code for verbs or the values of
properties does not require a `mode', since you can just check for membership
in the corporation.  I don't know about other folks, but I tend to do my
creations in fairly large clumps, so it might work out fine to simply `time
out' my decision about what corporation I'm representing.  Also, one could
default on verbs and properties to the owner of the object.

	Pavel

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Feb 24 11:57:43 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "11:49:17" "-0800" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@cs.mun.ca" nil "42" "Re> Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:49:17 -0800
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Permissions system of moo

>Pavel comments:
>
>> Rather than add groups to the system, I intend simply to remove the 
>> current restriction that only `players' can own things.  This will open up 
>> the possibility of creating what I call `corporations,' entities that own 
>> things and have their own separate identities from the set of players who 
>> are their`members.'

That sounds cool.  Might even help with the security involved with moo, depends
on how all the side effects are taken care of.  If I have an object that owns
it's own verbs then the scope of possible abuse is narrowed.  Depends on what
decisions are made when implemented I guess.  Would there be objects with the
equivalent of wiz permissions?!?  Or does that go beyond the scope of the
intention of doing such a thing in the first place?

>Blackbriar comments:
>While I think this sounds like a neat idea, I'm not sure what real use it 
>would be.  The -easiest- way to handle this, it seems, is through multiple 
>ownership, simply put, and this is quite doable in-DB.  It seems that more 
>and more complications would be added if we had to keep track of the `mode' 
>or `corporation' a player's acting in/for at any given time.
>
>Seth / Blackbriar (all i want is diskbasing, mamma)
>

All it takes is for the capability to exist, the applications will follow.  I
like the non-player ownership of stuff just on the idea of it. Perhaps $hacker
verbs could be replaced with the object owning it's own verbs or something.
The $puppet aspect would be neat as well.

On a different note, how doable is some form of symbolic links for moo?  As an
alternative to multiple inheritance if you could just add links to the verbs
you wanted on your object that would behave as if they were @copied to the
parent of the object, ditto for properties.  

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Feb 24 12:17:47 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "12:15:26" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "24" "Re: Permissions system of moo " "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 24 Feb 1993 11:43:00 PST."
             <93Feb24.114315pst.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 12:15:26 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo 

>   so it might work out fine to simply `time
>   out' my decision about what corporation I'm representing.  

For that matter, those of us who are paranoid will want to have a
default corporation that is distinct from the actual player.  (i.e.,
debug the verb while it's living in the default corporation; once
one is reasonably sure it's airtight, chown it).

One could even imagine $no_one as the default corporation for
everyone, though it would probably be better if everyone had a 
default corporation to himself.

And then there's always:

  >@verb bo:diddle this none this
  Caution!  You are about to create a verb owned by yourself that anyone can 
  use against you.  Are you sure you want to do this?  [Enter `yes' or `no']

but the less said about this, the better...
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Wed Feb 24 12:18:07 1993
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Message-ID: <2B8BD43D@campgate.onet.edu>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 07:02:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

Pavel responds to me:

>> This works around the server requirements, yet it still makes players own 
>> things themselves.  And rather than creating a communal owner for groups 
>> of objects, it's the groups of objects having -sets- of owners.  We've 
>> found this to be terribly useful as we work on several large 
>> collaborative projects.

> The question is with whose permissions a group-owned verb operates.  

The method we used to determine this is as follows:

If I set the code on the verb, and I am non-wizardly, the verb's ownership
is changed to me.  Thus, on a shared object, any number of verbs may be
owned by any number of players, all of whose verbs run with their own 
permissions.  (There are a few more tricks in the works, but this is the most 
basic rule, preventing me from usurping your power just because we share an 
object.)

> I certainly don't want any verbs that I own with a group of others to run 
> with *my* permissions.  By symmetry, that verb couldn't be owned by *any* 
> of the members of the group, so who is there to own it?  In my system, the
> corporation owns it, so the verb can only read and modify the things that 
> the corporation can read or modify, which seems just right to me.

Yes, except that it seems somewhat artificial to me.  (I am, admittedly, 
stuck in the `only players may own stuff' mindset.)

>> While I think this sounds like a neat idea, I'm not sure what real use it 
>> would be.  The -easiest- way to handle this, it seems, is through multiple 
>> ownership, simply put, and this is quite doable in-DB.  It seems that more 
>> and more complications would be added if we had to keep track of the 
>> `mode' or `corporation' a player's acting in/for at any given time.

> Fortunately, the only operations you need to know this for is
> verb/property/object creation.  Editing the code for verbs or the values of
> properties does not require a `mode', since you can just check for 
> membership in the corporation.  I don't know about other folks, but I tend 
> to do my creations in fairly large clumps, so it might work out fine to 
> simply `time out' my decision about what corporation I'm representing.  
> Also, one could default on verbs and properties to the owner of the object.

Perhaps. I still tend towards thinking that it's a simple thing to do in-DB, 
if we work on the assumption that no programmer will write a verb which can 
be used against him.

Seth / Blackbriar


From aero.org!obrien Wed Feb 24 12:20:38 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 24 Feb 93 11:43:00 PST.\"
             <93Feb24.114315pst.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <199302242008.AA05995@aerospace.aero.org>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 12:08:52 -0800
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

	The scheme Pavel is proposing, of "corporations" which exist for
purposes of ownership and permission, is similar to the notion of "groups"
as implemented in DragonMUD, which runs a vastly modified original TinyMUD
server.  Don't look for the severe limitations you may associate with
TinyMUD; for the most part they're not there, and groups are a good part
of the reason why.

	Groups serve three major purposes on DragonMUD.  First, they are
groups of people, very simply.  Some groups are controlled strictly by the
group owner (a group may own itself) and exist like clubs.  Second, they
exist to allow portions of the DB to be owned by a common entity which
allows any member of the group to work on that area of the MUD.  Third,
they are used in what passes for "programming", used for quests, to
drive the machinery of what exits work when, and are visible when.  Groups
may be "light" or "dark", which controls their visibility.  Dark groups
can only be seen by the group owner.  Looking at a character shows all
of the light groups that character is in; in most cases these act as a
list of what puzzles the character has solved.  There's even a "Quester's
Rest" room on the MUD which acts as a consolidator to replace sets of
groups with a single blanket group, to keep the lists passably short
for serious questers.

	There are also objects which are really groups.  These behave
like objects in that they may be picked up, passed from hand to hand,
etc., except that the original object remains behind for others to pick
up as well.  This eliminates the limitation that only one person can
run a quest at a time since only one person can carry the necessary
objects.

	All in all, the concept of groups (or "corporations") turns out
to be an extremely powerful one, and you're all invited to go over to
turing.cse.nau.edu 4201 to have a look (no registration required).  The
help facility has recently been upgraded and the wizards are friendly.
(This is also, so far as we know, the oldest continuously running MUD
in existence.)

Mike O'Brien

From wg7j.ece.orst.edu!g6phf Wed Feb 24 13:09:16 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "February" "1993" "20:34:25" "-0800" "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu" "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu" nil "3" "Server crash, help Mk2, please." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <6954@wg7j.ECE.ORST.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 20:34:25 -0800
From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Server crash, help Mk2, please.

   Hi, not sure if anypone replied to my plea for help a few days ago? If
so I didnt receive it. Can you please mail me agian.
Thanks, Mike (with a duff backspace key!)

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Wed Feb 24 14:18:13 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "14:11:50" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "4" "Re: Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "Roger Crew's message of Wed, 24 Feb 1993 12:15:26 -0800 <9302242015.AA18823@palnu.research.microsoft.com>"
Message-ID: <93Feb24.141200pst.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 14:11:50 -0800
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	rfc@research.microsoft.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

You are your own corporation. Actually, the current server allows
non-players to own verbs and objects, it is just set_task_perms fails.
This is most noticed when a player is toaded by they own stuff.


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Feb 24 16:24:36 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "16:16:22" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "41" "Re: Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 24 Feb 1993 14:11:03 PST.\"
             <93Feb24.141113pst.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com>e"
Message-ID: <9302250016.AA19082@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 16:16:22 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

>   You are your own corporation. 

clearly.  What I meant was having the default corporation where one's
verbs and objects are normally created be a "safe" corporation that is
*distinct* from the player corporation.  In general, one would be a
member of many corporations; the player corporation should be the most
protected of all since anyone who breaks into it gets into all of the
others.  Thus, it should (according to the Paranoid point of view I'm
espousing) NEVER be the default for creating new verbs.

E.g., I may, in the course of experimenting, create a verb with an
unprotected eval().  Having this be in a corporation limits the damage
this can do to me, i.e., my player.  (wow ...the word "corporation" in
this context is *really* appropriate...).

I'm mainly thinking about the situation where Rog has many hundreds of
verbs, any of which could be a security hole (granted it wouldn't be
completely earthshattering, but they *could* read my mail).  If I had
it to do over, I'd have about 20 corporations just for my own stuff,
and have very few verbs actually owned by Rog, in which case we could
even do away with ur-Rog since Rog could then safely be a wizard.  
I guess, in practice, Rog *is* my default safe corporation.

Except, of course, that we might not even need explicit wizards
anymore.  There would just be spheres of influence, each controlled by
a separate corporation (MailCorp, EditCorp, HelpCorp, QuotaCorp,
TopologyCorp, RPGCorp,...).  A "wizard" would merely be someone with
membership in all of them, though if one seriously believes in checks
and balances, *no one* would have membership on more than some specified 
fraction of the important ones --- ... there's your government mechanism...

Well, ok, there would need to be real wizard bits for maintaining the 
underpinnings (e.g., the code that allows QuotaCorp to control who can 
create things), but one assumes that there's a right way to do it so 
that there won't be very much code involved.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Feb 24 17:01:30 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "16:58:36" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "40" "Re: Permissions system of moo " "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-Id: <9302250058.AA19148@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:59:49 PST."
             <93Feb24.100107pst.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 16:58:36 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo 

In order to make corporations work, one more thing is needed apart from
dropping the only-players-own-things restriction.  This has to do with
the fact that set_task_perms() can't currently be replaced by any
in-db verb call since no verb call can affect the permissions of the
calling verb.

I'll put the simple, radical proposal first:

  (1) set_caller_perms()

Suffice it to say that this had better be wizard-only.
The more mild, but more complicated proposal is

  (2) a server hook for set_task_perms().  

I.e., if I do set_task_perms(#37), and #37 isn't a player (and perhaps
even if it is --- may as well completely divorce the concepts of
permission and login ability), there needs to be

 (a) some kind of :perms_accept() hook on #37 that gets called
     to determine if the caller is one of the people permitted 
     to hack on #37.
     Either that or there has to be a hardwired rule for the 
     server to follow (look in #37.hackers), but this would be 
     less flexible.

 (b) a way to ensure that (or at least to tell whether) :perms_accept 
     is being called from a set_task_perms() or from an ordinary verb.
     I'll revive my earlier suggestion about allowing server-hooks like
     enterfunc() and initialize() to be called even when they're -x

 (c) some way for a wizard to bypass a hostile :perms_accept() verb 
     on an annoying player or corporation.  
     (I suppose there's always delete_verb() but that's gross...)

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 17:49:24 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "17:44:17" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "30" "Re: Server Crash ??" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <11544@switch.g6phf.ampr.org>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 17:44:17 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Server Crash ??

> Date:	Sun, 21 Feb 1993 01:26:35 -0800
> From:	g6phf@switch.g6phf.ampr.org
> 
>   Hi, my server crashed recently with the following taken from the log file,
> can anyone tell me what signal 10 is please? I am running ver 1.7, on a pc386
> running ISC SysV3.2, Oh if its any use, I think there was only myself logged
> on, I think I had been idle for a while.
> 
> ----logfile-----
> Feb 20 04:22:00: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#17# ...
> Feb 20 04:23:45: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#17# finished
> Feb 20 06:22:01: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#18# ...
> Feb 20 06:23:22: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#18# finished
> Feb 20 08:22:02: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#19# ...
> Feb 20 08:24:17: CHECKPOINTING on l.db.new.#19# finished
> Feb 20 10:03:16: *** PANIC: Caught signal 10
> Feb 20 10:03:26: PANIC-DUMPING on l.db.new.PANIC ...
> Feb 20 10:03:30: *** PANIC: Caught signal 10
> Feb 20 10:03:30: *** RECURSIVE PANIC: aborting
> ----end-log-----

What signal 10 is depends on the operating system; check in
/usr/include/errno.h for your particular system.  In any case, it's a signal
that shouldn't happen.

I'm afraid that I can't help you without more information.  In particular, if
you can send me a complete stack trace from the core file, including source
file names and line numbers, I might be able to figure it out.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Feb 24 17:56:54 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "17:50:38" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "33" "Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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References: <199302221242.AA56881@ns3.CC.Lehigh.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 17:50:38 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	tfv0@lehigh.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

> Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 04:42:25 -0800
> From:	tfv0@lehigh.edu (Theodore F Vaida ][)
> 
> Since the Lambda MOO server is non-premptive on task execution, it implicitly
> relies on progammers to be nice and include "suspend(0);" or such inside
> loops or breaking up secions of code to allow for smoother operations.

This is true to an extent; there is, however, a limit on how long a task is
allowed to run without suspending, so we don't have to depend on them as much.
Unfortunately, right now, the limits are probably too high for foreground
(command) tasks, allowing one task to run for as much as fifteen seconds if
they can avoid running out of ticks.

> Have you checked the code on the LambdaCore for these?  I remember
> something in one of your release notices about a new execution style for
> suspend() instructions within the server.  Do they actually cost a process
> any time?  I'm considering just going stright through my MOO with a
> surgical hand and adding a suspend(0); in EVERY verb that loops or takes
> any signifigant time.  Anyone have any reasons I should not?

That new execution style for suspend() is *not* yet implemented, or even
fully designed.  Every time you execute a suspend(), your task *will* be
suspended and will have to wait its turn to run again.  This would be
unacceptably slow for most applications.

Also, you want to be very careful about where you insert suspensions, since
many MOO applications depend on the atomicity provided by the explicit
processor-yielding style.

Before trying such a scattergun approach, you might consider just recompiling
the server after lowering the value of FG_SECONDS in options.h.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!nichols Wed Feb 24 18:21:36 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "February" "1993" "18:15:48" "-0800" "David Nichols" "nichols@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Programmer's quick reference" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <93Feb24.181602pst.6127@osprey.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Feb 1993 18:15:48 -0800
From:	David Nichols <nichols@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Programmer's quick reference

I've been learning the language and the core programming conventions
recently and decided to make myself a cheat sheet to help me along.  I
typed in a short language summary, cribbed the function summaries from
the help database, and reformatted it some to get my 10-page language-help-
and-list-of-functions-you-can-call.  I've tried to keep things terse, so it
says things like "usual C stuff" for most of the arithmetic ops.  I've also
tried to group built-ins with the matching utils functions.

Anyway, the thing is on
  parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/contrib/quick-prog-ref.txt

It doesn't yet deal with the various protocols for players and rooms (stuff
like confunc/disfunc, tell, etc.).  Contributions welcome.

	David

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Thu Feb 25 05:38:45 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "05:32:11" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "14" "Unreachableness..." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 05:32:11 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Unreachableness...


It's me again,

I couldn't reach JaysHouseMOO or MediaMOO today using telnet.  LambdaMOO and
OpalMOO were fine though.  What gives, did both sites get nuked at the same
time?  Perhaps Arch's could post something here when their site's having
problems, just to let the rest of us know.

Me (again).

ps.  CardiffMOO's getting nuked pretty regularly nowadays, hardware errors I
think, that and having to compete with neural network simulation programs.
Crontab brings it back every hour, but I'm not happy.  Hopefully the neural
bloke will finish wasting my CPU time soon, and everything'll be rosy again.

From netman.widener.edu!jrp Thu Feb 25 06:15:09 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "06:04:47" "-0800" "jrp@netman.widener.edu" "jrp@netman.widener.edu" nil "16" "Reply to Unreachableness..." "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 25 Feb 93 05:32:11 PST\"
             <9302251332.AA01271@turquoise.cm.cf.ac.uk>"
Message-ID: <9302251404.AA17930@netman.widener.edu>
Importance: Normal
Sensitivity: Personal
Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 06:04:47 -0800
From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Unreachableness...

> It's me again,

Hi Andrew!

> ps.  CardiffMOO's getting nuked pretty regularly nowadays, hardware errors I
> think, that and having to compete with neural network simulation programs.
> Crontab brings it back every hour, but I'm not happy.  Hopefully the neural
> bloke will finish wasting my CPU time soon, and everything'll be rosy again.

It's fairly easy to make a Perl script that starts your MOO everytime it
receives a SIGCHLD. That way, whenever your MOO stops it will be restarted.
As for restarting if the machine goes down, you could talk your system
administrator into including a startup of your watchdog process in the
system initialization process.

--JRP

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Thu Feb 25 08:51:43 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "08:51:01" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "3" "Re: Permissions system of moo " "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	rfc@research.microsoft.com
CC:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo 

I see no harm in making corporations .players, except that players()
would get longer and contain objects that were not children of
$player.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Thu Feb 25 09:13:06 1993
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In-Reply-To: Larry Masinter's message of Thu, 25 Feb 1993 08:51:01 PST <93Feb25.085105pst.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 09:12:55 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	masinter@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	rfc@research.microsoft.com, Pavel@parc.xerox.com,
	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Permissions system of moo 

   From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

   I see no harm in making corporations .players, except that players()
   would get longer and contain objects that were not children of
   $player.

But you don't get the advantage of being able to have verbs owned by
non-players working completely correctly, thus you would continue to
have problems when players were toaded, the variable "player" was set
to a non-player object, etc.  Unless you meant corporations could be
*either* players or non-players...  In which case my objection is moot.

From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Thu Feb 25 09:29:59 1993
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 04:15:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

> I see no harm in making corporations .players, except that players()
> would get longer and contain objects that were not children of
> $player.

I -do- see some problems with this plan.  If you allow a non-$player
to be is_player(), then more than likely that object will not have a
.ownership_quota property and can create objects to its hearts desire.
And even if you -do- make the requirement that a corporation be created
as a $player, then there's nothing to stop this pseudoplayer from saying
to itself, `Hey, I don't log in anyway' and chparent()ing to some other
class and being able to create away.

For this reason, I think multiple ownership between players is the best
way to handle these things.

Seth / Blackbriar


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Feb 25 10:29:57 1993
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References: <9302222132.AA11596@netcom.netcom.com>
Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 10:22:00 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	dwb@netcom.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag

> Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 13:35:09 -0800
> From:	dwb@netcom.com (David W. Berry)
> 
> How much code would be broken, and how much simpler would life be for
> programmers if looping constructs such as for and while included an implicit
> suspend_if_needed at the server level?

Such an implicit suspend_if_needed would be quite insidious, I believe, since
it would rob programmers of atomicity *far* too frequently.  For amateur
programmers (who make up by far the majority of the MOO's programming
community), we want to keep the concurrency model as simple as we can.  So long
as the server remains centralized (i.e., not distributed), I believe that the
every-task-runs-atomically model is the right one.  Most people don't write MOO
code that requires suspending and those who do have generally done enough MOO
programming to understand the consequences of adding a suspension.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Feb 25 10:48:20 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "10:42:07" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "59" "Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 10:42:07 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)

> Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:33:32 -0800
> From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
> 
> Back when I took database theory, it was considered sufficient that a
> sequence of transactions be serializable: That their total effect be
> equivalent to some serial sequence of them.  It was not required that
> all transactions actually run in serial sequence non-preemptively, nor
> was the implementor required to use explicit or implicit locks.  All
> that was required was that serializability be maintained, by whatever
> means.

I believe that this is the right model for the MOO, as well, but you don't want
to go too far with analogies between the MOO and traditional databases.

> | And even then, without good
> | programmers, or good hand-holding by the server, you are threatened with
> | deadlock.
> 
> I'm unclear whether you refer to good application-language
> programmers, or good server programmers.  Deadlock is certainly a
> problem some serializability mechanisms need to deal with; and in fact
> the database world has been doing this for some years now.  (I invite
> you to read the literature if you don't believe me.)  Is there
> something about the mud environment which makes the problem more
> intractable?

Yes.  The fundamental problem in attempting to solve deadlock and locking
problems automatically on the server is that, unlike in the traditional
database world, it is not possible to statically determine what items in the DB
will need to be locked to run a particular `query'.  Thus, you can't, in
advance, sort all of those resources by the global locking order and then lock
them.  You will therefore have to lock them as they are accessed by the code.
Since most MOO tasks touch a lot of different properties and verbs, and these
are getting locked in more-or-less random order, you can expect a *lot* more
deadlocks than in a traditional DB.

> Unix appears to me a nice demonstration of the benefits of pre-emptive
> multitasking, I'm running a long compile in the background as I type
> this, and am grateful that I don't have to wait for it to finish
> before seeing the characters echo.  Yes, unix contains mechanisms to
> deal with problems raised by pre-emptive multitasking.  It also plays
> host to database systems that implement multithreading internally, and
> various other multi-threaded programs.  The success of all this tends
> more to incline me to believe that pre-emptive tasking has proven
> benefits, than to drive me back to non-preemptive CP/M (say) ... :)

UNIX works as well as it does for multitasking precisely because there is very,
very little in the way of shared data, essentially only files.  UNIX does
provide file locking, but almost no applications use it, so you the human have
to be careful not to try to print the PostScript output of your editor until
you're sure the editor has finished writing the file.  Similar examples of
human mediation of shared data conflicts abound in such an environment.

In UNIX, shared data is the exception, whereas in MOO it is the rule.  This,
along with the need to cater to amateur programmers, makes the MOO a very
unusal kind of OS environment.  One should not be too glib about applying
common solutions from other domains.

	Pavel

From oolong.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Feb 25 13:01:38 1993
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 12:24:19 -0800
From:	WEB@oolong.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

yduJ sez:

   > I see no harm in making corporations .players, except that players()
   > would get longer and contain objects that were not children of
   > $player.

To which Seth replies:

   > I -do- see some problems with this plan.  If you allow a non-$player
   > to be is_player(), then more than likely that object will not have a
   > .ownership_quota property and can create objects to its hearts desire.
   > And even if you -do- make the requirement that a corporation be created
   > as a $player, then there's nothing to stop this pseudoplayer from saying
   > to itself, `Hey, I don't log in anyway' and chparent()ing to some other
   > class and being able to create away.

Um, Seth, from what I gather, the whole point of allowing corporations is
so that non-players can own verbs. Therefore they don't HAVE to have a
player flag. Thus eliminating the problem you stated.

Of course, I could also be out of my mind and have the whole idea of
corporations wrong too.... :)

-Wayne/Sadric


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Thu Feb 25 13:53:32 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "13:47:49" "-0800" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@cs.mun.ca" nil "11" "Corporations - Player bit?" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 13:47:49 -0800
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@cs.mun.ca>
Sender: <@garfield.cs.mun.ca:byron@cs.mun.CA>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Corporations - Player bit?

Uh, I don't have a clue what you guys are arguing about.  Perhaps it is
possible now for the owner property to be set to an object that is not a
player but I gather that Pavel was suggesting that more would be done in the
way of implementing the concept of non-player ownership of objects such as mods
to set-task-perms and the like.  I think such a thing could be done so that it
would be transparent to the core so what's the fuss?

I tend to want to reserve judgement on the idea untill the server that uses it
is a reality and I see what it does.

Himself

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Thu Feb 25 13:48:01 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "13:43:14" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " "<9302252143.AA09222@glia.biostr.washington.edu>" "117" "Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)

Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>:

| I believe that [traditional database serializability constraint] is
| the right model for the MOO, as well, but you don't want to too far
| with analogies between the MOO and traditional databases.

*nod*.  (Does one _ever_ want to go to far with something?
:) The database world has more applicable theory and
experience to offer us than any other that I'm aware of,
however.  Object-oriented databases are particularly
relevant, I've been skimming some stuff on them for ideas.
Turns out they too use b-trees to break up big strings to
work more nicely in software virtual memory.  Ah well, I'll
have an original idea someday :).

| Yes.  The fundamental problem in attempting to solve
| deadlock and locking problems automatically on the server is
| that, unlike in the traditional database world, it is not
| possible to statically determine what items in the DB will
| need to be locked to run a particular `query'.  Thus, you
| can't, in advance, sort all of those resources by the global
| locking order and then lock them.  You will therefore have
| to lock them as they are accessed by the code.  Since most
| MOO tasks touch a lot of different properties and verbs, and
| these are getting locked in more-or-less random order, you
| can expect a *lot* more deadlocks than in a traditional DB.

*nod*, I'd come to much the same comclusion about that class
of solutions.

For my server, I'm looking at using an optimistic
non-locking approach, tracking all values read by the task
from the db, and buffering all values written to the db
until a commit is done.  At commit time, if no value read by
the task in the db has changed, all writes can be installed
in the db atomically, otherwise the task can be rolled back
and rerun.  This approach isn't altogether without problems
(what engineering solution is?), but it does (to me) seem
cleaner than either explicit locking or living with
non-preemption, and with a judiciously placed implicit
commit or two (I'm thinking of at user input and task
conclusion, at the moment), I hope most naive application
programmers will seldom have problems with it.

If Clay is right that there's a general proof that
pre-emptive multitasking can't work acceptably in a mud
context, then there must be a hole in the above scheme, but
so far I've been unable to find either proof or hole...

| > Unix appears to me a nice demonstration of the benefits of pre-emptive
| > multitasking,
|
| UNIX works as well as it does for multitasking precisely
| because there is very, very little in the way of shared
| data, essentially only files.

*nod*.  To some extent, there is a lesson there: Minimizing
(and localizing) operations with side-effects on other
processes eases the problems of dealing with concurrency
generally, and pre-emptive multitasking in particular.  This
observation wouldn't surprise the functional programming
folks, of course :).  (Speaking of which -- has anyone
considered the appropriateness of Haskell for the mud
environment?  Gofer sounds like a nice PD interpreter, but
I've not familiar with either yet...)

Thanks presumably to the god(dess?) who watches over drunks
and fools, nobody seems to have implemented side-effects on
strings in tinyMuck :).  There being no other nonatomic
datatype at present, the system turns out to be essentially
side-effect free except for object variables -- an
unexpected blessing.  I don't know moo well enough to
analyse how many places it has to consider side-effects on
the db...?

| UNIX does provide file
| locking, but almost no applications use it, so you the human
| have to be careful not to try to print the PostScript output
| of your editor until you're sure the editor has finished
| writing the file.

Partly sheer luck, partly people learning to live within the
limitations of available tools -- people make copies of files
to edit, rather than munging single master copies, in general...

| Similar examples of human mediation of
| shared data conflicts abound in such an environment.
| 
| In UNIX, shared data is the exception, whereas in MOO it is
| the rule.

*grin*: well, if you consider /usr/spool/mqueue shared data,
and reflect what proportion of time is spent on email :) ...

(*nod*)

| This, along with the need to cater to amateur
| programmers, makes the MOO a very unusal kind of OS
| environment. 

And, indeed, a fascinating problem.

| One should not be too glib about applying
| common solutions from other domains.
|
|         Pavel

Again, it's rarely good to be 'too' anything :).  I'm sure
you noted that above I cited Unix as a demonstration of the
>benefits< of multitasking, not as a model of how to achieve
it in the mud environment -- benefits you don't contest
above.

Jeff




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Feb 25 14:55:17 1993
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 14:47:55 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)

> Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 13:43:14 -0800
> From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
> 
> For my server, I'm looking at using an optimistic
> non-locking approach, tracking all values read by the task
> from the db, and buffering all values written to the db
> until a commit is done.  At commit time, if no value read by
> the task in the db has changed, all writes can be installed
> in the db atomically, otherwise the task can be rolled back
> and rerun.  This approach isn't altogether without problems
> (what engineering solution is?), but it does (to me) seem
> cleaner than either explicit locking or living with
> non-preemption, and with a judiciously placed implicit
> commit or two (I'm thinking of at user input and task
> conclusion, at the moment), I hope most naive application
> programmers will seldom have problems with it.

Suppose a lot of tasks are mutually conflicting.  What will you do about
liveness (making sure that each task eventually gets to commit)?  Otherwise, an
approach like this may well work out acceptably in the MOO environment.

> Thanks presumably to the god(dess?) who watches over drunks
> and fools, nobody seems to have implemented side-effects on
> strings in tinyMuck :).  There being no other nonatomic
> datatype at present, the system turns out to be essentially
> side-effect free except for object variables -- an
> unexpected blessing.  I don't know moo well enough to
> analyse how many places it has to consider side-effects on
> the db...?

The only side-effects in MOO are the following:

	-- object creation or destruction,
	-- parent/child or location/contents hierarchy modification,
	-- property and verb creation, renaming, and deletion,
	-- property value and verb code modification,
	-- output to users, and
	-- the pending-task queue.

In particular, the MOO aggregate data values (strings and lists) are not
mutable.

	Pavel

From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Thu Feb 25 15:17:29 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "10:05:00" "-0800" "seth%CAMP@onet.edu" "seth%CAMP@onet.edu" nil "214" "Re: Permissions system of moo" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 10:05:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo

Wayne / Sadric:

> Um, Seth, from what I gather, the whole point of allowing corporations 
> is so that non-players can own verbs. Therefore they don't HAVE to have 
> a player flag. Thus eliminating the problem you stated.

I see... I admit, though, that I'm not entirely clear on why non-players
have to own verbs.  yduJ alluded to a problem before, but it wasn't one
I'd seen previously.

I'm gonna spout off on what I think the Right Way to do group 
projects is (aside from having a shared character to hack with).  
Actually, I was asked to send some more details about our corified 
multiple ownership on OpalMOO.  It all revolves around a hacker-owned !c 
property on $root_class -- .owners, defaulting to {}.

The main verbs in the DB permitted to directly change this property
are $ownership_utils:add_owner and $ownership_utils:delete_owner. The
only other verb which is permitted to change this property is the all-
important $ownership_utils:controls verb, which reads as follows (it,
like the two previously-mentioned verbs, is Hacker-owned):

  $ownership_utils:controls this none this rx
   1:  "$ownership_utils:controls(who, what)";
   2:  "is WHO allowed to hack on WHAT?";
   3:  "YES if WHO is WHAT's owner.";
   4:  "YES if WHO is a wizard.";
   5:  "YES if WHO is one of WHAT's shared owners listed in the .owners prop";
   6:  "NO otherwise.";
   7:  "This verb also maintains the purity of .owners by ensuring that it is
  never clear and only contains living players.";
   8:  "Because of the twisted way in which !d verbs blindly march forward
  through errors, this verb -will- properly handle objects which do not have
  .owners properties (assuming that the correct answer in that case is `Yes if
  you're a wizard or you own it').";
   9:  who = args[1];
  10:  what = args[2];
  11:  if (is_clear_property(what, "owners"))
  12:    "there's a fukd-up :initialize SOMEWHERE";
  13:    what.owners = {};
  14:    return 0;
  15:  endif
  16:  for dude in (what.owners)
  17:    if (!valid(dude) || !is_player(dude))
  18:      what.owners = setremove(what.owners, dude);
  19:    endif
  20:  endfor
  21:  if (who.wizard || who == what.owner || who in what.owners)
  22:    return 1;
  23:  else
  24:    return 0;
  25:  endif
  26:  "Last modified Mon Feb  8 23:53:32 1993 EST by BabyBriar (#2).";

The $ownership_utils:controls() check is essentially the same as
the older $perm_utils:controls() check, except that it takes into
account the extra possible owners and it also handles the special
cases needed to maintain security.  This verb is called to determine
whether a player is permitted to, say, add a verb to any given object.

Here is the code called when someone wants to add a verb to an object:

  $ownership_utils:add_verb this none this rx Wizard
   1:  "add_verb() -- see help on the builtin for more information";
   2:  who = caller_perms();
   3:  what = args[1];
   4:  info = args[2];
   5:  vargs = args[3];
   6:  if (!$ownership_utils:controls(who, what) && !what.w)
   7:    "caller_perms() is not allowed to hack on the object in question";
   8:    return E_PERM;
   9:  elseif (!$perm_utils:controls(who, info[1]))
  10:    "caller_perms() is not permitted to add a verb with the specified
  owner.";
  11:    return E_PERM;
  12:  else
  13:    "we now know that the caller's perms control the object (by multiple
  inheritance) or the object is writable, and we know that the caller's perms
  control the prospective verb owner (by more traditional means)";
  14:    return add_verb(@args);
  15:  endif

(Yes, I know it's not the best-written code in the world, but it works.)
Essentially, this allows a player to add a verb to any object e controls
(or any writable object, for that matter).  (The reason I include this
example is because I will refer to it later on.)

With these sort of controls in place, it's easy to add similar verbs for
the other relevant builtins (add_property, verb_args, etc.).  There are
a few tricks that need to be handled, though:

  1. How do we handle shared verbs?
  2. How do we handle shared properties?
  3. How do we handle shared PLAYERS?
     (this last one has special promise)

There are a few ways we looked at to handle shared verbs.  One of them
was to stick with the old server-style method of setting verb code,
and only allowing someone to set code on a verb e owns eirself.  This
was shot down primarily because it was clunky and didn't let people
collaborate so well.

Another method was to let any owner of a shared object set the code on
any verb on that object.  This got shot down -real- fast because nobody
liked the idea that by sharing an object, people could make tasks run
with their own permissions.

The last method, the one we settled on, was to have the verb ownership
change when the code is changed.  Here is the code we're using:

  $ownership_utils:set_verb_code this none this rx Wizard
   1:  who = caller_perms();
   2:  where = args[1];
   3:  what = args[2];
   4:  code = args[3];
   5:  while ((last = code[length(code)]) && length(last) >= 15 &&
  last[1..15] == "\"Last Modified ")
   6:    code = code[1..length(code) - 1];
   7:  endwhile
   8:  args[3] = {@code, tostr("\"Last modified ", ctime(), " by ", 
  who.name, " (", who, ").\";")};
   9:  if ($ownership_utils:controls(who, where) && !who.wizard)
  10:    "the player controls the object in question AND IS NOT WIZARDLY";
  11:    info = verb_info(where, what);
  12:    if (typeof(info) == ERR)
  13:      "most likely, verb not exists";
  14:      return info;
  15:    endif
  16:    info[1] = who;
  17:    set_verb_info(where, what, info);
  18:  endif
  19:  set_task_perms(who);
  20:  return set_verb_code(@args);
  21:  "Last modified Mon Feb 15 23:04:40 1993 EST by BabyBriar (#2).";

This code changes the owner to the new editor, if that editor is non-
wizardly.  This has been found to be a quite suitable arrangement.

Handling properties proved to be a different animal, so we needed to
introduce two new `builtins' -- property_value and set_property_value.
Essentially, the only added functionality they offered was that a !c
property defined on a shared object could be used (set, read, etc.) by
any of the owners of that object, even when that property is being
accessed on a descendant.  As an example:

  $ownership_utils:property_value this none this rx Wizard
   1:  "$ownership_utils:property_value( object , property-name ) => value |
  E_PERM | E_PROPNF";
   2:  who = caller_perms();
   3:  where = args[1];
   4:  what = args[2];
   5:  if (typeof(where) != OBJ)
   6:    return E_INVARG;
   7:  elseif (!valid(where))
   8:    return E_INVARG;
   9:  elseif (typeof(what) != STR)
  10:    return E_INVARG;
  11:  endif
  12:  info = property_info(where, what);
  13:  if (typeof(info) == ERR)
  14:    return info;
  15:  endif
  16:  if (index(info[2], "r") || $perm_utils:controls(who, info[1]))
  17:    return where.(what);
  18:  endif
  19:  "now for the TRICKY part. The property is not readable by our caller's
  permissions. Is it defined on an object which the caller controls?";
  20:  home = $ownership_utils:property_definition(where, what);
  21:  if ($ownership_utils:controls(who, home) && !index(info[2], "c"))
  22:    return where.(what);
  23:  endif
  24:  "last shot -- is there anything I missed?";
  25:  set_task_perms(who);
  26:  return where.(what);

The last question is one we're not yet facing on OpalMOO, but one I
intend to introduce soon.  What if the object being shared is not
merely an object, but in fact a -player- object?

What I intend to do soon is eliminate the $perm_utils checks and
use $ownership_utils totally.  What this will mean, essentially,
is that we will have a situation like the following:

  Munchkin and Xiombarg are working on some hellish projects
  together, and they trust each other a lot.  So Xiombarg,
  being the more trusting of the two, adds Munchkin as an
  owner to HERSELF -- so that, essentially, Xiombarg is a
  player object with two owners.

  Munchkin is now able to execute the previously-unavailable
  commands:
    @verb foo:bar this none this rxd Xiombarg
    @property foo.baz {} "r" Xiombarg
  ... and, thus, create verbs and properties owned by Xiombarg,
  by virtue of his being an owner of hers.  (Eek, I realize I've
  painted this in a horribly sexist way.  Let's assume that at
  this point in the text Xiombarg morphs into Xiombargs, so they're
  plural now.)

  Similarly, although this isn't supported by the above code,
  Munchkin will be able to set the code on Xiombargs-owned verbs,
  and essentially do anything except actually log in as the
  Xiombargs (because this still doesn't allow access to the password).

(Because of this upcoming development, $ownership_utils:add_owner
does not allow an owner to be added to a wizardly object.)

We're going through the database and changing most of the core verbs
to use these multiple ownership utilities.  So far, we've had very few
bugs (although some people griped about the verb timestamping).  I think 
that this method allows for simpler handling of shared projects.

Seth / Blackbriar


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Thu Feb 25 16:14:54 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "16:13:44" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "46" "Re: Permissions system of moo " "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 25 Feb 1993 08:51:01 PST."
             <93Feb25.085105pst.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 16:13:44 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Permissions system of moo 

>   I see no harm in making corporations .players, except that players()
>   would get longer and contain objects that were not children of
>   $player.

[...Actually, I think players() is a pretty useless function.  Given the
number of players we currently have on Lambda, we may as well be
grovelling through the DB testing is_player() on every object...]

Note however that you don't want corporations to be players that can
CONNECT, since there is no possibility of accounting for what a shared
player does once connected.  For example, if I happen to know the
Grandmaster password (Grandmaster owns G7&Gemba's RPG system on
LambdaMOO), I simply login as Grandmaster, do arbitrary damange to
Grandmaster owned things, and there's no way for anyone to know that
it was me; it could have been any of the people who know the
Grandmaster password.  There's also the problem that anyone who knows
the Grandmaster password can change it.

It's much better to require players to login as themselves and use a
modified set_verb_code()/set_foo_info()/set_task_perms() to do their
dirty work.  Then, there is the possibility of keeping track of who
does what, should one actually want to.  One can also implement much
finer notions of access control (e.g., granting access without giving
away the store).

The basic principle here is that if password really is supposed to be
a means to establish identity, then a given password should point to a
SINGLE real person.  

Note that if one has a class of "players" that never log in, then, in
addition to all of the player verbs that become useless (mail reading,
etc...), we have a whole set of "player" builtin functions
(connected_seconds(), idle_seconds(), connection_name(),
connected_players()... ) that are likewise meaningless.

What we really have here is a distinction between the concepts of
identity and permission.  The existence of shared players, or for that
matter the existence of wizard characters that are distinct from the
mild-mannered-player characters, suggests that this is a useful
distinction.  

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Thu Feb 25 16:19:35 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "February" "1993" "16:19:47" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "95" "Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Feb 1993 16:19:47 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
To:	pavel@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Regarding suspend(0) and lag (fwd)


Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>:
| Suppose a lot of tasks are mutually conflicting.  What will you do
| about liveness (making sure that each task eventually gets to commit)?
| Otherwise, an approach like this may well work out acceptably in the
| MOO environment.

A good question I hadn't thought about!  I've been presuming this
wouldn't be a significant problem in practice ... but I've little
experience with heavily programmed muds such as moo.  Is there some
practical experience from moo to suggest enough contention that tasks
might thrash heavily due to this?

The only not-too-ugly answers which occur to me offhand are:

 (1) Insert more 'commit' points in particularly long-running tasks;

 (2) Ethernet-style backoff on the competing tasks until they start
     to get enough time to run to commit -- have each task sleep
     successively longer each time it has to be rolled back;

 (3) Successively increase timeslice size of tasks that are rolled
     back -- this would basically (gracefully?) degrade to
     non-preemptive tasking in the limit.
  
(Anyone see any others?  Short of retreating to explicit locking, when
to schedule a task (2), and how long to schedule it for (3), seem the
two main tools we have available.)

(1) is just passing the buck to the application programmer, of course,
which isn't nice unless the problem is rare and mostly confined to
system software.

Between the server-based solutions (2) and (3), (2) should have less
negative impact on interactive response, since unrelated tasks would
keep getting timeslices regularly, but (3) appears more certain to
eventually resolve the problem in theory, since >eventually< each task
will run nonpreemptively to completion, if that's what it takes to
resolve the 'livelock' ...  albeit, if necessary, at the cost of
running nothing else on the mud for an indefinite period.

I'm inclined to wait and see if the problem appears in practice, and
if so, likely try (1), (2) and (3) in about that order...  sticking
fixes in the server for problems which haven't appeared can wind up
doing more harm than good. It is not clear to me that either 2 or 3
would be monotonically better than doing nothing: 2 could lead to a
rather silent accumulation of sleeping tasks, while 3 could lock up
the mud rather nastily if a pathological pair of tasks insist on
conflicting indefinitely ... might be better to live with theoretical
deadlock but consistent interactive response than theoretical lack of
deadlock but effectively locked up systems in practice :).

(Prior to your question, I was just intending a rollback limit N,
killing any process which fails the same commit N times running.  This
wasn't intended as a solution to the above, just cheap insurance.  It
does constitute an answer of sorts, however. :)

Hmm.  Global tuning parameters enabling one/both of (2)/(3) at need,
which defaulted to OFF, might be an idea...

Good food for thought, thank you Pavel :).

    (Another problem with this general class of scheme is that
    the commit itself may wind up taking long enough to impose
    an objectionable pause on the system.  If one wants to keep
    commits atomic and avoid retreating to locking, that appears
    just a necessary price to pay.  The limiting case would be a
    process that read the entire db before doing a commit, which
    commit would then require rereading the entire db to verify
    that nothing had changed.

    I'm trusting that naively written code generally won't
    read/write enough properties for this problem to appear, and
    that the few tasks likely to exhibit such behavior can be
    rewritten to commit at decent intervals.

    Technically, if you really want to know, say, the exact
    number of bytes of strings in the db, you really do need --
    barring special-case solutions -- to lock out access to the
    entire db for the time it takes to scan it, and no
    serialization mechanism is going to be able to change this.
    But mostfolks requesting such a db scan will be willing to
    settle for a somewhat approximate answer, which willingness
    can be indicated by including commits at reasonable
    intervals during such a scan... not a terribly different
    requirement from what moo is currently doing to keep such
    scans from locking the mud up.  Since suspends() should in
    fact be done only when the db has returned to a
    self-consistent state as defined by the task, the
    correspondence should be rather precise -- possibly some
    future pre-emptive moo could simply re-interpret suspend()
    as commit()?  Hmm... odd!)

-- Jeff, wandering off with a new cud to chew.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Feb 26 15:27:47 1993
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References: <9302240757.AA04114@iastate.edu>
Date:	Fri, 26 Feb 1993 15:19:02 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jsmart@iastate.edu
cc:	Moo-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parser Madness

> Date:	Tue, 23 Feb 1993 23:57:36 -0800
> From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
> 
> I am currently helping to program an rpg moo.  This moo won't allow
> players to ever see object numbers, since it would be a peek 'behind
> the stage'.
> 
> Has anyone done a reliable way of overcoming this?

This will require hacking the server, since the built-in command parser
understands how to map object numbers into objects...

	Pavel

From andrew.cmu.edu!jt1o+ Fri Feb 26 15:57:10 1993
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References: <93Feb26.151913pst.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
	<9302240757.AA04114@iastate.edu>
Date:	Fri, 26 Feb 1993 15:50:21 -0800
From:	Moonchilde <jtraub+@cmu.edu>
Sender: jt1o+@andrew.cmu.edu
To:	jsmart@iastate.edu
cc:	Moo-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parser Madness

It would seem that if all the look verbs and examine verbs and all that
never showed an object number, that unless the player was a programmer
or was very good at guessing, it wouldn't matter if the parser understands
the #<num> syntax for objects.
I don't know of any place where the server directly hands OIDs to the players.

--JT
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty --Anonymous
Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours --Richard Bach

Moonchilde/Amythyst/JT Traub ---           jtraub@cmu.edu

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Feb 26 17:15:26 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "26" "February" "1993" "17:10:24" "-0800" "Stefan_Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan_Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" nil "28" "set_property_info" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <93Feb26.171026pst.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Fri, 26 Feb 1993 17:10:24 -0800
From:	Stefan_Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: pavel@parc.xerox.com
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: set_property_info

[This message got diverted by a bug in the mail system here at PARC; I have
re-typed it from a paper copy.  --Pavel]

I found an interesting behaviour of the builtin function
set_property_info:

I created a property in my general player class:

   add_property($class.player,"weight_carried",0,{$admin,"rc"})

What does this? It creates a property called weight_carried
in $class.player and all it's descendants. The owner
of the property is changed for the different objects.
Ok, that is not new.

But then I wanted to change the access permissions of the
property to no access and owner $admin.  So I did

   set_property_info($class.player,"weight_carried",{$admin,""})

But the set_property_info is not recursive :(, I only
changed the property info of $class.player.weight_carried.

I think it would be fine to have a set_property_info that worked
recursive. Well I could work around this problem, but would
it be a real solution ?

Stefan

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Feb 26 17:29:17 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "26" "February" "1993" "17:22:14" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "26" "multiple owners" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Date:	Fri, 26 Feb 1993 17:22:14 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: pavel@parc.xerox.com
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: multiple owners

[This message got diverted by a bug in the mail system here at PARC; I have
re-typed it from a paper copy.  --Pavel]

Hmm.  As I admitted a few posts back, I've something of an
anti-group bias.  But the recent collection of points on
this subject, en toto, seem to provide a fairly strong
argument in favor of groups:
 o  There's clearly a perceived need for objects which more than
    one person (but less than everyone) has rights to.
 o  Shared accounts have been objected to on grounds of accountability.
 o  Multiple owners, at least in the most naive implementation, has the
    same lack of accountability:  if the object is listed as owned by a
    group, one doesn't know who really to pin the blame/credit on.
 o  It seems quite likely that, in a group effort, some folks will want
    to share some of their privileges over an object with the group,
    without perhaps giving up all of them to the group.  E.g., if someone
    is responsible for maintaining a tool for in-group use, they may wish
    to make it readable executable, without wanting to open it up to random
    writing by anyone in the group.
Looks to me like one has to do one of:
 o  Give up idea of collective property
 o  Give up idea of individual accountability
 o  Sigh and introduce groups, distinct from owners and world, and most
    likely with independent protection bits/strings/whatever.
One doesn't need to >call< them groups, and perhaps the server doesn't
need to know about them... but that doesn't alter the argument much.

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Feb 26 17:34:27 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "26" "February" "1993" "17:29:31" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "16" "Re: set_property_info" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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             <93Feb26.171026pst.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>I>S1]"
Message-ID: <9302270129.AA20798@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Fri, 26 Feb 1993 17:29:31 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Stefan_Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: set_property_info

Yes, set_property_info() is broken.  In LambdaCore, there's
$wiz_utils:set_property_flags() which is something of a workaround.
It however has the problem that in operations involving central core
objects (e.g., $player) with thousands of descendants, it has to
suspend, leaving the world in an ugly state.

Nor can/should this be fixed until some decisions made about the
"right" way for property flags, notably the c flag, to work.

[...As it happens, I've got a backlogged posting on this, but I'll 
wait until the moocows list and I are a little less busy...]
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From iastate.edu!jsmart Sat Feb 27 16:36:00 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "27" "February" "1993" "16:27:59" "-0800" "jsmart@iastate.edu" "jsmart@iastate.edu" nil "25" "Re: Parser Madness" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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             <730770621.8046.0@freehold.andrew.cmu.edu>"
Message-ID: <9302280028.AA03246@iastate.edu>
Date:	Sat, 27 Feb 1993 16:27:59 -0800
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	Moonchilde <jtraub+@cmu.edu>
cc:	Moo-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parser Madness


>It would seem that if all the look verbs and examine verbs and all that
>never showed an object number, that unless the player was a programmer
>or was very good at guessing, it wouldn't matter if the parser understands
>the #<num> syntax for objects.
>I don't know of any place where the server directly hands OIDs to the players.
>
>--JT
>Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty --Anonymous
>Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours --Richard Bach
>
>Moonchilde/Amythyst/JT Traub ---           jtraub@cmu.edu

You would not BELIEVE how many players will go out of their way to do stuff like
this.  Especially if you allow for an "about" verb that gives the object's location
in the output.

On Godnet, I'm sure we even had people write client scripts to get a list of object
numbers.

jsmart@iastate.edu
Cassnak@lambdamoo
Samson@godnet
Kade@monohaze
John@rl

From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Mon Mar  1 07:59:36 1993
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Message-ID: <2B922FC5@campgate.onet.edu>
Date:	Mon, 1 Mar 1993 02:46:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Attempted Re-send: MOO <-> MOO Networks

I am not sure whether this mail was lost due to my own mailer's problems or 
because of the problem at the PARC mailer Pavel mentioned, so I'm gonna
rewrite it and re-send (apologies if this proves to arrive in your mailbox
in two different forms).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently, there's been a lot of good work done in the areas of MOO to Real
Life networking.  The work on JaysHouseMOO is truly, totally impressive.
Accessing Internet services from within the MOO is such a clever idea, and
hats off to them for it.

Regarding MOO to MOO services, however, there have been a few methods 
attempted, and they all have one thing in common: The need for bogus player 
objects.  This grates on me no end.

Thus, I've been spending a lot of time recently working on what I call
MOO Services, a package which seems so far to work pretty slick but which
doesn't require any bogus player objects.  The options are configurable by
the wizards, and I'm working on additional security measures right now.
The services which are presently supported are MOOftp and MOOsmtp, which
allow for the transport of objects and/or mail messages (respectively) from 
one MOO to another.  Various other functions are in the works; MOOrwho, for
examine, or MOOfinger.  I was thinking about a MOOtalk, which would 
admittedly be more like `write' than like `talk'.

This has been running on a few MOOs so far, with success.  I'd like to know
if there are any wizards out there who would like to help debug (more 
technical information available upon request) when we get to beta testing.
I'd also be interested in hearing from MOO users what sort of MOO to MOO
services you'd like to have included in this package.

Seth / Blackbriar 


From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Mon Mar  1 11:12:42 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "March" "1993" "04:54:00" "-0800" "seth%CAMP@onet.edu" "seth%CAMP@onet.edu" nil "11" "Attempted Re-send: MOO <-> MOO Networks" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <2B924DC9@campgate.onet.edu>
Date:	Mon, 1 Mar 1993 04:54:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Attempted Re-send: MOO <-> MOO Networks

> I'm curious; how do you do this without requiring bogus player
> objects?  (I assume by bogus you mean the JaysHouseMOO player on
> Lambda, for example.)

This is accomplished by moving support for these services into the core
itself and adding a verb to $login to call them.  $login:service gives
control of the player object to $services, which handles all the relevant
issues and boot_player()s the object at the end.

Seth / Blackbriar


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Tue Mar  2 03:25:50 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "February" "1993" "09:27:45" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "19" "MOO-net" "^Date:" nil nil "2"])
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Message-ID: <9302201727.AA16027@ruby.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sat, 20 Feb 1993 09:27:45 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO-net


Mmm,
	MOO-net's down for a while because my site's (and hence CardiffMOO's)
link to the internet seems to be messed up.  Hopefully things will sort
themselves out on Monday morning when our system manager comes in.
LambdaMOO and JaysHouseMOO should still be chatting freely, but OpalMOO and
MediaMOO were only joined to the MOO-net through CardiffMOO.  When CardiffMOO's
wires got nuked, OpalMOO and MediaMOO disappeared.
  One way to prevent this happening again is to establish a state-side
central node for MOO-net, by which I mean 1 or 2 sites which connect to all
the others.  That way the whole thing wont crash the next time CardiffMOO gets
nuked by bad wiring or some similar excuse.

Anyone with onc() out there wanna be the one?

Andreworker.

ps.  Of course, there is a chance that this message wont reach you, for the
same reasons.  In which case, don't worry about it. ;)

From whyanext.com!eric Tue Mar  2 12:38:35 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "March" "1993" "12:10:25" "-0800" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " nil "34" "MOO clients for Windows?" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 12:10:25 -0800
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	cleta@whyanext.com
Subject: MOO clients for Windows?

Hi MOOers,

I'm setting up a MOO for The Tech Museum of Innovation (in downtown  
San Jose) that will be used as a database of exhibit ideas for our  
future expansion.  We are interested in incorporating the MOO in an  
exhibit called the "Info Lounge", which is a room full of computers  
devoted to exploring electronic services and information technology.

We are in the process of developing a new user interface for the Info  
Lounge, based on Microsoft Windows and eventually Visual Basic, and  
I'm curious if anyone has developed a MOO client that runs under  
Windows somehow.  The MOO will be running on a Unix machine on The  
Tech's LAN, and I'm working with Microsoft to set up TCP/IP utilities  
to route packets to the Unix machine.  Thus the Windows or DOS client  
would need to make a telnet to the MOO machine as well as pretty up  
incoming/outgoing ASCII in a colorful window.  The museum is very  
interested in exposing the technology to all kinds of visitors, so I  
will also be looking for innovative ways to provide a  
context-sensitive help system (balloon help maybe?) that would give  
the user some idea of what in the world they have stumbled across!

If anyone can offer any thoughts about a possible MOO client, or  
would like to volunteer some time at The Tech to help (volunteers are  
in extremely high demand! ;-), I'd love to hear from you!

In the meantime, The TechMOOseum needs some developers.  If you are  
interested in taking part in building what I hope might become the  
first working virtual exhibit hall, please e-mail me and I'll get you  
involved.


Thanks,

	Eric / Ahtraddis

From wariat.org!joenav Tue Mar  2 13:19:48 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "March" "1993" "12:58:48" "-0800" "Joe Navratil" "joenav@wariat.org " nil "11" "Question wrt escape/control characters" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 12:58:48 -0800
From:	joenav@wariat.org (Joe Navratil)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (moo)
Subject: Question wrt escape/control characters
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I've been fooling around with ANSI music via MOO for the past couple days. 
It's worked pretty well, once, I remapped ~ to ^[ (\027) and ` to ^N (\014)
(I was given the suggestion by someone on this list, actually :-) ) 

Anyway.  I was wondering if there are any plans to include a function or
set of constants or whatever that will make it possible to send the *real*
characters, and not have to bother with explaining to people to remap the
stuff, then explain how to remap, etc... or, if there aren't any plans, why
not?

 -Joe

From sco.com!chrisn Tue Mar  2 14:09:42 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "March" "1993" "13:56:00" "-0800" "\"The Horror, The Horror\"" "chrisn@sco.com" nil "23" "Re: MOO clients for Windows?" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 13:56:00 -0800
From:	"The Horror, The Horror" <chrisn@sco.com>
To:	eric@whyanext.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	chrisn@sco.com, cleta@whyanext.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows?


This sounds like a fabulous idea. I have been thinking about
a project along those lines here in Santa Cruz. The idea is
to create a graphical 2D VR representation of the town using
a MOO and a graphic client frontend.

The MOO would maintain (small) bitmaps of objects in properties.
The bitmaps would be encoded in ASCII. When a person using a
special client which understands how to decode the bitmaps
and handle the display coordinates connects, a property is
set on their player object ($player.graphic_client). Then,
whenever a description is sent to them, it includes the text
as well as the bitmap. The client displays the bitmaps in one
window on the screen, the text is displayed in another window.

The client would also include a basic draw program for making
bitmaps and doing the encoding into the ASCII representation
so people could set object bit map description properties.

Such a client won't be too much trouble to write for Unix
and X, and the mods to the MOO core DB to support it are minimal.

ccn

From elf.com!gub Tue Mar  2 15:10:38 1993
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Message-ID: <9303022258.AA26163@asylum.sf.ca.us>
Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 14:58:31 -0800
From:	gub@elf.com (Glen Daniels)
To:	chrisn@sco.com
cc:	eric@whyanext.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, cleta@whyanext.com
Subject: MOO clients for Windows?


I've also been thinking about this for a while, but haven't had the
time to actually work on it (I don't MOO much, because if I start, I
*know* how much time I'll sink into it).  One thing that it would be
cool to see, in addition to visual displays of objects/rooms, is
visual INTERACTION with MOO entities.

I envision a system much as you describe, where objects with the
graphic_representation property are displayed as bitmaps.  Objects
without encoded bitmaps are displayed as a default image (which is
client-specific, and can be altered at will).  Now, I want to be able
to drag objects in/out of my inventory, or click on them and see a
pop-up menu of actions this object can perform, or move by clicking
exits....  This sort of thing shouldn't be too hard to add, and would
make MOO-vigating much smoother.

Imagine...users on VT100s, Windows machines, palmtops, and whizzy VR
systems with body suits, all interacting in the *same* world, viewing
it at whatever level of detail / graphics they can handle....

		--Gub (DrFunky, infrequent LambdaMOOer)



From cool.vortech.com!clay Tue Mar  2 15:20:58 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "March" "1993" "15:08:08" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "30" "Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 15:08:08 -0800
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)
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> The MOO would maintain (small) bitmaps of objects in properties.
> The bitmaps would be encoded in ASCII. When a person using a
> special client which understands how to decode the bitmaps
> and handle the display coordinates connects, a property is
> set on their player object ($player.graphic_client). Then,
> whenever a description is sent to them, it includes the text
> as well as the bitmap. The client displays the bitmaps in one
> window on the screen, the text is displayed in another window.


I think this could be done in unix by adding MIME support to your favorite
client and using the MIME libraries.  The MIME sources claim that adding
such support to programs is reasonably easy.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of MIME could expound upon this idea.

I personally would be happy to have MIME bitmaps available for display in
the moo, despite the (obvious) space considerations.

In fact, using MIME would allow a moo to have full-multimedia support.

If anyone would like to pursue this on a moo, I think I can provide a
programming sandbox for you.  Only serious applicants need apply.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Mar  2 15:28:09 1993
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References: <m0nTe37-0001OiC@wariat.org>
Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 15:02:38 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	joenav@wariat.org
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters

> Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 12:58:48 -0800
> From:	joenav@wariat.org (Joe Navratil)
> 
> I've been fooling around with ANSI music via MOO for the past couple days. 
> It's worked pretty well, once, I remapped ~ to ^[ (\027) and ` to ^N (\014)
> (I was given the suggestion by someone on this list, actually :-) ) 
> 
> Anyway.  I was wondering if there are any plans to include a function or
> set of constants or whatever that will make it possible to send the *real*
> characters, and not have to bother with explaining to people to remap the
> stuff, then explain how to remap, etc... or, if there aren't any plans, why
> not?

There are two separate issues in here: allowing MOO code to *receive*
non-printing ASCII characters, and allowing code to create, manipulate, and
(ultimately) send those characters to users' connections.

The current state of affairs is that the server elides all characters from its
input except printing ASCII and the space character.  (Actually, it also
notices the ASCII LF character as an input-line terminator, but it removes it
before passing the line on.)  As there is also no way for a MOO program to
construct a character out of whole cloth (e.g., from an integer character
code), this implies that there is no way for a MOO program to send a string
containing non-printing/non-space ASCII to a user.

The reason for the current state of affairs is a concern for security.  Many
kinds of terminals are open to relatively serious attacks via the receipt of
certain escape codes.  For example, it is possible with many terminals to lock
out the keyboard, to force a transmission of everything on the screen, to load
function keys with arbitrary strings and then force their transmission, etc.
In an open environment like the Internet, it seems prudent to prevent such
mischief.

Of course, in some environments, these security concerns are not as important
and so it might be a good idea for these restrictions to be optional in the
server.  Then, one could add a primitive, perhaps, to convert integer character
codes into single-character strings.

The right solution, probably, is to have the server optionally check output for
`illegal' characters and strip them there.  Then I could unconditionally add
the conversion primitive, since it couldn't do any harm if output-filtering was
enabled.

I will consider adding such a facility to the server.

	Pavel

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Tue Mar  2 18:34:16 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "March" "1993" "18:31:48" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "40" "Re: Question wrt escape/control characters " "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 02 Mar 93 15:02:38 -0800.
             <93Mar2.150820pst.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 18:31:48 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters 


Pavel Curtis writes about direct transmission of control characters:

> The reason for the current state of affairs is a concern for security.

A possibly more serious concern is that most people's environments
cannot handle ANSI or VT-100 codes.  Even if they are using ANSI or
VT-100 terminals, clients such as Tinyfugue and Vaportalk do not
emulate terminals and become confused by non-printing characters.  I'm
not sure how well Emacs clients do.  I'd be worried that simply
allowing programmers to send nonprinting characters down the socket
would lead to quite a few of them doing it indiscriminantly, and many
of those who do not having many separate methods of deciding whether a
terminal can support them, so that a user must go through a lot of
effort to specify to various programs whether or not they should send
nonprinting characters.

As to the discussion about sending bitmaps, mud graphics have been
done before in a more bandwidth-friendly way.  BSXmud is a
client/server combination which allows the server to direct the client
to print a series of filled polygons.  Although this doesn't allow for
anything better than cartoon graphics, bitmaps are awfully expensive
for today's Internet.

I have never heard of MIME, but it's worth noting that muds are in a
somewhat unique situation: there are no standards for communicating
between servers and clients, and no one has successfully implemented
such a standard (even Ken Keys' and my simple proposal that LP and
Dikumud server writers send an IAC GA or use the telnet EOR option to
mark prompts seems to have met with nought more than a short flamewar
and a large yawn).

I may be looking at a different aspect of muddom than some of the
conversants are interested in--I'm generally more concerned with not
leaving people behind than most, and certainly some people are
thinking about fairly controlled environments.  In this case, some of
my arguments are irrelevant.

--GBH


From parc.xerox.com!masinter Tue Mar  2 19:05:30 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "March" "1993" "18:43:32" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "7" "Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <93Mar2.184344pst.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 18:43:32 -0800
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	clay@cool.vortech.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)

I think MIME doesn't give enough fine-grained control over placement.
Most of the MIME types aren't really specified yet; image/gif and
application/postscript aren't really appropriate for in-MOO use.





From oolong.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Tue Mar  2 19:17:32 1993
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 18:53:14 -0800
From:	WEB@oolong.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	ghudson@athena.mit.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters


>  I'm not sure how well Emacs clients do.  I'd be worried that simply

Well, emacs, by default, reads in control characters and displays them in the
format: ^L ^G etc... In other words, sending something like an underlined
sentence to emacs would make it virtualy unreadable.

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From ccit.arizona.edu!BBENDICK Tue Mar  2 19:23:54 1993
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 18:58:04 -0800
From:	An Inquiring Mind Who Wants to Know <BBENDICK@ccit.arizona.edu>
To:	ghudson@athena.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

	But there are a fair number of situations where the person in the
charge can say what a person needs to have in order to use that MOO. LambdaMOO
is much too open for that policy obviously, but I'm working on a small MOO for
Group Decision Support where I can tell the end-user exactly what they need to
do to interface with the program. I would _love_ to be able to send escape
codes, but have nowhere near the technical knowledge to hack the server. I vot
for Pavel's change. :)

Brett Bendickson / Rohan @ everywhere

From csn.org!jamesp Tue Mar  2 22:04:54 1993
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Date:	Tue, 2 Mar 1993 21:44:31 -0800
From:	James Powell <jamesp@csn.org>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Caution, server hacks ahead! <longish>


Hey all. This sounds like a good time to report on some work in progress.
Aardvark-V 'n I have been plugging away on a new look for MOO, and one of our
current projects is support for Tektronix 4014 emulation. It's a nice little
graphics standard that has been around forever, and tons of apps have been
written for it, so it's quite tried and true and there are free emulators
available for most platforms. The original Tek was, I believe, a smart
terminal endowed with a vector display, so Tek graphics are entirely vector
based (read no bitmaps). We're developing the driver simply as an object,
pure evasion of the great "where to put the TERMCAP entries?" question. All
in all, it's pretty nifty and it works. We hope to release something soon,
but in the mean time, here's how we've approached the 8-bit ASCII question:

The user currently has two options:

1) $tek can send non-printing ASCII characters as an escape character (we're
   using tilde) followed by the hex code of the character in question. Use
   of this requires a client that will catch the escapes and translate them.
   I've built a bit of plumbing that allows you to telnet to some port at
   some local site, and then be automagically connected to yet another port
   at yet another site, and which does this translation for you. Something
   like this eliminates the need for a customized client and for server
   modification. It could even work for Lambda. It does presently require
   an entry in /etc/inetd.conf.

2) $tek can send the ascii codes directly, via the builtin ascii() function
   which I hacked into 1.7.0 thusly:

   Edit the file "list.c".
   Proceed to line 543, and above the lines that read:

static package
bf_tostr(Var arglist, Byte next, void *vdata, Objid progr)

   Insert the following text:

static package bf_ascii(Var arglist, Byte next, void *vdata, Objid progr)
{
  Var r;
  r.type = TYPE_STR;
  r.v.str =ascii_list2str(arglist.v.list); 
  free_var(arglist);
  return make_var_pack(r);
}

   Then proceed to line 233, and above the following lines:

Var
strrangeset(Var base, int from, int to, Var value)

   [isn't that a great function name?] Insert the following text:

char *
ascii_list2str(Var *args)
{
    static Stream      *str = 0;
    int			i;
    char buff[20];
    
    if (!str)
        str = new_stream(100);
   
    for (i = 1; i <= args[0].v.num; i++) {
	switch (args[i].type) {
	  case TYPE_NUM:
		  buff[0]=(char)args[i].v.num;
		  buff[1] = '\0';
		  stream_printf(str, "%s", buff);
		  break;
	  case TYPE_OBJ:
		  stream_printf(str, "#%d", args[i].v.obj);
		  break;
	  case TYPE_STR:
		  stream_add_string(str, args[i].v.str);
		  break;
	  case TYPE_ERR:
		  stream_add_string(str, unparse_error(args[i].v.err));
		  break;
	  case TYPE_LIST:
		  stream_add_string(str, "{list}");
		  break;
	  default:
		  panic("LIST2STR: Impossible var type.\n");
	}
    }
    return str_dup(reset_stream(str));
}

   And finally, proceed to line 794 (note that it is 794 only after you make
   the above additions) and between these two lines:

(void) register_function("tostr", 0, -1, bf_tostr);
. o O ( <- here )
setup_regex();

   Add the following line:

(void) register_function("ascii", 0, -1, bf_ascii);

   Save your changes to "list.c".
   Type "make", and install your nifty new, ascii()'ed server.

While there are no guarantees, expressed or implied, regarding these changes
and any possible side effects they might have on your db, your server (version
1.7.0 or otherwise), and the sanity and sactity of your players and their
terminals, and regarding everything else, too (gee, I'm in the wrong profess-
ion!), I do hope this code is of use to someone.
  -Minstrel aka "Dr. Strrange"-

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Mar  3 05:45:44 1993
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 04:20:19 -0800
From:	"J.Watson" <cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows?


> I envision a system much as you describe, where objects with the
> graphic_representation property are displayed as bitmaps.  Objects
> without encoded bitmaps are displayed as a default image (which is
> client-specific, and can be altered at will).  Now, I want to be able
> to drag objects in/out of my inventory, or click on them and see a
> pop-up menu of actions this object can perform, or move by clicking
> exits....  This sort of thing shouldn't be too hard to add, and would
> make MOO-vigating much smoother.

I too had a similar idea a few years ago, not in a MUD sense (I couldn't access
them at the time) but for ordinary adventures, you could drag objects about,
perform actions on them without typing. However this last part can take any
puzzle element out of the game, since half the fun is finding out what you can
do with the objects, having a menu infront of you with all the actions on would
spoil the fun.

> Imagine...users on VT100s, Windows machines, palmtops, and whizzy VR
> systems with body suits, all interacting in the *same* world, viewing
> it at whatever level of detail / graphics they can handle....

Nice vision, but v. costly, both in storage (Each level of detail has to be
stored), and in time (Each level must be defined, imagine using a VR suit only
to find that every room was a cube with no distinguishing features) plus to
be a builder you would really need to have some for a Graphics interface so
that
you could develop the VR part of the world.

James Watson
Dudley@UWMud

Sex is not the answer.  Sex is the question.  "Yes" is the answer.
        - Swami X

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account
be allowed to do the job.
        - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion.  Not only do
they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also
on ability.
        - T Lehrer

ASSEMBLER is a language.  Any language that can take a half-dozen keystrokes
and compile it down to one byte of code is all right in my books.  Though for
the REAL programmer, assembler is a waste of time.  Why use a compiler when you
can code directly into memory through a front panel.

From cool.vortech.com!clay Wed Mar  3 08:55:27 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "08:49:48" "-0800" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "20" "Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 08:49:48 -0800
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)
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> 
> I think MIME doesn't give enough fine-grained control over placement.
> Most of the MIME types aren't really specified yet; image/gif and
> application/postscript aren't really appropriate for in-MOO use.

I don't understand what you mean to say here.  All I was thinking was using
(perhaps MIME) bitmaps to simply diplay pictures, such as of a room or of
an object or player.  These would be more like thumbnails than accurate
depictions of settings (I assume you meant you couldn't, for instance, place
a person's picture in the proper location on a room's picture).

All I am suggesting with MIME is the standard engine to encode/decode thumbnail
bitmaps.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From sco.com!chrisn Wed Mar  3 09:50:42 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "09:46:03" "-0800" "\"The Horror, The Horror\"" "chrisn@sco.com" nil "44" "Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 09:46:03 -0800
From:	"The Horror, The Horror" <chrisn@sco.com>
To:	clay@cool.vortech.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)

	From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
	Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)
	To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
	Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 08:49:48 PST
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	All I was thinking was using
	(perhaps MIME) bitmaps to simply diplay pictures, such as of a room or of
	an object or player.  These would be more like thumbnails than accurate
	depictions of settings (I assume you meant you couldn't, for instance, place
	a person's picture in the proper location on a room's picture).
	
	All I am suggesting with MIME is the standard engine to encode/decode thumbnail
	bitmaps.
	

A standard engine would be preferable, as the happy person who creates
the clients could just evolve them instead of rewriting them.

Coordinates for bitmap placement on the client screen might be necessary
for immobile objects, as well as a "depth" dimension, for use in determining
what objects to display in the background, and the overlay sequence of the
other object bitmaps in the room. Crowded or cluttered rooms would be an
interesting problem...

Line drawings and text should satisfy our reqs in Santa Cruz, and probably
the needs of the Tech as well. I would suggest that the host which houses
the TechMOOseum might want to consider dial in lines so people can
dial in to the MOO over phone lines. Since this is the method we use
on our system in Santa Cruz, the plan is to do Unix, PC, Mac and Amiga 
clients which are essentially graphic frontends on top of a modem dialer.

As there is a plethora of public domain comm source for the various PC
and Unix platforms, putting together these clients should be easy
and straightforward.

Anyway, as I said, reports on progress will be posted as they occur.
This should be an interesting (and fun) summer.

ccn

From bellcore.com!norman Wed Mar  3 12:26:56 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "12:20:56" "-0800" "Norman Ramsey" "norman@bellcore.com " nil "8" "Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 12:20:56 -0800
From:	norman@bellcore.com (Norman Ramsey)
To:	chrisn@sco.com, clay@cool.vortech.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)

I mentioned MOO and MIME to our local MIME guru, Nathaniel Borenstein,
who was heavily involved in the development of MIME.  He says he has
received many requests for a MIME type that could handle images at low
bandwidth (e.g., simple line drawings, ...), but the nobody has
actually developed one that he knows of.  If someone here wants to
try, he is willing to help get you started.

Norman

From symcom.math.uiuc.edu!schalk Wed Mar  3 14:45:00 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "14:38:39" "-0800" "Ken Schalk" "schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu" nil "29" "A thought on fancy client implementation" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 14:38:39 -0800
From:	Ken Schalk <schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: A thought on fancy client implementation

    All this talk about how one could implement a nifty client with
all kinds of wizzy features like windows and pictures and icons and
popup menus brought to mind something I was thinking about a few days
ago.  If you want to have a client that can do all kinds of
interesting things, why not just make the client a server that talks
to the other server that has extra code piled into it for all the
platform-specific interface issues?  After all, you're going to be
putting a bit of a load onto the client machine to handle the fancy
interface, so why not go a bit further, and make it easier to program
the client to add new interface bells and whistles by making it a
server in and of itself?

    (I'm not sure that this idea is something I'd want to try and
implement with MOO, and when I was thinking about it I was actually
thinking of implementing a new system from the ground up based on the
premise that all clients are just small servers, but I figured I'd
throw it out.  I guess, in a way, it's like crossing MOO with UnterMUD
and throwing fancy interface primitives on top, but that would be
philosophical debate.)

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
\\ Kenneth C Schalk \\\\"Is conciousness just a special form of \\\\\\  //-\
////////////////////////  hallucination?" -- Frank Herbert      ////// //-O|
\\ ken@imsa.edu \\\\\\\\"We're each other fragments...but each  \\\\\\ |   |
// kschalk@icomsim.com / fragment reveals the [whole] from a    //////  \_/
\\ k-schalk@uiuc.edu \\\ different angle..." -- William Gibson  \\\\\\
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[aka Xorian@LambdaMOO]

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Wed Mar  3 17:52:54 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "17:46:04" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <93Mar3.174612pst.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 17:46:04 -0800
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	clay@cool.vortech.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO clients for Windows? (fwd)

> All I am suggesting with MIME is the standard engine to encode/decode thumbnail
> bitmaps.

a) MIME isn't a standard (yet).

b) MIME isn't an engine. There may be MIME viewers around, but for the
most part, MIME just says how to say what is a bitmap.

c) What MIME says about bitmaps isn't good for 'thumbnail
   bitmaps', since all it says about bitmaps at all is 'image/gif'.


From unipress.com!joe Wed Mar  3 21:34:58 1993
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 21:27:14 -0800
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters


>Pavel Curtis writes about direct transmission of control characters:

>> The reason for the current state of affairs is a concern for security.

> ... A possibly more serious concern is that most people's environments
> cannot handle ANSI or VT-100 codes.  ...

> ... BSXmud is a client/server combination which allows the server to direct 
> the client to print a series of filled polygons. ...

> ... I have never heard of MIME, but it's worth noting that muds are in a
> somewhat unique situation: there are no standards for communicating
> between servers and clients, and no one has successfully implemented
> such a standard ...

> ... some people are thinking about fairly controlled environments.  In this
> case, some of my arguments are irrelevant.

IMHO, the security issue is not worth considering.  Also, Just being able to
send bitmaps or vt100 escape codes isn't strong enough as a good quality,
general, output mechanism for MUDs.  What I "really want" is a very high
level, low bandwidth display protocol with a good client package that
implements it.  Of course, window system vendors have been searching for this
sort of thing for years ...  If the client is good, however, I feel the
standard will stick, and other MUDs will follow suit. 

Given this design decision, MOO really doesn't have to change very much at
all, since there is already enough consideration given to "out of band" data.

I haven't looked into this sort of stuff too much, to tell the truth, although
I think I may have tried a BSXmud late one evening.

--GBH


From csn.org!jamesp Wed Mar  3 21:56:00 1993
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 21:49:56 -0800
From:	James Powell <jamesp@csn.org>
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (. o O ( MOO ))
Subject: Demented distribution.


Kenneth Schalk writes:
>     All this talk about how one could implement a nifty client with
> all kinds of wizzy features like windows and pictures and icons and
> popup menus brought to mind something I was thinking about a few days
> ago.  If you want to have a client that can do all kinds of
> interesting things, why not just make the client a server that talks
> to the other server that has extra code piled into it for all the
> platform-specific interface issues?  After all, you're going to be
> putting a bit of a load onto the client machine to handle the fancy
> interface, so why not go a bit further, and make it easier to program
> the client to add new interface bells and whistles by making it a
> server in and of itself?

I've been kind of irrationally interested in the idea of servers also
serving as clients, and vice versa. Here's the slightly demented extreme
I came up with a while back:

How about a MOO client that runs all the code itself, using Lambda (via SLIP)
as the "disk-based" server? Downloading only those objects it needs to operate,
possibly only those parts of an object it needs to operate, with a cache, of
course. You'd need a PC based MOO that triggered a download routine whenever a
nonexistant object is referenced. It would also need to fork a GC now and then
to clear out objects that weren't touched recently. You'd need enough RAM to
hold 60,000 blank objects, to talk to Lambda. The download routine'd have to
get an @dump and feed it to the MOO. Then there's the problem of getting more
recent versions of cached objects. Like, if you could mark a room object's
.contents to be updated continuously, you'd see the LambdaMOOers wandering
around.

I like it mainly because I think MOO code is often very handy stuff, and
because I believe in personal, decentralized computing. Whatcha think?
  -Minstrel-


From unipress.com!joe Wed Mar  3 21:59:51 1993
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	"
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 21:53:16 -0800
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	joe@unipress.com
cc:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters

whoops i missigned that.

sorry.

--joe

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Mar  3 22:17:03 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "22:10:23" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "The Xerox PARC Social Virtual Reality Project" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 22:10:23 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: The Xerox PARC Social Virtual Reality Project

At least, the paper that Dave Nichols and I wrote about our ongoing research
efforts in the area of Social Virtual Realities has been cleared by the suits
upstairs, so I have placed a copy of it in my usual repository for such things,
the pub/MOO/papers directory on parcftp.xerox.com; the files are called
MUDsGrowUp.{txt,ps}.

Your comments and welcome, but we probably won't have much time to answer any
questions you may have about it; we'll be too busy implementing what we
describe there!

	Pavel

From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Wed Mar  3 22:48:25 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "March" "1993" "22:45:22" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "20" "Re: Question wrt escape/control characters" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Sender: PARC.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Question wrt escape/control characters

joe@unipress.com:

| Also, Just being able to
| send bitmaps or vt100 escape codes isn't strong enough as a good quality,
| general, output mechanism for MUDs.  What I "really want" is a very high
| level, low bandwidth display protocol with a good client package that
| implements it.  

I personally think it's a little close to midnight to start with
2-D stuff, and that it would be better to look at, say Michael
Snoswell's (michaels@vsl.com.au) CT, Rend386, and suchlike
3D-VR-for-the-masses stuff... but if one really wants highlevel
low-bandwidth 2-D graphics, the North American Presentation Level
Protocol might be something to look at, clearly a decent amount of
work went into designing it to more or less those specs.  I don't
know if it died for political or technical reasons, but the former
seems just as likely in my ignorance...

CrT


From lehigh.edu!tfv0 Thu Mar  4 08:46:03 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "4" "March" "1993" "08:37:47" "-0800" "Theodore F Vaida ][" "tfv0@lehigh.edu " nil "24" "Escape Characters" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Thu, 4 Mar 1993 08:37:47 -0800
From:	tfv0@lehigh.edu (Theodore F Vaida ][)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Escape Characters

I would like to echo the beliefe that the direct ascii sending routine
should be supported in the next possible server version.  Like o_n_c it
would be optional to the person who compiles the software.  However, I also
think that since the current front end should not be changed directly.  The
out_of_band operator provides the best place to put this (Pavel even states
such in the header files folks...) extra information.  Placing colored
text, underlined text and such is foolery, and dangerous when dealing with
an unknown client (fustrated users who get garbage quit playing).

I for one would be willing to write a simple text client (for the times I
and others cant get to that neato X terminal) and perhaps an X client, I'll
just have to set my priorities right!  In any case...

---------=======================================================---------
                  ->POLAR CAPS<- or tfv0@lehigh.edu
Student Konsultant Making the world safe for computing!
"Never before have we owed so little to so many..."- R.T.Folk
"One must not confuse John Dunne's famous quote `No man is an Island' with
 New York Telephone's `We're all connected'" - Dad
"Trust no one, and be honest with all"  _Claudius_the_God_, and Dad
   Paranoid, but it'll keep you out of trouble...
	   PGP2.0 Public encryption key is availble on request.
---------=======================================================---------


From aero.org!obrien Thu Mar  4 11:07:56 1993
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             <199303041637.AA23633@ns3.CC.Lehigh.EDU>re"
Message-ID: <199303041856.AA06022@aerospace.aero.org>
Date:	Thu, 4 Mar 1993 10:56:07 -0800
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Escape Characters

	Warning, Will Robinson!

        The reason things like "talk" and "write" and the shell and a
bunch of other things won't send control characters not originated locally
by the program is because people really, seriously have had their accounts
robbed this way, and in wholesale lots, too.  It's serious business.

	The other point I'd mention is that if you do send control
characters, one tempting thing to do is to define a graphic standard
set, or dig up such a standard, and then have clients which translate
these into the codes used by the local terminal.

	In the past, this hasn't worked.  MIT designed the SUPDUP protocol
to do exactly this, and the technology just never caught on.  Hence all
the messing around with TERMTYPE and the like.  Unless you think you can
get SUPDUP or its equivalent to fly, when it flopped fifteen years ago,
I suggest you think more along the lines of storing a termtype with the
player information, and just Do The Right Thing in the server directly.
Sad, but that's the way it worked out out the last time.

Mike O'Brien

From bellcore.com!norman Thu Mar  4 15:03:11 1993
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Date:	Thu, 4 Mar 1993 14:55:18 -0800
From:	norman@bellcore.com (Norman Ramsey)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MIME standard

The MIME `standard' is RFC 1341.  It's somewhat heavy going, but you
can get the document via ftp to nic.ddn.mil, cd rfc.
ls to see the list of files (they have names like rfc1341.txt or rfc1341.ps)

Norman

From priscilla.math.binghamton.edu!rogers Sun Mar  7 20:15:14 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "7" "March" "1993" "20:05:19" "-0800" "John Rogers" "rogers@math.binghamton.edu " nil "14" "Multiple Inheritance and other thoughts" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Sun, 7 Mar 1993 20:05:19 -0800
From:	rogers@math.binghamton.edu (John Rogers)
Sender: rogers@priscilla.math.binghamton.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Multiple Inheritance and other thoughts

   Got a curious question for y'all:
   1) Is there any effort toward implementing something more powerful than
      Feature Object trick on MOO (read it as implementing Multiple
      Inheritance, if you will)?
   2) The MOO currently scans the list {player, room, direct_object,
      indirect_object} for the verbs.  I wonder if it would be a bit slicker
      to add the fifth item: "other".  This "other" might be either a
      generic object $other with the default :huh on it (and naturally one
      can @create all sort of descendants of $other), or it might be a
      verb, or whatever....just thought it up off my hat.  What do you
      think of it?
   3) Where is the standard ftp archive for the MOO source code?

    Many thanks!                   John Rogers (aka The_Blue_Wizard@LambdaMOO)

From onet.edu!CAMP!seth Mon Mar  8 07:51:06 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "March" "1993" "02:40:00" "-0800" "seth%CAMP@onet.edu" "seth%CAMP@onet.edu" nil "38" "Re: Multiple Inheritance and other ..." "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Mon, 8 Mar 1993 02:40:00 -0800
From:	seth%CAMP@onet.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Multiple Inheritance and other ...

John Rogers:

>    1) Is there any effort toward implementing something more powerful than
>       Feature Object trick on MOO (read it as implementing Multiple
>       Inheritance, if you will)?

There are a number of different attempts being made at this. I'm working
(albeit slowly, because of other projects) at improving in-DB parsing. One
of the main complications is speed -- it can be terribly tick-intensive to
check every object in the vicinity for appropriate verb/args pairs.

>    2) The MOO currently scans the list {player, room, direct_object,
>       indirect_object} for the verbs.  I wonder if it would be a bit slicker
>       to add the fifth item: "other".  This "other" might be either a
>       generic object $other with the default :huh on it (and naturally one
>       can @create all sort of descendants of $other), or it might be a
>       verb, or whatever....just thought it up off my hat.  What do you
>       think of it?

Well, the MOO actually checks the player, then eir location, then checks
for a dobj match, then for an iobj match, then (if all that fails) it
checks for a :huh verb on the player's location and runs that if all the
other attempted matches fail.

I'm not sure what your method would gain -- as things stand (in the latest
LambdaCore release), the default :huh goes through a whole bunch of 
attempts to see what the command you type means (is it a feature? is it
an exit? is it a special editor command? are you setting a message?).

>   3) Where is the standard ftp archive for the MOO source code?

parcftp.xerox.com -- look in /pub/MOO/contrib/moocode (I think).

Once Chaos and I get our respective butts in gear, though, there'll be a
MOO ftp server running that ya can pick up MOO objects from easily.  (We
spent most of the weekend making it more secure.)

Seth / Blackbriar

From wg7j.ece.orst.edu!g6phf Tue Mar  9 14:24:06 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "9" "March" "1993" "05:59:35" "-0800" "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu" "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu" nil "5" "Quests etc on MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <7465@wg7j.ECE.ORST.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 9 Mar 1993 05:59:35 -0800
From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Quests etc on MOO?

 Hi , I would like to implement something like a quest on my MOO, maybe
like the one in the Library on Lambda. Something to make my users wander 
around and find things and/or solvbe simple puzzles or riddles.
  Can anybody give me any help on this, or point me in the right direction?
Thanks in advance,Mike

From wg7j.ece.orst.edu!g6phf Tue Mar  9 14:24:06 1993
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Date:	Tue, 9 Mar 1993 05:56:21 -0800
From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO port for Amiga?

  Does anybody have one please?? I tried the one from parcftp, but it gurus
my machine straight away.
Thanks v. much, Mike

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Wed Mar 10 04:03:05 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Tue, 09 Mar 93 05:56:21 PST.\"
             <7463@wg7j.ECE.ORST.EDU>er"
Message-ID: <199303101154.AA09134@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>
Date:	Wed, 10 Mar 1993 03:53:52 -0800
From:	Stefan_Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO port for Amiga?


>   Does anybody have one please?? I tried the one from parcftp, but it gurus
> my machine straight away.
> Thanks v. much, Mike

I did a port for the Amiga. I implemented simple network capabilities
for the serial port and the parnet parallel port.
This works quite well, the speed of moo is also fine.

I only had problems with the response time. That's no fault of
the moo, it is because my networking functions are not the 
fastest. 

Also I faced system crashes sometimes. Especially when I frequently
used my built in local editor interface. 

Due to the fact that I bought unix for my Amiga I am not willing
to support my port.

But if you still want it, I could upload it to parcftp.

Stefan

From priscilla.math.binghamton.edu!rogers Wed Mar 10 06:53:58 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "March" "1993" "06:39:27" "-0800" "John Rogers" "rogers@math.binghamton.edu " nil "41" "Re: MOO port for Amiga?" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Wed, 10 Mar 1993 06:39:27 -0800
From:	rogers@math.binghamton.edu (John Rogers)
Sender: rogers@priscilla.math.binghamton.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO port for Amiga?

> From staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at Wed Mar 10 07:04:57 1993
> Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
> Subject: Re: MOO port for Amiga?
> To: moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com

>>   Does anybody have one please?? I tried the one from parcftp, but it gurus
>> my machine straight away.
>> Thanks v. much, Mike
>
> I did a port for the Amiga. I implemented simple network capabilities
> for the serial port and the parnet parallel port.
> This works quite well, the speed of moo is also fine.
>
> I only had problems with the response time. That's no fault of
> the moo, it is because my networking functions are not the 
> fastest. 
>
> Also I faced system crashes sometimes. Especially when I frequently
> used my built in local editor interface. 
>
> Due to the fact that I bought unix for my Amiga I am not willing
> to support my port.
>
> But if you still want it, I could upload it to parcftp.
>
> Stefan

   Hmmm....so if you don't want to support your port, I suggest you include
the source code, README, PORTING.DOC, TO-DO.DOC as well as the executable
in your uploading to parcftp.  I am sure someone else would like to give it
a try.  I myself would like to, but I can't since my Amiga monitor is now
dead and I have pretty much run out of my RL $$$!
   Anyway, wish good luck to anyone who try!  ^_^

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
         ///            | The Blue Wizard Of Dragon Order (John Rogers)
        ///  Only Amiga | rogers@math.binghamton.edu
  \\\  ///  gives you a | (Don't toucha my wand or I will breaka ya!)
   \\\/// creative edge |     #include <std.disclaimers>
    \XX/                |     cat flames >/dev/null 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From wg7j.ece.orst.edu!g6phf Thu Mar 11 18:38:41 1993
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Date:	Wed, 10 Mar 1993 16:07:11 -0800
From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re Amiga MOO for Stefan.

 Hi Stefan, I cant seem to geta reply to you from here, so I'll send this
short message to the group.
 Yes I would very much appreciate it if you could leave the could somewhere,
maybe parcftp.
 Thanks, Mke=Mike

From nimbus.som.cwru.edu!glenn Thu Mar 11 19:51:06 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "11" "March" "1993" "19:38:41" "-0800" "Glenn Crocker" "glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu " nil "35" "Graphical M*'s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 19:38:41 -0800
From:	glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu (Glenn Crocker)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Graphical M*'s


(Long ago, we would say "MU*"s, but with MOO, I have to say "M*"s
to cover all the bases.  Yow.  Soon, I may have to say, "*"s.  Hmmmm.)

Anyways, I'm one of the TinyMUSH hackers, and am interested in
graphical M[UO]*'s (hey, that's better.).  I understand that there is
work towards this going on in the MOO community, and I wanted to see
if anyone on this mailing-list has any information about:

Who's working on this stuff?
How much do they have done?
What protocol is being used for graphical clients to talk to servers?
What graphical language is being used to represent the images?
etc etc etc.

My basic goal is to be compatible with other graphical M[UO]*'s, since
writing a graphical client is not as trivial as writing a text client,
and it would be _great_ if the various graphical M[UO]*'s could share
clients, images, etc.

I've written support for BSX-MUD's protocol to my MUSH (well, to a
bunch of objects in my MUSH), but it's clearly insufficient.  (2d, 
serious color restrictions, bizarre coordinate system, etc etc etc.)

I'm to the point of seriously thinking about establishing a protocol
and language for these things, so if you've got ideas about this,
please let me know soon.  (i.e. spring break is next week, and I
really don't want to spend _all_ of my time working on my thesis. :-)

(Please note that I'm not on the moo-cows mailing list, so please
reply to me and cc the list, or vice-versa, so I can see your reply.)

Thanks!

-glenn

From epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Thu Mar 11 20:39:22 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "11" "March" "1993" "20:29:53" "-0800" "H. Peter Anvin" "hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "73" "Re: Graphical M*'s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 20:29:53 -0800
From:	hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
To:	glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu (Glenn Crocker)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical M*'s
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)

You write:
> 
> I'm to the point of seriously thinking about establishing a protocol
> and language for these things, so if you've got ideas about this,
> please let me know soon.  (i.e. spring break is next week, and I
> really don't want to spend _all_ of my time working on my thesis. :-)
> 
> (Please note that I'm not on the moo-cows mailing list, so please
> reply to me and cc the list, or vice-versa, so I can see your reply.)
> 
> Thanks!
> 

I have had similar ideas, and I have thought about it a lot, although
I have considered it more for BBS use than for MUD.  Of course, the
principles apply just as well to either, and standardization could be
useful to both applications.

My observations have mainly been:

Current text-based BBS's/servers tend to presume extremely little
about their client, which is left to just serve as a login terminal or
at the most provide some elementary ANSI escape codes for text
colorization.

Unfortunately, this puts an extremely large load on the communications
channel (which may be as narrow as 1200 or 2400 bit/s) and on the
server.

However, most people have equipment that not too many years ago would
have been considered large enough to run large corporations.  (A 486
today would have been a 2000-user machine in the 60's)  Since we are
getting rid of the machine independance anyway by doing graphics, we
should put as much of the load on the client end as possible.

In order to provide the client with *useful* intelligence, the server
needs to be able to execute code on the client.  A static set of
functions is too limiting.  Furthermore, it would be useful if the
server could augment the  function library of the client in a semi-permanent
way (code could be stored between sessions).

Compiled languages are unsuitable, because the server will be
dynamically modifying the environment of the client.  For performance
reasons, thus, an interactive, pseudo-compiled language such as FORTH
might be suitable to the task.  FORTH has the additional benefit that
it is a rather simple language to implement.  The basic FORTH language
needs to be augmented with some form of string handling and non-block
disk I/O, but that should be trivial to do.

I suggest string handling is implemented the way it is in C: have any
constant enclosed in quotes be a pointer to a string in static storage
and use library functions for string manipulation.

There is an issue of the security of the client.  Even though it is
probably desirable for the code to access the hard disk of the client
for data and library code storage, it cannot be allowed unrestricted
access (it would make a security hole a mile wide).  I would suggest
that the functions to access mass storage on the hard disk is limited
to a library and a data directory.

These are a couple of thoughts I have had on the implementation of
this.  If you want to discuss any particular aspect, please contact me
directly.

	/hpa



-- 
INTERNET:  hpa@nwu.edu   TALK:      hpa@delta.eecs.nwu.edu
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From media.mit.edu!foner Thu Mar 11 21:20:58 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "11" "March" "1993" "21:11:58" "-0800" "foner@media.mit.edu" "foner@media.mit.edu" nil "26" "Re: Graphical M*'s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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	glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu (Glenn Crocker)
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Date:	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 21:11:58 -0800
From:	foner@media.mit.edu
To:	hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu, glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu
cc:	foner@media.mit.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical M*'s

    Date: 	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 20:29:53 PST
    From: hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)

    [ . . . ]

    In order to provide the client with *useful* intelligence, the server
    needs to be able to execute code on the client.  A static set of
    functions is too limiting.  Furthermore, it would be useful if the
    server could augment the  function library of the client in a semi-permanent
    way (code could be stored between sessions).

    Compiled languages are unsuitable, because the server will be
    dynamically modifying the environment of the client.  For performance
    reasons, thus, an interactive, pseudo-compiled language such as FORTH
    might be suitable to the task.  FORTH has the additional benefit that
    it is a rather simple language to implement.  The basic FORTH language
    needs to be augmented with some form of string handling and non-block
    disk I/O, but that should be trivial to do.

    [ . . . ]

I submit that one place where many of these issues have been thought out is
Display PostScript.  However, supporting this on non-NeXT machines is a rather
large thing to expect of most clients.  It _does_ have the benefits of
well-thought-out semantics and existing implementations, though.  (Would GNU's
GhostScript perhaps be an appropriate base to start from?)

From math.binghamton.edu!rogers Thu Mar 11 21:54:11 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "11" "March" "1993" "21:48:00" "-0800" "John Rogers" "rogers@math.binghamton.edu " nil "33" "Re: Graphical M*'s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <9303120548.AA05496@math.binghamton.edu>
Date:	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 21:48:00 -0800
From:	rogers@math.binghamton.edu (John Rogers)
To:	glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu, hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu,
	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical M*'s

    Date: 	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 20:29:53 PST
    From: hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)

    [ text proposing modified FORTH deleted ]

    From: foner@media.mit.edu

> I submit that one place where many of these issues have been thought out is
> Display PostScript.  However, supporting this on non-NeXT machines is a rather
> large thing to expect of most clients.  It _does_ have the benefits of
> well-thought-out semantics and existing implementations, though.  (Would GNU's
> GhostScript perhaps be an appropriate base to start from?)

    Postscript is pretty slow...perhaps a simpler version, reimplemented in
FORTH rather than Postscript, might do it....it has additional benefit that
a knowledgable user can directly add a glue-on routine/interface with the
underlying machine architecture/system....of course one must figure out how
to handle the FORTH word creating guard...perhaps a privilege hierarchy is
in order here....

    e.g.   disk I/O would be implemented as a privileged operation; only the
           user can modify it, not the server...server may invoke the function
           though.....etc.

    Just a two cents worth of thought....
                                             The_Blue_Wizard@LambdaMOO
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
         ///            | The Blue Wizard Of Dragon Order (John Rogers)
        ///  Only Amiga | rogers@math.binghamton.edu
  \\\  ///  gives you a | (Don't toucha my wand or I will breaka ya!)
   \\\/// creative edge |     #include <std.disclaimers>
    \XX/                |     cat flames >/dev/null 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Thu Mar 11 22:12:43 1993
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Date:	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 21:51:22 -0800
From:	hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
To:	foner@media.mit.edu (Leonard N. Foner)
cc:	glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical M*'s
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)

You write:
> 
> A good point.  But...
> 
> I actually don't have any hard data about speed of Display PostScript
> implementations.  (Someone who uses NeXT machines would be a big help here; I
> can ask several such users I know.)  However, I'm presuming that this is to be
> used to display simple pictures, not to render text.  Assuming that the
> pictures really are fairly simple (no computed fractals or whatever), then
> they're mostly either bitmaps or polygon fills.  In either case, the majority
> of the time would presumably be spent in the actual rendering (which would be
> required of any rendering system), rather than in interpretive overhead (which
> In short, my presumption is that most of the "programs" would be only a few
> lines, ignoring bitmap data, and probably not have heavy-duty loops in them.
> Thus, unless you're talking about a badly-written interpreter, there's no
> reason why PostScript should be particularly slower than anything else.  The
> nature of the coordinate system _does_ tend to presume you can do real
> arithmetic fairly quickly, but I'd argue that this is required anyway, since
> you can't assume that everyone's client has the same coordinate system (this
> would be tantamount to assuming they all have the same size and resolution
> screen, which can't be true).
> 
> Also, you're not really talking real-time animation here anyway, unless again
> it's being done by the client.  After all, text-only servers are pretty lagged
> now!
> 
> So the basic issue here is, given what we'd expect to be displaying (pictures,
> not finely-rendered high-resolution text), would a good PostScript interpreter
> have to be much (or any) slower than something else which has the necessarily
> flexibility?  If so, why?  I'm certainly willing to be convinced, but I can't
> think of any compelling arguments at the moment why this must be so.
> 

PostScript is slow.  It is pretty tolerable on a NeXT; I don't exactly
know what they are doing, but the lag is noticeable.  On an RS/6000 it
takes about 5 seconds to write the copyright notice in DPS text.

I simply think Display PostScript is overkill.  I think we could make
do with 32-bit integer arithmetric using a pretty straightforward
pixelated coordinate system.  That should be prefectly adequate on a
display terminal (while of course it is totally inadequate for high
quality printed output).

We should maybe make a mailing list to discuss this?

	/hpa

-- 
INTERNET:  hpa@nwu.edu   TALK:      hpa@delta.eecs.nwu.edu
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#include <sigvirus.h>

From theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu!nop Thu Mar 11 23:16:19 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "11" "March" "1993" "23:08:06" "-0800" "Jay A. Carlson" "nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu " nil "14" "Graphical M*'s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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In-Reply-to: "Glenn Crocker's message of Thu, 11 Mar 1993 19:38:41 PST <9303120338.AA26193@nimbus.som.cwru.edu>"
Message-ID: <9303120708.AA04095@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
Date:	Thu, 11 Mar 1993 23:08:06 -0800
From:	nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
To:	glenn@nimbus.som.cwru.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Graphical M*'s

> My basic goal is to be compatible with other graphical M[UO]*'s, since
> writing a graphical client is not as trivial as writing a text client,

Note that we haven't even perfected text clients, since almost all
clients work at the tty-ascii level, which is hardly what most people
think of as `text'---except people who have been brainwashed by unix
and its friends. :-)

See signature.

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From daiduk.kaist.ac.kr!baram.kaist.ac.kr!hanmaum Fri Mar 12 02:21:27 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "12" "March" "1993" "02:07:10" "-0800" "Oh Sung-kyu" "hanmaum%baram.kaist.ac.kr@daiduk.kaist.ac.kr " nil "48" "Re: Graphical M*'s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <9303121007.AA04053@baram.kaist.ac.kr>
Date:	Fri, 12 Mar 1993 02:07:10 -0800
From:	hanmaum%baram.kaist.ac.kr@daiduk.kaist.ac.kr (Oh Sung-kyu)
To:	hpa@nwu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical M*'s

> ....
> However, most people have equipment that not too many years ago would
> have been considered large enough to run large corporations.  (A 486
> today would have been a 2000-user machine in the 60's)  Since we are
> getting rid of the machine independance anyway by doing graphics, we
> should put as much of the load on the client end as possible.
> 
> In order to provide the client with *useful* intelligence, the server
> needs to be able to execute code on the client.  A static set of
> functions is too limiting.  Furthermore, it would be useful if the
> server could augment the  function library of the client in a semi-permanent
> way (code could be stored between sessions).
> 
> Compiled languages are unsuitable, because the server will be
> dynamically modifying the environment of the client.  For performance
> reasons, thus, an interactive, pseudo-compiled language such as FORTH
> might be suitable to the task.  FORTH has the additional benefit that
> it is a rather simple language to implement.  The basic FORTH language
> needs to be augmented with some form of string handling and non-block
> disk I/O, but that should be trivial to do.

Yes. I also have the same thought.
And, I found that there is already the system that provides such a environment.
It's NeWS from Sun Microsystems. They developed it as Networking environment
for their computers. it is extended from Postscript to display graphics.
Evenly, it is object-oriended and can handle events and so on.... 
Therefore, it is more powerful than Display Postscript.

But, in spite of its excellent features, Sun decided to use Display Postscript
as the display language of the next version of Open Window.
Display Postscript is nearly the standard of industry because it is from Adobe.

Refer NeWS to get the information about such a environment.

> 
> ...
> 	/hpa
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> INTERNET:  hpa@nwu.edu   TALK:      hpa@delta.eecs.nwu.edu
> BITNET:    HPA@NUACC     IBMNET:    16331@IBMX400
> HAM RADIO: N9ITP         NeXTMAIL:  hpa@lenny.acns.nwu.edu
> while ( 1 ) ; cp /dev/zero /dev/null & end
> 

-hanmaum-

From unidata.com!james Fri Mar 12 10:36:32 1993
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Date:	Sun, 28 Feb 1993 07:11:12 -0800
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	hpa@epsilon.eecs.nwu.edu
cc:	james@unidata.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical M*'s


You write:
>I simply think Display PostScript is overkill.  I think we could make
>do with 32-bit integer arithmetric using a pretty straightforward
>pixelated coordinate system.  That should be prefectly adequate on a
>display terminal (while of course it is totally inadequate for high
>quality printed output).

Display PostScript is certainly overkill. But the problems we're encountering
are not new... Display PostScript is one of the most recent in a long line
of display languages. The one I'm working with is Tektronix, and I think it's
a good choice. I don't think anyone should be creating new graphical standards
without a _real_ good reason, especially if they hope people of diverse
computational backgrounds to utilize the tools you build. This is why I like
tek. There are free or cheap emulators available for just about anything,
it's designed for low bandwidth links, it's resolution independant, color,
and accepts input from keyboard or mouse/trackball driven crosshairs.

My plan right now is to take the basic tek work I've done, which already gives
a nice animated interface to MOO, and start extending it, so people running
a client that supports my superset of tek can take advantage of the third
dimension, bitmaps, and sound. But since we've even got ASCII equivalents of
more or less everything we've done, people using an Indigo could mix with and
render people who're on teletypes.
  -James/Minstrel-

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\
| James Powell - Programmer/Analyst - Special Projects - jamesp@unidata.com   |
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/




From bellcore.com!norman Fri Mar 12 11:02:46 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "12" "March" "1993" "10:51:39" "-0800" "Norman Ramsey" "norman@bellcore.com " nil "8" "Graphical M*s" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Fri, 12 Mar 1993 10:51:39 -0800
From:	norman@bellcore.com (Norman Ramsey)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Graphical M*s


A secure implementation of John Ousterhout's tk tool kit (based on his
tcl language) might be a good way for a MOO server to send graphics or
other information to a client.

Norman



From dartvax.dartmouth.edu!tleg Fri Mar 12 14:13:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "12" "March" "1993" "07:08:32" "-0800" "Ted Wallace" "tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu " nil "18" "STUMPED" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Fri, 12 Mar 1993 07:08:32 -0800
From:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Ted Wallace)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: STUMPED

Hi folks, normally I wouldn't send something this trivial to MOO-COWs but
I've tried everything I can think of with *zero* success.

I get a Type Mismatch error with the lines:

if (player.wizard || index(place.flagstr, "f", 1) || player == place.owner)

if (player == place.owner)

if (player == toobj(place.owner))

if (toobj(player) == toobj(place.owner))

I get this error during execution of the verb, NOT during compiling. Any
idea what's going wrong?

Ted/Falryx


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Mar 12 17:05:12 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "12" "March" "1993" "16:52:55" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "20" "Re: STUMPED" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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References: <9303122200.AA15134@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Date:	Fri, 12 Mar 1993 16:52:55 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: STUMPED

> Date:	Fri, 12 Mar 1993 07:08:32 -0800
> From:	tleg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Ted Wallace)
> 
> I get a Type Mismatch error with the lines:
> 
> if (player.wizard || index(place.flagstr, "f", 1) || player == place.owner)
> 
> if (player == place.owner)
> 
> if (player == toobj(place.owner))
> 
> if (toobj(player) == toobj(place.owner))
> 
> I get this error during execution of the verb, NOT during compiling. Any
> idea what's going wrong?

It looks most likely to me that `place' is not an object.  Certainly, that's
the only thing that could cause a Type Mismatch in the second line.

	Pavel

From senex.unh.edu!unhtel!morwyn!root Sat Mar 13 06:51:15 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "13" "March" "1993" "06:36:53" "-0800" "Forrie Aldrich" "root@morwyn.uucp" nil "11" "MOO Porting -> SCO" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Sender: unhtel!morwyn!root@senex.unh.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO Porting -> SCO

I'm looking for some help with porting LambdaMOO to SCO UNIX3.2.4.  If you
can help, please email me directly.  Thanks...

Forrest

forrie@unhtel.unh.edu (please use this address)

-- 
Forrie Aldrich @ morwyn.UUCP / morwyn!forrie@gsg.com

VISION GRAPHICS

From elf.com!gub Mon Mar 15 13:39:37 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "15" "March" "1993" "08:32:47" "-0800" "Glen Daniels" "gub@elf.com " nil "66" "MOO clients for Windows?" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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In-Reply-to: "\"J.Watson\"'s message of Wed, 3 Mar 1993 04:20:19 PST <9303031220.AA14873@scitsc>-and-h"
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Date:	Mon, 15 Mar 1993 08:32:47 -0800
From:	gub@elf.com (Glen Daniels)
To:	cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO clients for Windows?


Sorry for the delay in replying to this...

   Date: 	Wed, 3 Mar 1993 04:20:19 PST
   From: "J.Watson" <cm8224@SCITSC.WLV.AC.UK>

   I too had a similar idea a few years ago, not in a MUD sense (I couldn't access
   them at the time) but for ordinary adventures, you could drag objects about, 
   perform actions on them without typing. However this last part can take any
   puzzle element out of the game, since half the fun is finding out what you can
   do with the objects, having a menu infront of you with all the actions on would
   spoil the fun.

I just want to be able to see the same things @examine can show you.
There could certainly be "visible" verbs and "hidden" features, it'd
just be nice to have easy access to the visible ones.  I'm mainly
coming at this from the perspective of trying to develop this
technology into a useful *general* shared computing environment
(cyberspace from grass-roots movements up, rather than somehow imposed
from above).  In "puzzle" areas, information hiding is a good thing,
but in many others, you want the environment to be as easy to play
with as possible.

   > Imagine...users on VT100s, Windows machines, palmtops, and whizzy VR
   > systems with body suits, all interacting in the *same* world, viewing
   > it at whatever level of detail / graphics they can handle....

   Nice vision, but v. costly, both in storage (Each level of detail has to be
   stored), and in time (Each level must be defined, imagine using a VR suit only
   to find that every room was a cube with no distinguishing features) plus to
   be a builder you would really need to have some for a Graphics interface so that
   you could develop the VR part of the world.

Well, the point is not to provide all things to all users, but to
allow a much more broadly shared virtual world.  No matter what kind
of interface I've got, I'd like to be able to participate somehow in
the same "game" everyone else is playing.  The folks who have swoopy
VR suits will be able to design swoopy VR areas, but as long as they
also implement textual descriptions, they can share those areas with
all the less-fortunate with VT100s.  Of course, there may be areas
where people don't choose to take the time to implement a "lowest
common denominator" interface - in that case, a text-only user just
wouldn't be able to enter that region.  Oh, well.  But the other way
still works fine - a text-based area without swoopy graphics
information can still be played with by a user in a VR suit.  It may
look boxy and primitive, but that really depends on how good the VR
clients are - I can think of several ways of allowing hi-power clients
to improve the look of low-tech areas of cyberspace.  And it'd be an
easy thing to get in touch with the builders of a given region and
give them your graphical representation of their area - if they like
it, they could just add it in to the relevant objects.

And as for storage/resources, that's a problem which can be solved by
a reasonable distributed processing setup (which I believe is
essential to this sort of development); you just let the machines with
the huge giga-drives and fast processors deal with the hard stuff.
For instance, maybe someone using a 386 PC as a server has written an
amazingly cool room of some sort.  I write a whizzy graphics version
of their text-only room, and we set up all the graphics on my
superfast RISCstation.  Then if someone with a VR suit walks in, the
386 can still do the processing to handle the dynamics of the room,
but it tells the client to go talk to my machine for rendering
information....

		--Gub


From pyros.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Mon Mar 15 19:25:12 1993
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Date:	Mon, 15 Mar 1993 19:09:45 -0800
From:	WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Open_network_connection()


I have a question: Why does o_n_c() work the way it does in terms of being
a 'one-way' connection? I mean, from everything that I've seen, you have to
send all your commands down the network and then close the connection before
you can read what the server has buffered up. If this is not the case, please
correct me. Anyway, an interractive o_n_c() would be nice particularly when
debugging for example a MOO to smtp interface.


From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!spaz Mon Mar 15 21:26:42 1993
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Date:	Mon, 15 Mar 1993 14:10:22 -0800
From:	Jon Wanderer <jptcs!spaz@uu3.psi.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Scheduler
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Hi, I was wondering if anyone had MOO code for a generic scheduler. I
have heard that there are versions out. If you do, could you please
e-mail them to me? Thanks in advance.

-- 

Jon Wanderer         spaz@jptcs.com
Ask and you will be answered.  Jon.Wanderer%bbs@jptcs.com
"I Live to MOO!" 

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Tue Mar 16 04:58:07 1993
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Date:	Tue, 16 Mar 1993 04:52:15 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Open_network_connection()


WEB sez:

> I have a question: Why does o_n_c() work the way it does in terms of being
> a 'one-way' connection? I mean, from everything that I've seen, you have to
> send all your commands down the network and then close the connection before
> you can read what the server has buffered up. If this is not the case, please
> correct me. Anyway, an interractive o_n_c() would be nice particularly when
> debugging for example a MOO to smtp interface.

Mmm, ok, by way of a partial correction, onc() doesn't force you to close the
connection before rendering up any output from whatever it was you connected to.
However, your server doesn't SEND any information until the task that's
producing the output either completes or suspends, or tries to read.  When
you're trying to debug code that uses onc() it's often helpful to flush the
information out of the buffers explicitly.  MOO doesn't have a flush()
built-in but you can use suspend(0) intead.

For example:

	Conn = open_network_connection(<wherever>);
	Conn:notify("Foo...");
	"Force 'Foo...' to be sent...";
	suspend(0);
	... rest of verb ...

Perhaps this goes some way to explaining your observations.  If you want to be
certain about it then try contacting Grump@LambdaMOO/Larry@JaysHouseMOO or
Blackbriar@LambdaMOO/OpalMOO.  Their $gopher and $services systems both use
onc() in a variety of ways, and I think they've both got MOO to smtp
functionality worked out.

Andy.

From whyanext.com!eric Fri Mar 19 20:18:16 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "March" "1993" "14:49:21" "-0800" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " "<9303192249.AA00818@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>" "13" "@create question" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Mar 1993 14:49:21 -0800
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: @create question

A few days ago I upgraded my version 1.6 server to 1.7.0, and perhaps  
as a result of the upgrade, I am the only one who is able to @create  
or @dig anything.  Everyone else, regardless of their programmer flag  
status or quota, gets permissions errors.

HELP!!  I'm a bit new at this, and chances are that I'm a foo-foo  
head and @chmod'ed something inproperly, but I don't know what it  
would be.

Thanks,
	
	Eric
	

From morwyn.uucp!root Fri Mar 19 20:25:17 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Mar 1993 17:38:56 -0800
From:	root@morwyn.uucp (Superuser)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Virtual Reality programs

I was in the local software store today (well, one of them) and ran 
across a couple of virtual reality programs.  While I forget the names,
one of them seemed particularly appealing in that it allowed you to create
buildings, etc. etc.  It was all graphically based.  

The other program simply allowed you to create landscapes.

Neither of them said anything about an interactive programming language,
and I suspect they don't have anything like that (I'm not familiar with
these 'other' VR programs; never seen them in action).

I recall there being some discussion recently about MIME and graphics
assosicated with LambdaMOO.  Well, while it might not be realistic to
have an across-the-board implementation of it, it would be incredible
to combine the capabilities of, say, one of the VR/graphical programs
and that of the LambdaMOO system.  Think of the expansion it would
create (and the time needed to actually implement it!).  Has anyone
else pondered this possibility.  I would think the likely platform
to port such a beast to would be the IBM-compat world (and perhaps
Xwindows (which I don't have yet))... particularly MS-windows.

I'd love to hear some ideas... Pavel?

Forrest

PS:  I'm getting a little CLOSER to getting MOO to work on the SCO
UNIX(3.2.4) machine... closer... but not yet ;)


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Mar 19 22:52:02 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "March" "1993" "22:45:19" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: @create question" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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References: <9303192249.AA00818@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>
Date:	Fri, 19 Mar 1993 22:45:19 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eric@whyanext.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: @create question

> Date:	Fri, 19 Mar 1993 14:49:21 -0800
> From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
> 
> A few days ago I upgraded my version 1.6 server to 1.7.0, and perhaps  
> as a result of the upgrade, I am the only one who is able to @create  
> or @dig anything.  Everyone else, regardless of their programmer flag  
> status or quota, gets permissions errors.

Chances are that you didn't read the ChangeLog.txt file before installing
1.7.0, so you didn't see the note about how to more-or-less properly initialize
the new `f' (fertile) bit on the objects in your database.  Thus, probably
$room et al are not fertile and only wizards can make children of them.

	Pavel

From cs.stanford.edu!bhayes Mon Mar 22 13:21:20 1993
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             <199303200138.AA02098@morwyn.UUCP>s.h -XH "
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Date:	Mon, 22 Mar 1993 06:45:44 -0800
From:	bhayes@cs.stanford.edu
To:	morwyn!root@uunet.uu.net (Superuser)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Virtual Reality programs

Check out the interactive lanscape building tool shipped with SimLife
[or maybe A-Train or SimCity] by Maxis.  And I've seen a demo of
something they have coming, making it really easy and sweet to make
terrain.

From gestalt.austin.tx.us!garnett Thu Mar 25 01:57:35 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "March" "1993" "01:32:54" "-0800" "John Garnett" "garnett@gestalt.austin.tx.us" nil "33" "room descriptions" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Mar 1993 01:32:54 -0800
From:	John Garnett <garnett@gestalt.austin.tx.us>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: room descriptions


I have a room description (in a MOO) that looks like this:

  Light pools from two lamps overhanging a cluster of four tables pushed
  together to form one in the center of this dim drab grey-walled room.  Strips
  of electrical sockets ensquare the room just above the tops of the
  immitation wood tables hugging each of the four walls.  Cables snake from
  the sockets, feeding the strangely painted machines which are providing the
  sole relief from the monotony of grey.  Assorted chairs surround the central
  group of tables, some looking more inviting than others.  A parabolically
  curved mustard-colored screen obscures the door.  The lone table sharing a
  wall with the door sports an old blackboard.

Now, the problem is that those entering the room need to be able to
'look at tables' or 'look at machines' etc.  Now one way of handling this
would be to actually create objects representing the tables and the machines.

Problems with this include: 1) a bit of overhead incurred for every object
created and not all of these objects are really all that important except
that they add ambience/atmosphere.  2) the objects would appear once in
the long description and then again in the "You see blah, blah, and blah"
that represents the contents of the room.

The other way of handling it would be to make pseudo-objects which
aren't really objects but can be looked at and one can attempt to
get them (although the get will fail with some appropriate message.
I'm not sure if this is approach is desirable/doable in MOO but its often
done on LPmuds.

I'm sure you other MOO-Cows have dealt with this problem and have ideas
on how to make it go away.  Thanks for any and all suggestions.

--John Garnett

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Thu Mar 25 03:06:20 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "March" "1993" "03:00:31" "-0800" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" nil "19" "moo port for amiga" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Mar 1993 03:00:31 -0800
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: moo port for amiga


Dear Pavel,

I just wrote a readme file for the moo port I did some 
weeks ago and placed it at parcftp in pub/MOO/contrib:
AmigaMoo.Ta.tar.Z

It is not a perfect port but it works. It also has some
very simple multiplayer/networking capabilities.

I included executables of the server and my client,
an amiga device necessary to get the server to run,
and the source of the things I wrote.

Could you, Pavel, please take a short look at those files
and eventually include the source files in the lambda-moo
contribution ?

Stefan

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Thu Mar 25 09:24:14 1993
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In-Reply-to: "John Garnett's message of Thu, 25 Mar 1993 01:32:54 PST <9303250932.AA16192@gestalt.austin.tx.us>"
Message-ID: <9303251710.AA11393@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 25 Mar 1993 09:10:05 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	garnett@gestalt.austin.tx.us
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: room descriptions

On LambdaMOO Frand has implemented the Detailed Room which allows you
to add details like these that can be looked at; I don't remember
which other verbs might be supported by the detailed room, but it is
fully documented in Frand's Big Manual in the library.

The other approach to this problem is the Integrating Room, which
keeps objects out of the contents list and instead integrates them
into the description of the room; each object has a sentence
associated with it that gets printed into the description paragraph.
This is not as well documented (maybe not at all? or maybe only on
JaysHouseMOO, I haven't been paying attention).

There's even the Integrating Detailed Room, which layers integration
on top of the detailed room.  (What?  Multiple inheritance?  Who needs
that when we have verb copying?)  And about seventy five variations on
the theme.

Come to Lambda and steal code.

From cool.vortech.com!clay Thu Mar 25 09:54:37 1993
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Message-ID: <199303251746.AA07827@cool.vortech.com>
Date:	Thu, 25 Mar 1993 09:46:40 -0800
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	garnett@gestalt.austin.tx.us (John Garnett)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: room descriptions
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> Now, the problem is that those entering the room need to be able to
> 'look at tables' or 'look at machines' etc.  Now one way of handling this
> would be to actually create objects representing the tables and the machines.

In the GN, we had two methods, objects with included descriptions and things
called "details" which weren't objects, but could be looked at in more detail.
We also had "state details" which could programmatically change their state.

On the House of Wax, however, we only support objects with included
descriptions (differently, though, than Lambda's implementation.)  The
overhead is really not that high and the programmability of this option is
better than using states or "faked objects."


-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From smd6.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Thu Mar 25 10:43:34 1993
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Date:	Thu, 25 Mar 1993 10:30:33 -0800
From:	Jacqueline Hamilton <hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov>
To:	garnett@gestalt.austin.tx.us (John Garnett)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: room descriptions


> I have a room description (in a MOO) that looks like this:
>
   (room desc deleted) 
> 
> Now, the problem is that those entering the room need to be able to
> 'look at tables' or 'look at machines' etc.  Now one way of handling this
> would be to actually create objects representing the tables and the machines.

I'm sure theres a million ways it could be done sans objects.  I've
got a "window room" in Harper's Tale that allows you to "look window"
even though there is no actual exit in the room called "window".  Just
coded a special version of the "look" verb to see if dobjstr == "window".
If so, it then called another verb on the room called :look_out_window.
This other verb tells the player a different desc for the window, depending
on whether the window faced east or west.  Probably a rough way to do 
things, but then I was only allowing for windows, not multiple objects.
It'd be simple to add in more things you could look at, tho.

At any rate.  Just one example.

-j.


From netman.widener.edu!jrp Thu Mar 25 15:00:19 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "25" "March" "1993" "14:33:03" "-0800" "jrp@netman.widener.edu" "jrp@netman.widener.edu" nil "32" "Building Moo on EP/IX (or RISCos)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Thu, 25 Mar 1993 14:33:03 -0800
From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
To:	Moo-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Building Moo on EP/IX (or RISCos)

 
I'm having some fun building MOO (I'm trying 1.7) on EP/IX 1.4.3,
which is a derivative of RISCos 4.52. Has anyone else built the
beastie? I'm using "gcc" instead of the regular EP/IX compiler, and
"configure" claims that I'm okay for all of NP_SINGLE,
NS_BSD/NP_LOCAL, NS_BSD/NP_TCP and NS_SYSV/NP_LOCAL.

I think that some trouble comes about due to the fact that both SYSV
and BSD include files are available, but they are SYSV by default...
which may be confusing "configure." All of my BSD include files are in
/usr/include/bsd, /usr/include/bsd43, and their ilk. (There's all a
/usr/include/posix, but let's avoid that for now).

After adjusting some of the my-xxx.h files to point to BSD, and
attempting to build, we run in trouble in that fun critical file,
network.c. There's lotsa fun errors, but it boils down to the fact
that some data types are missing, like sigset_t, fd_set, and fds_bits.

Looking around /usr/include/*/... doesn't turn up this missing data
types, but Perl seems to like being built on my machine (and it uses
sockets, streams, shared memory, and other nasty stuff).  I'm
wondering if I should plan on lying to configure to get it to reset
some of its variables, or if I should investigate the include files
for errors of omission.

Has anyone else ran into problems of this sort? I would love some
advice since I'm not used to porting things around all over the place.
I tend to stay on my machine and build things for myself. :)

Thanks a lot! 

--JRP [Joshua.R.Poulson@cyber.Widener.EDU, and so many more]

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sat Mar 27 05:25:48 1993
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Message-ID: <9303271319.AA05783@jasper.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sat, 27 Mar 1993 05:19:18 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Let sleeping MOOs lie...



:waves.

I'm having problems with a MOO that's been swapped out and is sleeping.
I'd like to kill it, but I need to be certain that the database is saved
before the task dies.

	kill -9 moopid

seems to be too drastic, trashing the task before it gets a chanse to save
the database.  Is there a unixese command to do:

	kill -SAVE_DB_THEN_DIE moopid

or could the server be tought that -9 means 'save then quit'?

What other ways can I force a swapped out and sleeping task into the
foreground on a UNIX box?

Andy


FYI: The MOO is running on a Sparc 10, with acres of swap and no competing
neural net processes.  It seems to be running with a priority of between
-5 to -15.  Nice is 0.

top is typically:

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE   TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
16855 Net       -5    0 61252K 14700K sleep 207:08  4.69%  4.69% moo

pps.  Where's the disker? ;)


From netman.widener.edu!jrp Sat Mar 27 08:03:45 1993
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             <9303271319.AA05783@jasper.cm.cf.ac.uk>uter and
	eve"
Message-ID: <9303271551.AA25646@netman.widener.edu>
Date:	Sat, 27 Mar 1993 07:51:07 -0800
From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
To:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Let sleeping MOOs lie...

> I'm having problems with a MOO that's been swapped out and is sleeping.
> I'd like to kill it, but I need to be certain that the database is saved
> before the task dies.

Generally, a kill -15 is a the clean way to save and quit for a process
and kill -9 is the way to get rid of it with extreme authority. Whether
this is set up this way in Moo is not known to me.

--JRP

From nexus.yorku.ca!s442223 Sat Mar 27 08:23:46 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "27" "March" "1993" "08:16:52" "-0800" "The Chaotic One" "s442223@nexus.yorku.ca " nil "6" "Re: Let sleeping MOOs lie..." "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Sat, 27 Mar 1993 08:16:52 -0800
From:	s442223@nexus.yorku.ca (The Chaotic One)
To:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Let sleeping MOOs lie...

If you use just `kill', the MOO takes it as a shutdown request.


-- 
Chaos is s442223@nexus.yorku.ca - only virtual in appearance, naked eyes cannot
Bound to crash and burn more than once in his lifetime if only because he sucks

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Sat Mar 27 13:23:02 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "27" "March" "1993" "13:16:24" "-0800" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " nil "3" "Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Sat, 27 Mar 1993 13:16:24 -0800
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Multiple Inheritance
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What is require to change LambdaMOO server code v1.7.0 from linear to
multiple inheritance?


From mwilson.async.vt.edu!mike Sat Mar 27 17:00:19 1993
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Date:	Sat, 27 Mar 1993 15:31:50 -0800
From:	mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu (Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson)
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  Multiple Inheritance

Not sure about what it takes ... If you know, I might be willing to try it,
depending on what is involved.
Mike

From math.binghamton.edu!rogers Sat Mar 27 18:41:07 1993
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Date:	Sat, 27 Mar 1993 18:36:16 -0800
From:	rogers@math.binghamton.edu (John Rogers)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Multiple Inheritance

Chad Wilson wrote:
> What is require to change LambdaMOO server code v1.7.0 from linear to
> multiple inheritance?

Mike Wilson wrote:
> Not sure about what it takes ... If you know, I might be willing to try it,
> depending on what is involved.
> Mike

I suspect it would entail quite a modification!  I am willing to bet that it
constitutes a version 2.x of MOO!  ^_^  Ok, since MI (Multiple Inheritance
for short) is a very much wanted item on MOO, let us take a look at how MOO
might have to be changed to support MI.

[Remark: There is *no* agreement on how MI should be done.  Interested
         readers may take a look at the chapter on MI in Timothy Budd's
         "An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming", as well as look
         at how C++ and CLOS implement MI.  The discussion below on my
         "implementation" of MI is admittedly vague...so please think
         carefully before flaming me ^_^]

1.) First of all, we will have to change the ..parent (I use double dots to
    denote internal properties, a bit like the UNIX's style of hiding files
    using the leading dot ^_^) format, which merely contains an object
    number, to ..parents, which contains a LIST of object numbers.  Also, we
    would change the definition of "no ancestors":  on ..parent, it is
    indicated by #-1 ($nothing).  on ..parents, it would be denoted by {}.
2.) Change various primitive routines to reflect that change.  The biggest
    change would certainly be in chparent(), with the attending headache of
    preserving the data (I am not 100% sure exactly how it would be done!)
3.) The calling machinery would definitely be overhauled.  Here is one of
    the more contentious points of the implementation of MI.  My approach
    would be to treat ..parents as if it is literally ordered in sequence
    for method (aka 'verb' for MOO folks) search.  Example:  Let ..parents
    contain { #5, #6, #7 }.  Then a search for, say, "tease", would begin
    on #5, and recursively scan its parents.  Should it fail here, #6 is
    next attempted.  #7 would be searched in case it has no luck with #6.
4.) Sometimes one may need to invoke a particular verb on the specified
    parent.  That means the pass() would have to be enhanced/expanded to
    support that.  That in turn raise an issue of the relationship of
    ..parents to pass().
5.) Lastly, but not the final (in fact it is just a beginning!) one would
    have to deal with all those references to properties.  The book I
    mentioned above gave a short, but good discussion of these issues.

I only outlined the changes that would be needed on the MOO...I am sure I
may have not thought of other (obvious) ones.  Have fun pondering the
MI-ization of MOO!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
         ///            | The Blue Wizard Of Dragon Order (John Rogers)
        ///  Only Amiga | rogers@math.binghamton.edu
  \\\  ///  gives you a | (Don't toucha my wand or I will breaka ya!)
   \\\/// creative edge |     #include <std.disclaimers>
    \XX/                |     cat flames >/dev/null 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Mar 28 07:47:01 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "March" "1993" "07:40:40" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "68" "killing read-suspended tasks..." "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <9303281540.AA06974@jasper.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 28 Mar 1993 07:40:40 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: killing read-suspended tasks...



A while ago Killik posted a simplified version of a MOO client:

  c = open_network_connection(host, port);
  fork tid (0)
    while (1)
      notify(c, read(player));
    endwhile
  endfork
  while (typeof(line = read(c)) == STR)
    player:tell("", line);
  endwhile
  kill_task(tid);

and just for a laugh I wrote a little telnet verb:

	@program test:@telnet -d
	usage = "Usage: @telnet test to host port";
	WhereTo = $string_utils:explode(iobjstr);
	if (length(whereto) != 2)
		player:tell(usage);
		return;
	endif;

	host = Whereto[1];
	port = Whereto[2];

	c = open_network_connection(tostr(host), tonum(port));
	fork tid (0)
		while (1)
			notify(c, read(player));
		endwhile;
	endfork;
	while (typeof(line = read(c)) == STR)
		player:tell("", line);
	endwhile;
	kill_task(tid);
	player:tell("", "Done.");
	.


As you'd expect, the verb connects to a site and can send information
back and forwards adequately.  As a test I tried telnetting to LamdaMOO,
it worked fine.  But, after I typed '@quit', which caused the LambdaMOO 
server to disconnect my LambdaMOO player object, I was left with a hung
'terminal' on my own MOO.

My guess is that the kill_task() didn't stop the reader portion of the telnet
verb.  It 'seems' to remain active and keeps eating what I type. At the
time the kill_task is called the 'reader' task would seem to be suspended at
the read statement, waiting for me to type something.

So:

	- is tid's scope only within the fork endfork block.  Meaning that the
	  kill_task wouldn't work because tid was undefined.

	- is the server able to wake up a read suspended task in order to kill
	  it?

If kill_task can't be made to work then the only way to free the player's
'terminal' is to boot_player him!

What have I done wrong?

Andy.


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Sun Mar 28 09:05:07 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "March" "1993" "09:03:40" "-0800" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca" nil "41" "Re> Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <9303281703.AA04454@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Sun, 28 Mar 1993 09:03:40 -0800
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Multiple Inheritance

With regard to the problem incountered with two parents having the same verbs,
here are a few thoughts:

  Don't allow multiple parents with conflicting verbs or properties.
  Conflicting defined as parents that have the same verb name which is defined
  on parents which not in common between the two.
      
               #-1          Object #1
		 \         /    \    \
	      Parent1 Parent2 Parent3 Parent4
                  \   /      \   |   /
	         Parent5      Parent6 
		       \     /
		       Object

  So, if Parent 1 and 3 had a verb/prop with the same name/args/etc then
  attempts to create an object with parents 5 and 6 would fail. If 5 and 6
  have matching verbs not defined on 2 then object can't have those parents.
  If parent 1 has properties in conflict with Object #1 then fail.

  So if an object has a bunch of parents that all have unique (defined on only
  one object) verbs and properties then there would be no conflict problems to
  have to deal with.  

  With this type of system, adding verbs to objects would have to pass checks
  to make sure that adding such a verb would not conflict with the inheritance
  of it's children. Also, all this checking could be quite time-consuming and
  perhaps complex.

  Another way, perhaps simpler, would be to have ordered parents, if a verb is
  found on the first parent in an objects list then it would be as if that verb
  did not exist on the rest of the parents.  This could get tricky with
  the functionality of the parents perhaps.  

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From nic.gac.edu!eostrom Sun Mar 28 11:14:48 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "March" "1993" "11:02:47" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@nic.gac.edu " nil "45" "Re> Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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In-Reply-to: "Byron Montgomerie's message of Sun, 28 Mar 1993 09:03:40 PST
 <9303281703.AA04454@saturn.cs.mun.ca>"
Message-ID: <9303281902.AA21214@poblano.gac.edu>
Date:	Sun, 28 Mar 1993 11:02:47 -0800
From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Multiple Inheritance

>Date: 	Sun, 28 Mar 1993 09:03:40 PST
>From: Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>

>  Don't allow multiple parents with conflicting verbs or properties.

In a many-programmer environment, I think this is going to be too
limiting (as it stands).  The problem is that sooner or later you're
going to want to create an object that inherits from two parents which
use the same verb name for different things, or even for the same
thing but in (slightly) different ways.

I originally wrote a long thing here about Eiffel, but I realized that
Eiffel's inheritance rules would make people absolutely miserable in a
classless system--each useful method added to an object would have to
be added separately to each of its descendants.

Anyway, the other point I wanted to talk about was conflicting
properties.  I think, since we're talking about massive, db-breaking
changes to MOO, that properties should be dealt with in such a way
that conflict is impossible.  Specifically, I'd like to see MOO take
something like COOLMUD's approach.

In COOLMUD, objects don't have properties; instead, each object may
have variables that are visible _only_ from within the methods of that
object.  What this means for inheritance is that, if I have a variable
called "key" on the generic room, then it can be referred to by any
method on the generic room (e.g., :is_unlocked_for), but not by any
method on its descendants.  If you want descendants to be able to
refer to or set their key variables, you have to provide, say,
:get_key and :set_key methods.

This means that I can have as many conflicting "properties" as I
want--if I want an object that's a combination of $thing and $room, I
can do that.  Of course, I still have to deal with verb conflicts; if
both $thing and $room have :get_key methods, I still have trouble.

(I think inheriting from $thing and $room would be a terrible design,
but in an environment like LambdaMOO it seems inevitable that
something like this would come along.)

I was going to start rambling about abstract data types and
lightweight, garbage-collected objects here, but this message is long
enough for now.

-JoeFeedback/Erik

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Sun Mar 28 11:56:01 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "March" "1993" "11:49:03" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "226" "Re: Re> Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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             <9303281703.AA04454@saturn.cs.mun.ca>"
Message-ID: <9303281949.AA01914@hodge>
Date:	Sun, 28 Mar 1993 11:49:03 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Re> Multiple Inheritance


The two strategies I've seen proposed for dealing with method searches
(and presumably variable searches) are:

	* A depth-first search on the parents graph
	* Disallowing conflicting verb definitions

The first strategy, without any restrictions, leads to a number of
problems.  Suppose I have the digraph (on all of my diagrams, all
edges are directed upwards):

	Root object
	  /	\
	a	  b
	  \	/
	     c


If b and the root object both define a verb, then presumably we'd
rather use b's override than the root object's definition; but a
depth-first search on the parents tree finds the root object's
definition first.

Disallowing conflicting verb definitions doesn't alleviate this
problem.  We still have to figure out how to find the verb definition
on b before the one on the root object.

A breadth-first search only partiall solves the problem.  Consider the
digraph:

	Root object
	  /	\
	a	  |
	|	  |
	b	  d
	|	  |
	c	  |
	  \	/
	     e

Special-casing the root object is no help at all; the same arguments
apply to any common ancestor.  Unless we disallow common ancestors
completely, so that the parents digraph becomes a tree, we will always
have the problem of two (or more) parents with a common ancestor, with
a verb on the common ancestor overridden on a parent other than the
first, or on an ancestor of such a parent.

I dealt with this in Coolmud and in Coldmud by maintaining an ancestor
precedence list on each object.  This is somewhat storage-intensive,
but not terribly so, and both are disk-based servers anyway.  The
ancestor precedence list is ordered on a left-to-right, up-to-join
basis.  The ordering looks like a depth-first enumeration until it
reaches a common ancestor.  However, enumeration stops at a common
ancestor unless we reached it through the last possible path.  As an
example, consider the digraph:

			   r
			  / \
		  _______/   \
		 /	      \
		a	       \
	       / \		\
	      /   \		 \
	     /	   \		  \
	    c	    d		  |
	     \	   / \		  |
	      \   /   \		  |
	       \ /     \	  |
		e	\______   |
	       /|	       \  |
	      / |		\ |
	     /	|		 \|
	    f	g		  h
	     \	|		  |
	      \ | ________________/
	       \|/
		i

We enumerate starting at the first parent, so we write down 'f'.  Now
we've hit a common ancestor 'e', and we're not at the last path, so we
stop, and go onto the next parent.  We write down 'g' and again come
to 'e', this time by the last path.  So we continue and write down
'e', and then 'c', and come to 'a', which is a common ancestor.  We
stop, and go back to the other parent of 'e', which is 'd', also a
common ancestor.  We go all the way back to the third parent of 'i',
which is 'h'.  We come again to 'd', and since we are on the last path
to 'd', we continue onto 'a'.  Again, we are on the last path to that
common ancestor, so we continue to 'r'.  We don't write down 'r' on
this visit, since there is another path to it; instead we go back to
the second parent of 'h', which happens to be 'r' again.  Now we write
it down, completing the list:

	i f g e c h d a r

This enumeration is, in my opinion, the most intuitive.  We never fail
to miss an override; for instance, a verb on 'd' that 'h' overrides
will be found on 'h'.  If there are conflicting verb definitions on
objects that can't be ordered according to one inheriting from the
other (say, on 'c' and 'h'), we can determine which is leftmost in the
digraph; that is, which shows up in a depth-first enumeration.

If we still want to restrict users from putting conflicting verb
definitions on parallel objects like 'c' and 'h', we can, but there's
no reason to; it doesn't make things any harder for us to allow it.
The only restriction that we need to make is that there be no cycles
in the parents digraph, which is a restriction we'd want to make
anyway for sanity reasons.

Having a list on the object requires us to do no checking when we do
the actual search; we simply search for the verb (or variable) on each
ancestor in turn.  The space overhead is significant (if most rooms
inherit from, say, some specialized room, 'generic room', 'generic
container', 'generic described object', 'generic named object', and
the root object, we're looking at five object IDs per room for the
ancestor precedence list, plus some overhead) but not bad.

Readers are no doubt wondering at this point how I propose to
construct such a list when we create an object or modify its parents
or its ancestors' parents.  It may be obvious from looking at the
graph that 'e' is a common ancestor of 'f' and 'g', but it's not at
all obvious from a programmer's point of view, and scanning a children
graph at each point would be intolerable, especially in a disk-based
server (it would require several sweeps through the database).

It turns out that constructing the list is fairly easy if we do it
backwards.  Using pseudo-code, we could define the function
enumerate(node) as:

	if (node has already been written down)
		do nothing
	otherwise
		traverse list of parents in reverse order
			enumerate(parent)
		write down node

This allows us to write down a common ancestor the first time we come
to it, instead of the last time.  Checking if we've already written
down a common ancestor is much easier than checking if we're going to
write it down in the future.

To see how this would work in practice, here is some example code
derived from the Coldmud source.  I've simplified the memory
management somewhat, to make it more understandable.  The code hasn't
been compile-tested or run-tested, but I have implemented and tested
this scheme in Coolmud in a similar manner, so I know that the general
design gives the desired results in practice.

---

/* Declarations for what an object is, how the cache works, what a
 * list is, etc. */

#define ANCTEMP_STARTING_SIZE	16

static long *anctemp;
static int anctemp_size, anctemp_pos;

void init_object(void)
{
    anctemp = (long *) malloc(ANCTEMP_STARTING_SIZE * sizeof(long))
    if (!anctemp)
	panic();
    anctemp_size = ANCTEMP_STARTING_SIZE;
}

void object_construct_ancprec(long dbref)
{
    Object *object;
    int i;

    /* Call the recursive routine to construct the ancestor precedence list in
     * anctemp. */
    anctemp_pos = 0;
    object_construct_ancprec_recurse(dbref);

    /* At this point, the ancestor list in anctemp[] is backwards, and has an
     * extra entry at the end for dbref. */

    object = cache_get(dbref);

    object->ancestors = anctemp_pos - 1;
    object->ancprec = (long *) malloc((anctemp_pos - 1) * sizeof(long));
    if (!object->ancprec)
	panic();

    for (i = 0; i < anctemp_pos; i++)
	object->ancprec[i] = anctemp[anctemp_pos - i - 2];

    cache_put(object, object->dbref);
}

static void object_construct_ancprec_recurse(long dbref)
{
    Object *object;
    List *parents;
    int i;

    /* Check if we've already done this object. */
    for (i = 0; i < anctemp_pos; i++) {
	if (anctemp[i] == dbref)
	    return;
    }

    object = cache_get(dbref);
    parents = object->parents;
    parents->refs++;			/* Hold onto this list. */

    /* Recursively process parents from right to left. */
    for (i = parents->len - 1; i >= 0; i--)
	object_construct_ancprec_recurse(parents->el[i].u.dbref);

    list_discard(parents);

    /* Resize anctemp[] if necessary, and add us to it. */
    if (anctemp_pos == anctemp_size) {
	anctemp_size *= 2;
	anctemp = (long *) realloc(anctemp, anctemp_size * sizeof(long));
	if (!anctemp)
	    panic();
    }

    anctemp[anctemp_pos++] = dbref;
}

--GBH


From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Mar 29 07:02:03 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "06:55:10" "-0800" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" nil "14" "Continuing saga. :)" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 06:55:10 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Continuing saga. :)

 
Well, folks, as those who've shown interest know (and there have been
exactly zero of them) I've got things compiling fine on my MIPS
platform, but I'm running into a little more trouble. There are two
library routines that the linker cannot find:

   strerror
   strftime

While strftime is on one of my local suns, strerror is kinda an enigma
to me. Anyone know what it's supposed to do so I can emulate it with
my own code?

Thanks, --JRP

From glia.biostr.washington.edu!jsp Mon Mar 29 08:17:09 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "08:13:28" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "113" "Re> Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 08:13:28 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
To:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Multiple Inheritance


Kudos on a good post.  In particular the references and pointing out
how shaky is the theoretical ground on which multiple (or even single)
inheritence rests.  I feel this tend to be under-appreciated...

After sleeping on it, however, I think that coldmud's solution may
be more clever than it is wise.

| The two strategies I've seen proposed for dealing with method searches
| (and presumably variable searches) are:
| 
|         * A depth-first search on the parents graph
|         * Disallowing conflicting verb definitions
| 
| The first strategy, without any restrictions, leads to a number of
| problems.  Suppose I have the digraph (on all of my diagrams, all
| edges are directed upwards):
| 
|         Root object
|           /     \
|         a         b
|           \     /
|              c
| 
| If b and the root object both define a verb, then presumably we'd
                                                    ----------
| rather use b's override than the root object's definition; but a
| depth-first search on the parents tree finds the root object's
| definition first.

The entire argument in your post depends on this presumption, which
appears based entirely on an appeal to intuition:

| This enumeration is, in my opinion, the most intuitive.

(At least, I find no further elaboration of the "number of problems"
depth-first search is said to lead to...?)

Intuition, alas, while indispensable, is a weak reed to lean solely
on.  We could, for example, make an arguably equally plausible appeal
to intuition on the grounds that the verb definition in 'Root' is
"presumably" (*grin*) more general than that in 'b', which is likely
specialized to 'b's peculiar properties, and that 'c', by inheriting a
much more general environment by mixing 'a' and 'b', might well in
fact be much better off with a general verb definition than one
perhaps too specialized to function in 'c'.

By and large, it is nice to use intuition to discover ideas, but
analysis to validate them.  What fundamental criteria can we use to
decide what a 'good' multiple inheritance semantics might be?

One rather fundemantal concern of object-oriented design is that of
encapsulation: packaging some code plus data into a class which then
hides the implementation details while exporting an interface to the
rest of the programming system, making it both easier to change the
internals of a class without breaking code throughout the system, and
also exporting an abstraction which we hope is simpler to program with
than the full internal mechanism of the class.

Keeping this in mind, it is reasonably clear that, everything else
being equal, we would like a multiple inheritance mechanism which
allows the user of a class to make use of that class knowing only the
exported interface of that class: when choosing to inherit behavior
from a class, we would prefer not to have to refer to the internal
implementation detail of that class in order to understand the
resulting behavior of the system.

Depthfirst search will achieve precisely this, if we presume parents
are searched in the order specified by the user: the user can know,
without rooting through internals, that if a verb is exported by two
of the parent classes selected, the first listed parent exporting it
will be the one selected.  Further, the behavior of the multiply
parented object ('c' in the example) will not change as long as the
exported behavior of 'a' and 'b' does not change, which simplifies the
semantics of the system both for the user of the class, and for the
maintainer of the class.

Under the coldmud mechanism described, by contrast, someone
constructing a new class cannot predict what 'c' will do based only on
a knowledge of the exported behavior of 'a' and 'b': is is necessary
to poke through the internals of classes 'a' and 'b' to see exactly
how they implement their behavior, specifically from who they inherit
it, if they do, and via how many links.  Since implementation
internals are exported to all users of a class in the coldmud scheme,
much of the benefit of encapsulation is lost.  For example, a
maintainer can no longer assume that it it safe to insert a new
superclass in a given hierarchy (in order perhaps to share some code
with a newly created class -- a common sort of maintainance
programming in an oo system) merely if all pre-existing classes export
the same behavior after the change: the maintainer must verify that
the change in treedepth of each moved method does not break the
behavior of any _user_ of any of the classes by implicitly switching
it to another method.

Having to roam the entire system examining all the users of a class in
order to make a simple change in the internals of a class is precisely
the sort of task which oo encapsulation is intended to avoid.

While "closest-first" inheritance might seem superficially more
intuitive glancing at an inheritance graph, it seems likely that the
resulting behavior of the system will be much harder to understand
intuitively than that of depth-first inheritance.

(Changing updating the parent pointers in an object from an O(1)
operation to, worstcase, an O(N) operation in the size of the db, as
the coldmud approach appears to do, seems also unappealing, especially
in a diskbased system.)

Occam may be old, but his Razor remains sharp: first-fit serenely
keeps outperforming best-fit, intuition or no intuition.  *grin*.

Jeff/CrT


From glia.biostr.washington.edu!jsp Mon Mar 29 10:02:56 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "09:51:49" "-0800" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "127" "Re> Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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	(5.65/UW-NDC Revision: 2.28 ) id AA29839; Mon, 29 Mar 93 09:52:50 -0800
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 09:51:49 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
To:	ghudson@athena.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Multiple Inheritance

ghudson@Athena.MIT.EDU writes:

| I hate it when I forget to Cc the mailing list.  Can you forward it
| for me?  Thanks.

*grin*

------------------- begin forward ---------------------

Jeff brings up some valid concerns, which I've considered in the past,
but I still think my scheme is better in practice.

Referring to the example:

         Root object
           /     \
         a         b
           \     /
              c

> We could, for example, make an arguably equally plausible appeal to
> intuition on the grounds that the verb definition in 'Root' is
> "presumably" (*grin*) more general than that in 'b', which is likely
> specialized to 'b's peculiar properties, and that 'c', by inheriting
> a much more general environment by mixing 'a' and 'b', might well in
> fact be much better off with a general verb definition than one
> perhaps too specialized to function in 'c'.

> when choosing to inherit behavior from a class, we would prefer not
> to have to refer to the internal implementation detail of that class
> in order to understand the resulting behavior of the system.

This is true, and in fact it made me hesitate before implementing the
system I described.  However, I think that in practice the
functionality of many objects is precisely in their overriding of
certain behavior on the parent object.  For instance, I've seen
objects implemented in MOOs like "Generic transparent exit".  Its sole
functionality is to override the :description() verb on its parent.
If I want to inherit from this object in a depth-first-search system,
it would clearly have to be the first parent of my child object.  But
this means I cannot mix two classes whose functionality is to override
different verbs.

However, you still don't have the same idea of encapsulation
conceptually, since you do have to consider the identity of the
parents of an object in determining the behavior of an object.  Let's
take a look at the harm Jeff believes this would cause:

> For example, a maintainer can no longer assume that it it safe to
> insert a new superclass in a given hierarchy (in order perhaps to
> share some code with a newly created class -- a common sort of
> maintainance programming in an oo system) merely if all pre-existing
> classes export the same behavior after the change: the maintainer
> must verify that the change in treedepth of each moved method does
> not break the behavior of any _user_ of any of the classes by
> implicitly switching it to another method.

I would find this more plausible if I could see a concrete example.
There is no difference in my scheme between the digraphs

         Root object
           /     \
         a         b
           \     /
              c

and

         Root object
           /     \
         a
	 |	  b
	 d
           \     /
              c

assuming 'd' and 'a' as a unit act in the same way as 'a' did
previously.

Likewise, the digraph

         Root object
       /     /  \    \
     d      /    \     e
       \   /      \  /
         a         b
           \     /
              c

won't "break" anything on c, except that verbs definitions on d will
apply before those on b, as they would in a depth-first search.
(Verbs on e will apply before verbs on the root object, which may be
what you're referring to, although then b is exporting different
behavior, so I don't see how it applies.)

To be fair, there is one sticky point.  If I reimplement a root object
verb on d, which has exactly the same behavior as the root object
method, then a has the same behavior as it did before, while c changes
behavior.  While this is a "smoking gun" example of loss of
encapsulation, it's not clear to me that this would cause a problem in
practice, since I don't see *why* you'd want to reimpliment a root
object verb on d.

There is another reason why I favor my scheme over a
depth-first-search, although it may not be very relevant to the way
things are done in MOOs currently.  I can conceivably see that a mud
maintainer might want to implement default behavior on ancestors
shared by a lot of objects--for instance, an "open" verb on "Generic
thing" that displays an error message, "You can't open that."  This
doesn't seem like a valid strategy in a database designed like
Lambdacore, since a player would then be able to examine the object
and see an 'open' verb on it that doesn't work.

One more issue, on efficiency:

> (Changing updating the parent pointers in an object from an O(1)
> operation to, worstcase, an O(N) operation in the size of the db, as
> the coldmud approach appears to do, seems also unappealing,
> especially in a diskbased system.)

You have to traverse the children digraph of the object, yes.  This is
unpleasant, but I think it's fairly rare to change the parent pointers
on, say, generic room, while the database is large.

--GBH



From lynx.cbm.commodore.com!davidm Mon Mar 29 11:55:00 1993
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Sender: davidm@parc.xerox.com
To:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
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Subject: Re: Continuing saga. :)
Reply-to: davidm@lynx.cbm.commodore.com
Content-Type: text

|Well, folks, as those who've shown interest know (and there have been
|exactly zero of them) I've got things compiling fine on my MIPS
|platform, but I'm running into a little more trouble. There are two
|library routines that the linker cannot find:
|
|   strerror
|   strftime
|
|While strftime is on one of my local suns, strerror is kinda an enigma
|to me. Anyone know what it's supposed to do so I can emulate it with
|my own code?
|
|Thanks, --JRP

I've ecnountered 2 different forms of strerror(), one that takes an
argument and one that doesn't.  The one that takes 0 arguments checks
the external int variable errno.

If your OS supplies these variables:

	extern char *sys_errlist[];	/* text of errors */
	extern int sys_nerr;		/* length of array */

This function should work for you:

	char * strerror ( int error )
	{
	    static char	buf[16];

	    if (error > sys_nerr)
	    {
		sprintf(buf, "Error %d", error);
		return buf;
	    }

	    return sys_errlist[error];
	}

if your OS doesn't supply them, you can either define your own array
and length, or use this code:

char * strerror ( int error )
{
    static char	buf[16];
    
    sprintf(buf, "Error %d", error);
    return buf;
}

DavidM/NightWalker
-- 
DavidM			CATS - Commodore Applications and Technical Support
+1 215 431 9425		davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com
"Commodore Amiga 3000UX - Born to Run UNIX SVR4"


From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Mon Mar 29 13:01:45 1993
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 11:38:00 -0800
From:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MI summary

Okay.  I've read a lot about the idea of MI for MOO server code.  Now who is 
willing to do it?
If it can successfully be written to support MI, only a new MOO could run it, 
but that's beside the point.
My idea of multiple verbs with the same name, pass().
Make pass work not jus for tje parent of itself, but all parents.
If a MOO is made from the beginning with all this in mind, then there will be no 
conflicts.  It's programmer's will know about the MI and how it works and make 
sure that there is no interference.  (Or am I assuming too much of a 
programmer?)
MI should be transparent in use:
  @create parent1, parent2,... named new-obj-name
  @recreate old-obj as new-parent1, new-parent2,... named new-obj-name
  @chparent old-obj to parent1, parent2,...

I guess i'm assuming too much when i thought an MI engine would be farely easy 
to implement, how foolish of me.

May the schwartz be with you, and live long and perspire.


From glia.biostr.washington.edu!jsp Mon Mar 29 13:25:47 1993
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 13:08:34 -0800
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
To:	ghudson@athena.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Multiple Inheritance


I said:

| > For example, a maintainer can no longer assume that it it safe to
| > insert a new superclass in a given hierarchy (in order perhaps to
| > share some code with a newly created class -- a common sort of
| > maintainance programming in an oo system) merely if all pre-existing
| > classes export the same behavior after the change: the maintainer
| > must verify that the change in treedepth of each moved method does
| > not break the behavior of any _user_ of any of the classes by
| > implicitly switching it to another method.

Greg replied:

| I would find this more plausible if I could see a concrete example.

*blush*.  The analysis I had in mind was in fact completely
incorrect.  My apologies!  Greg did have the intellectual
honesty to dig up an example of the sort I had in mind:

|          Root object
|        /     /  \    \
|      d      /    \     e
|        \   /      \  /
|          a         b
|            \     /
|               c
| 
| To be fair, there is one sticky point.  If I reimplement a
| root object verb on d, which has exactly the same behavior
| as the root object method, then a has the same behavior as
| it did before, while c changes behavior.  While this is a
| "smoking gun" example of loss of encapsulation, it's not
| clear to me that this would cause a problem in practice,
| since I don't see *why* you'd want to reimpliment a root
| object verb on d.

Well, we could spin a story:

  Once upon a time there was a subclass B of class A with many
  verbs, among them v:

	   A
	  /
	 /
	/
       /
      B:v

  B got hastily cloned and modified one day by hacker Sloppy
  Joe to produce additional related classes C (with many mostly
  different verbs, but the same verb v) and D (with a
  different implementation v' of v):


	   A
	  /|\
	 / | \
	/  |  \
       /   |   \
      B:v C:v D:v'

  which classes were duly used as parents by by
  Pricillia Precise for her class E:

	   A
	  /|\
	 / | \
	/  |  \
       /   |   \
      B:v C:v D:v'
       \   |   /
	\  |  /
	 \ | /
	  \|/
	   E

  which worked fine until Joe got around to cleaning
  up a bit and moved the common v implementations to
  A to avoid redundancy:

	  A:v
	  /|\
	 / | \
	/  |  \
       /   |   \
      B    C  D:v'
       \   |   /
	\  |  /
	 \ | /
	  \|/
	   E

  At which point E shifted to using v' instead of v and broke,
  despite the exported interfaces of B, C and D remaining
  exactly the same.  This upset Priscillia Precise no end, she
  thought she'd proved the code correct.  Naturally, she wrote
  her own depthfirst message-send which fixed the problem and
  allowed her to live happily ever after *wink*.

However, this sort of situation is likely not nearly as
common as those which I'd originally mistakenly had in mind
as exhibiting this sort of effect.  I think Greg has a least
halfway convinced me.

| One more issue, on efficiency:
| 
| > (Changing updating the parent pointers in an object from an O(1)
| > operation to, worstcase, an O(N) operation in the size of the db, as
| > the coldmud approach appears to do, seems also unappealing,
| > especially in a diskbased system.)
| 
| You have to traverse the children digraph of the object, yes.  This is
| unpleasant, but I think it's fairly rare to change the parent pointers
| on, say, generic room, while the database is large.
| 
| --GBH
| 

I'm not sure I want child pointers: seems to me they can
play havok with garbage collection.  Nor do I have data on
how often the class hierarchy grows at leaf nodes vs
internal nodes.  (I gather you feel it's almost exclusively
at the leaves, or very close to?)

On the other hand, it appears to me one doesn't have to buy
your implementation to get your semantics: one should be
able to get the same result for the price of a full
depth-first search at message-send time, without any static
datastructures of the sort you describe, no?  Assuming the
usual caching of frequently sent messages and/or typically
small parent graphs, the speed difference might not be
significant anyhow.

Maybe we should thoroughly confuse folks and provide both
variants? :)  That's either indecisive or democratic...

CrT


From mwilson.async.vt.edu!mike Mon Mar 29 13:49:38 1993
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 13:12:43 -0800
From:	mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu (Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson)
To:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  Continuing saga. :)

Well, this is the first I've seen of this Saga (new to the mailing list.)
but if it helps (or ticks you off :))  I've got a MIPS machine also...
DECstation 5000 ... MOO compiled fine and runs perfectly with no hacking.
(smiling all the way home)
Mike

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Mon Mar 29 14:57:29 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "14:42:43" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "49" "Re: Re> Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Mon, 29 Mar 93 13:08:34 -0800.
             <9303292108.AA02059@glia.biostr.washington.edu>"
Message-ID: <9303292242.AA15144@milquetoast.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 14:42:43 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Re> Multiple Inheritance


A couple of points:

> I'm not sure I want child pointers: seems to me they can play havok
> with garbage collection.

MOO has child pointers.  I can't see how they would play havok with
garbage collection; when you destroy an object or change its parents,
you update the child pointers on the parent object.  In fact, it makes
it easier to deal with destroying objects; you can remove the parent
pointers on the children, thus ensuring that parent pointers are
always valid.  This eliminates the need for type-checking code, both
in the server and (more importantly) in methods which look at parent
pointers.

This reminds me of an issue I never resolved: what happens when you
destroy an object that's not a leaf?  If a child has other parents, I
suppose you can just remove the parent from the list (changing the
behavior of the child completely, of course); if it doesn't, do you
destroy the child object, or let it sit there as a root object?
Alternatively, do you disallow destroying an object with children?
>From a maintainer's point of view, this last option is probably the
best, since it removes the potential for accidentally slaughtering or
disabling large portions of the database, but it does pose some issues
for players (I can't destroy my object because of your child object).

> On the other hand, it appears to me one doesn't have to buy your
> implementation to get your semantics: one should be able to get the
> same result for the price of a full depth-first search at
> message-send time, without any static datastructures of the sort you
> describe, no?  Assuming the usual caching of frequently sent
> messages and/or typically small parent graphs, the speed difference
> might not be significant anyhow.

I hadn't thought about caching frequently-sent messages.  I guess you
might save a lot of object retrievals this way.  Would it be better to
have a global cache or a cache on each object?  The latter
implementation's success would depend heavily on the object-to-disk
cache, I suppose.

At any rate, I'm not exactly sure how you would simulate an LRUJ
system (left-to-right, up-to-join) with a complete depth-first search.
Simply taking the last method you find isn't going to work.  I think
you really have to know what the common ancestors are, which requires
at least an O(n ln n) process on the number of ancestors.  Maybe I'm
missing something, though.

--GBH


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Mar 29 15:01:40 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "14:57:30" "-0800" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca" nil "13" "Re> Continuing saga" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Message-ID: <9303292257.AA11828@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 14:57:30 -0800
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re> Continuing saga

The mips machines here have several emulations of different favours of unix,
from bsd43 to svr4.  The various emulations are invoked by specifying a path
at the beginning of your $PATH environment variable. So if you have such a
setup, the solution to compiling woes could be to change your path.
Something to check out.

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Mon Mar 29 15:18:22 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "15:02:41" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "5" "Re: Multiple Inheritance" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 15:02:41 -0800
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Multiple Inheritance

Having lived through this debate in the CLOS wars (Common Lisp Object
System), I'll say that it no matter what MI system you pick, there's
some case where you'd wish you had another one.

Given that, I'd vote for depth-first.

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Mar 29 16:30:38 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "March" "1993" "15:56:08" "-0800" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" "<9303292356.AA08930@widcat.widener.edu>" "26" "Continuing Saga Solved." "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Mar 1993 15:56:08 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	gar@skywalker.css.cdc.com
Subject: Continuing Saga Solved.

 
Okay folks, there were a few things that needed to be checked, #1
being that there was a "HAS_STRERROR" flag in config.status that I
needed to be rid of which took care of some fun... and there were the
proper libraries to be included for certain posix functions.

Thanks to:

   David Whitten
   Jeff Prothero
   David Miller
   Conrad Hughes
   Mike Wilson
   "DavidM"
   Bryan Montgomery

and also to

   Gail A. Riddle

of Control Data Systems Inc., whose wonderful machine I'm using. 

If anyone else wants a clean port of Moo 1.7.0 on EP/IX 1.4.3 (soon to
be run through the optimizer!) let me know. :)

Thanks again! See ya later, --JRP [Shirgall@Lambda]

From wg7j.ece.orst.edu!g6phf Tue Mar 30 09:05:30 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "March" "1993" "00:05:20" "-0800" "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu" "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu" nil "3" "Linux port of MOO anyone??" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Tue, 30 Mar 1993 00:05:20 -0800
From:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Linux port of MOO anyone??

 Has anybody gotten the MOO code running on a Linux machine (PC)??
If so is it proving reliable, any other comments etc??
Thanks!

From cis.ohio-state.edu!weiler Tue Mar 30 14:02:19 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "March" "1993" "13:51:35" "-0800" "Jerry Weiler" "weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu" nil "11" "Linux port of MOO anyone??" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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In-Reply-to: "g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu's message of Tue, 30 Mar 1993 00:05:20 PST <8200@wg7j.ECE.ORST.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9303302151.AA07561@clam.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date:	Tue, 30 Mar 1993 13:51:35 -0800
From:	Jerry Weiler <weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu>
To:	g6phf@wg7j.ece.orst.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Linux port of MOO anyone??

Yes. I compiled MOO under linux a few months ago and it's proven very
reliable.  I don't have an internet connection to my linux box, but I
can telnet into it in loopback mode.

The only problem I had was that I had to disable optimization (due to
a bug in gcc 2.2.2, not MOO). That may have changed. I haven't tried
with newer versions of gcc. Other than that, it compiles straight out
of the box.

- Jerry Weiler
(Lynx on LambdaMOO)

From soda.berkeley.edu!lim Tue Mar 30 19:24:38 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "March" "1993" "19:13:43" "-0800" "Lincoln Myers" "lim@soda.berkeley.edu" nil "17" "OS/2 and Moo Clients" "^Date:" nil nil "3"])
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Date:	Tue, 30 Mar 1993 19:13:43 -0800
From:	Lincoln Myers <lim@soda.berkeley.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: OS/2 and Moo Clients

Greetings everybody

     I'm about to try to port MOO to OS/2.  I tried once before with EMX,
and succeeded in logging in with a client that was so basic, it makes telnet
look like X11...  Now that Borland C/C++ 1.0 is in my grasp, I'm hoping to
try again, this time using a client that would allow programming.

     I'm looking forward with some dread to downloading the source and
patches to OS/2ized emacs and hacking at open_network_connection to make
mud.el work.  (because bcc isn't as unix-friendly as emx, the compiler one
usually uses for emacs, and because emacs and I don't get along even if it
works).  Before I begin, is there an alternative moo-friendly non-emacs
client setup that I could hack on instead?  Have I misevaluated the
ease-of-porting-to-non-unix-machines-ity of emacs?

Lincoln
(Gloria@LambdaMOO)

From smd6.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Thu Apr  1 10:38:25 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "1" "April" "1993" "10:17:07" "-0800" "Jacqueline Hamilton" "hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov" nil "21" "system time confusing the moo?" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 1 Apr 1993 10:17:07 -0800
From:	Jacqueline Hamilton <hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: system time confusing the moo?


The machine I run my moo on was taken down yesterday for
a few hours, then rebooted... and today, I've had a slew
of very nasty problems with the MOO... things like
connected_seconds() breaking (says invalid argument),
and when I logged in just recently it said I had never
logged on before (not true, of course).  And now I'm
looking at a mail-recipient that I had sent mail to earlier
today, the earlier messages said 'April 2' for the date,
and my latest message now reads correct, 'April 1'.  

My guess is, when the machine was rebooted they probably
forgot to reset the system clock(?) and did it just recently,
and now the MOO is entirely confused at the time change? 

*shrug*  Strangeness. :)  Just wondering if anyone else
had seen this happen.
 
Ah well.  Back to more bug-fixing. :)

-j.

From pyros.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Apr  1 14:25:00 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "1" "April" "1993" "14:12:54" "-0800" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "30" "RE: system time confusing the moo?" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 1 Apr 1993 14:12:54 -0800
From:	WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: system time confusing the moo?


>The machine I run my moo on was taken down yesterday for
>a few hours, then rebooted... and today, I've had a slew
>of very nasty problems with the MOO... things like
>connected_seconds() breaking (says invalid argument),
>and when I logged in just recently it said I had never
>logged on before (not true, of course).  And now I'm
>looking at a mail-recipient that I had sent mail to earlier
>today, the earlier messages said 'April 2' for the date,
>and my latest message now reads correct, 'April 1'.  
>
>My guess is, when the machine was rebooted they probably
>forgot to reset the system clock(?) and did it just recently,
>and now the MOO is entirely confused at the time change? 
>
>*shrug*  Strangeness. :)  Just wondering if anyone else
>had seen this happen.
> 
>Ah well.  Back to more bug-fixing. :)
>
>-j.

Yes, this has happened to me on occasion too. And, yes, it caused just as much
Havoc to me as it did you. The only thing I can suggest is that you try to get
together some kind of knowledge as to what needs to be reset everytime so
you can try to put together something to do it for you. The biggest problem I
had was with player's logins and mail. Didn't notice anything else..

-Wayne


From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!UN031277 Fri Apr  2 07:52:36 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "2" "April" "1993" "07:39:24" "-0800" "UN031277@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu" "UN031277@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu" nil "39" "Problem compiling MOO, as usual...help!" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Problem compiling MOO, as usual...help!
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Help!  Trying to compile MOO on a RISC RS/6000 running AIX v. 3, getting the
following traceback from make...

In file included from /usr/include/signal.h:15, from my-signal.h:25, from net_multi.c:21, from network.c:26:
/usr/include/sys/signal.h:169: parse error before `signal_t'
/usr/include/sys/signal.h:169: warning: no semicolon at end of struct or union
net_multi.c: In function `accept_new_connection':
In file included from network.c:26:
net_multi.c:233: warning: passing arg 2 of `write' discards `const' from pointer target type
net_multi.c:234: warning: passing arg 2 of `write' discards `const' from pointer target type
my-sys-time.h: At top level:
In file included from net_mp_selct.c:22, from network.c:47:
my-sys-time.h:30: parse error before `fd_set'
In file included from network.c:47:
net_mp_selct.c:28: parse error before `input'
net_mp_selct.c:28: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
net_mp_selct.c: In function `mplex_add_reader':
net_mp_selct.c:42: request for member `fds_bits' in something not a structure or union
net_mp_selct.c:42: `fd_set' undeclared (first use this function)
net_mp_selct.c:42: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
net_mp_selct.c:42: for each function it appears in.)
net_mp_selct.c: In function `mplex_add_writer':
net_mp_selct.c:50: request for member `fds_bits' in something not a structure or union
net_mp_selct.c:50: `fd_set' undeclared (first use this function)
net_mp_selct.c: In function `mplex_is_readable':
net_mp_selct.c:77: request for member `fds_bits' in something not a structure or union
net_mp_selct.c:77: `fd_set' undeclared (first use this function)
net_mp_selct.c: In function `mplex_is_writable':
net_mp_selct.c:83: request for member `fds_bits' in something not a structure or union
net_mp_selct.c:83: `fd_set' undeclared (first use this function)

Make Quitting.


Help!  Somebody help!

--
Gilmore  un031277@wvnvms.wvnet.edu


From andrew.cmu.edu!sb69+ Fri Apr  2 10:48:25 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "2" "April" "1993" "10:38:25" "-0800" "Syon Bhattacharya" "syon+@cmu.edu" nil "190" "LambdaMoo on an RT?" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <sfj8UVO00WBN44Y3hg@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date:	Fri, 2 Apr 1993 10:38:25 -0800
From:	Syon Bhattacharya <syon+@cmu.edu>
Sender: sb69+@andrew.cmu.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: LambdaMoo on an RT?

has anyone compiled MOO1.7 for the IBM RT running AOS4 or BSD4.3
(rt_r3)?  I can get it to compile with no warnings, but dies immediately
after "connect wizard" on the LambdaCore-24Nov92 database.  I am using
gcc 1.35.99.  Perhaps it dies because of a bug in the compiler or in
libc.  Here's the gdb output.  My vfprintf doesn't work, but that's not
a problem.

Thanks for any help

 -Syon

% gdb ./moo
GDB 2.1 - ITC 1.2, Copyright (C) 1987 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY for GDB; type "info warranty" for details.
GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it
 under certain conditions; type "info copying" to see the conditions.
Reading symbol data from /usr/tmp/MOO-1.7.0/moo...Unknown symbol-type
code 'P' i
n dbx symbol table, assuming local.
Unknown symbol-type code 'P' in dbx symbol table, assuming local.
Unknown symbol-type code 'P' in dbx symbol table, assuming local.
Unknown symbol-type code 'P' in dbx symbol table, assuming local.
Unknown symbol-type code 'P' in dbx symbol table, assuming local.
Unknown symbol-type code 'P' in dbx symbol table, assuming local.
done.
Type "help" for a list of commands.
(gdb) run LambdaCore-24Nov92.db out.db 6666
Starting program: /usr/tmp/MOO-1.7.0/moo LambdaCore-24Nov92.db out.db 6666
Apr  1 15:31:43: STARTING: Version M$ of the LambdaMOO server
Apr  1 15:31:43:           (Using M$ protocol)
Apr  1 15:31:43:           (Task timeouts measured in M$ seconds.)
Apr  1 15:31:43: LOADING:
Apr  1 15:33:04: VALIDATING the object hierarchies ...
Apr  1 15:33:04: VALIDATING the object hierarchies ... finished.
Apr  1 15:36:50: LOADING:  done, will dump new database on
Apr  1 15:37:04: ACCEPT: #101509 on YAL]Q|n
Apr  1 15:37:14: :  on
 
Program received signal 10, Bus error
0x36b64 in .strlen (273282944, -1)
(gdb) where
#0  0x36b64 in .strlen (273282944, -1)
#1  0x1d36c in .stream_length (273282944, 26045, -1, 273162336, 8056,
273282944,
 0, 268459076, 194472, 15, 1, 268458037, 52174, 5368
55060, 536855016, 536855016, 536855016, 268439204, 26990, 536855068,
536855068, 
536855068, 536855068, 9, 273066368, -1, 536855168, 2
73065881, 2, 536855072, 272199216, 272199217, 536855072, 268439176,
26714, 0, -1
, 0, 273282944, 7, 137122, 0, 273162336, 10, 67280,
175074848, 268459624, 536856572, 67094, s=(Stream *) 0x1fffc334)
(streams.c line
 117)
#2  0x674a in .run (137122, 0, 273162336, 10, 67280, 175074848,
268459624, 53685
6572, 67094, 536855348, 268459088, 196066, 273153792
, 273065903, 273065904, 536855988, 268439384, 45052, 536855344,
536855188, 53685
5344, 32, 12, 273066368, 273292800, 273153792, 27315
3792, 48, 272199217, 536855988, 268439384, 38408, -1, 2, 2, 2, 58,
137122, 4, 8,
 0, 0, 2, 0, 273282944, 4, 0, 0, 5, resumption_error
=16843009) (execute.c line 84)
#3  0x685a in .print_error_backtrace (137122) (execute.c line 103)
#4  0x9608 in .run (0, 28, 1, 5, 273282416, 0, 273282416, 2, 4, 4, 1,
268546208,
 273282944, 0, 268484928, 273071104, 104772, 5368568
40, 536856352, 536856352, 268447192, 108672, 536856840, 536856372,
536856372, 26
8447192, 67280, 0, 0, 536856444, 536856428, 53685630
8, 536856308, 536856308, 268439652, 49758, 536856336, 536856336,
268438420, 2255
8, 76, 272192064, -1, 273282720, 4, 6, 273292288, 26
8458420, 268486608, resumption_error=E_NONE) (execute.c line 821)
#5  0xbe9c in .set_task_kind (272192064, -1) (execute.c line 1263)
#6  0xc25e in .do_server_task (2, 102726, 273282720, 4, 6, 268535680,
272192064,
 2, 8, 2, -1) (execute.c line 1332)
#7  0x1f86c in .kill_task (2, 2, 102726, 273282720, 4, 0, 273153856,
273153824, 
4, 11, 2, 536856732, 268447256, 109030, 114132, 2684
59624, 110138, 536857100, 536856944, 269310832, 273242976, 268450508,
536856832,
 536856832, 536856832, 536856832, 268449752, 129132,
 733696624, 536856980, 536856832, 536856832, 733696634, 536856840,
536856840, 53
6856840, 268446532, 105208, 268493760, 536856840, 26
8448248, 117902, -2, 2, 104798, 2, 1, 2, 0, id=273070912, owner=0)
(tasks.c line
 762)
#8  0x19206 in .register_server (2) (server.c line 255)
#9  0x19af8 in .register_server (-2, 2, 0) (server.c line 455)
#10 0x1edb8 in .kill_task (273072000, 273166624, 536857411, 273242960,
733696625
, 32765, 536857346, 536857296, 536857296, 536857296,
 536857296, 268449752, 129132, 536857320, 268447512, 268437320,
268500992, 53685
7296, 536857296, 268446232, 536857620, 536857304, 26
8442396, 72086, 272077120, 0, 3600, 733696633, 0, 5, 0, 0, 273072000,
733696633,
 0, 273294592, 67280, 536857408, 8, 536857504, 1, 27
3153656, 273153632, 536857410, 83747, 1868981760, 1868955648,
1952972800, 268437
320, id=0, owner=268459644) (tasks.c line 472)
#11 0x1f66e in .kill_task (0, 273282624, 4, 0, 733696633, 0, 0, 2, -1,
0, 0, 0, 
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 733696611, 536857684, 268463316, 2
16174, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 268437320, 268485312, 536857620,
536857620, 26
8446628, 105862, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 536857991, 536858013
, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, id=0, owner=0) (tasks.c line 699)
#12 0x194b2 in .register_server () (server.c line 306)
#13 0x19d86 in .register_server (4, 536857872) (server.c line 502)
(gdb)
#0  0x36b64 in .strlen (273282944, -1)
#1  0x1d36c in .stream_length (273282944, 26045, -1, 273162336, 8056,
273282944,
 0, 268459076, 194472, 15, 1, 268458037, 52174, 5368
55060, 536855016, 536855016, 536855016, 268439204, 26990, 536855068,
536855068, 
536855068, 536855068, 9, 273066368, -1, 536855168, 2
73065881, 2, 536855072, 272199216, 272199217, 536855072, 268439176,
26714, 0, -1
, 0, 273282944, 7, 137122, 0, 273162336, 10, 67280,
175074848, 268459624, 536856572, 67094, s=(Stream *) 0x1fffc334)
(streams.c line
 117)
#2  0x674a in .run (137122, 0, 273162336, 10, 67280, 175074848,
268459624, 53685
6572, 67094, 536855348, 268459088, 196066, 273153792
, 273065903, 273065904, 536855988, 268439384, 45052, 536855344,
536855188, 53685
5344, 32, 12, 273066368, 273292800, 273153792, 27315
3792, 48, 272199217, 536855988, 268439384, 38408, -1, 2, 2, 2, 58,
137122, 4, 8,
 0, 0, 2, 0, 273282944, 4, 0, 0, 5, resumption_error
=16843009) (execute.c line 84)
#3  0x685a in .print_error_backtrace (137122) (execute.c line 103)
#4  0x9608 in .run (0, 28, 1, 5, 273282416, 0, 273282416, 2, 4, 4, 1,
268546208,
 273282944, 0, 268484928, 273071104, 104772, 5368568
40, 536856352, 536856352, 268447192, 108672, 536856840, 536856372,
536856372, 26
8447192, 67280, 0, 0, 536856444, 536856428, 53685630
8, 536856308, 536856308, 268439652, 49758, 536856336, 536856336,
268438420, 2255
8, 76, 272192064, -1, 273282720, 4, 6, 273292288, 26
8458420, 268486608, resumption_error=E_NONE) (execute.c line 821)
#5  0xbe9c in .set_task_kind (272192064, -1) (execute.c line 1263)
#6  0xc25e in .do_server_task (2, 102726, 273282720, 4, 6, 268535680,
272192064,
 2, 8, 2, -1) (execute.c line 1332)
#7  0x1f86c in .kill_task (2, 2, 102726, 273282720, 4, 0, 273153856,
273153824, 
4, 11, 2, 536856732, 268447256, 109030, 114132, 2684
59624, 110138, 536857100, 536856944, 269310832, 273242976, 268450508,
536856832,
 536856832, 536856832, 536856832, 268449752, 129132,
 733696624, 536856980, 536856832, 536856832, 733696634, 536856840,
536856840, 53
6856840, 268446532, 105208, 268493760, 536856840, 26
8448248, 117902, -2, 2, 104798, 2, 1, 2, 0, id=273070912, owner=0)
(tasks.c line
 762)
#8  0x19206 in .register_server (2) (server.c line 255)
#9  0x19af8 in .register_server (-2, 2, 0) (server.c line 455)
#10 0x1edb8 in .kill_task (273072000, 273166624, 536857411, 273242960,
733696625
, 32765, 536857346, 536857296, 536857296, 536857296,
 536857296, 268449752, 129132, 536857320, 268447512, 268437320,
268500992, 53685
7296, 536857296, 268446232, 536857620, 536857304, 26
8442396, 72086, 272077120, 0, 3600, 733696633, 0, 5, 0, 0, 273072000,
733696633,
 0, 273294592, 67280, 536857408, 8, 536857504, 1, 27
3153656, 273153632, 536857410, 83747, 1868981760, 1868955648,
1952972800, 268437
320, id=0, owner=268459644) (tasks.c line 472)
#11 0x1f66e in .kill_task (0, 273282624, 4, 0, 733696633, 0, 0, 2, -1,
0, 0, 0, 
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 733696611, 536857684, 268463316, 2
16174, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 268437320, 268485312, 536857620,
536857620, 26
8446628, 105862, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 536857991, 536858013
, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, id=0, owner=0) (tasks.c line 699)
#12 0x194b2 in .register_server () (server.c line 306)
#13 0x19d86 in .register_server (4, 536857872) (server.c line 502)
(gdb)


From uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps Sat Apr  3 12:01:12 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "3" "April" "1993" "11:35:50" "-0800" "Tim Sailer" "jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com" nil "11" "Code" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sat, 3 Apr 1993 11:35:50 -0800
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To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Code
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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 Has anyone written a basic combat system, or a RPG system? If so, and
it's not too much code, could you post or email the code? I'm pulling
out my hair trying to figure this out!!!

Thanks!

-- 
Tim Sailer
JPT Computer Solutions - SCO Sales/Consulting/Administration and Mangling
Port Jefferson Station, NY
(516) 331-9001

From oolong.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Sat Apr  3 12:10:12 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "3" "April" "1993" "12:04:14" "-0800" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@oolong.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "14" "RE: Code" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <930403130414.20601128@OOLONG.HACKS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Date:	Sat, 3 Apr 1993 12:04:14 -0800
From:	WEB@oolong.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Code

>
> Has anyone written a basic combat system, or a RPG system? If so, and
>it's not too much code, could you post or email the code? I'm pulling
>out my hair trying to figure this out!!!
>
>Thanks!
>

A rather extensive RPG system exists on LambdaMOO. If you log on and ask around,
I'm sure you could find a good starting point. There are also a couple of
RPG MOOs established that people could prolly point you to.

-Wayne


From ccs.northeastern.edu!django Sat Apr  3 20:12:00 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "3" "April" "1993" "20:05:38" "-0800" "Robert Leslie" "django@ccs.northeastern.edu" nil "30" "Re: Code" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Sat, 03 Apr 93 11:35:50 PST.\"
             <9304031435.aa20637@jptcs.COM>"
Message-ID: <9304040405.AA27797@denali.ccs.northeastern.edu>
Date:	Sat, 3 Apr 1993 20:05:38 -0800
From:	Robert Leslie <django@ccs.northeastern.edu>
To:	Tim Sailer <jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Code

> Has anyone written a basic combat system, or a RPG system? If so, and
>it's not too much code, could you post or email the code? I'm pulling
>out my hair trying to figure this out!!!

I know you've already been pointed towards good examples of a MOO combat
system, but I feel obliged to share my biased opinion that MOOs can be put to
better uses. That is, basic combat comes "standard" in many other MUD
environments, and in many different varieties. If you're interested in theory
more than implementation, I would suggest you look at some of the other types
of MUDs: LPmud/MudOS and Diku, both of which are generally known for their
combat-oriented realms. (If you don't know of any, allow me to point you to at
least one.)

I'd also like to clarify a point, since I brought it up, that LPmuds and Dikus
are not combat-oriented by nature. I personally feel that the LP environment
is ideal to program in, better by far than the MOO environment. It is only
because would-be gamers generally use LP for their MUDs that they end up being
just that -- combat games. Is it because they're so easy to program? Anything
that can be done in MOOs can also be done in LPs, and probably vice versa, but
remember I'm biased. LPs are object-oriented, too, can handle arbitrary socket
communications, and more closely resemble a UNIX shell than anything else when
you are a wizard.

My dream is to build an LP-based virtual world some day, and live there. (You
think I'm joking.) Actually, the only thing holding me back is time, time,
and time. Life as a student is rough, but rewarding.

- Rob
...............................................................................
  - No gnu have never after fret far, even Eva hung on -   django@ccs.neu.edu

From theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu!nop Sat Apr  3 20:55:47 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Robert Leslie's message of Sat, 3 Apr 1993 20:05:38 PST <9304040405.AA27797@denali.ccs.northeastern.edu>"
Message-ID: <9304040450.AA05854@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
Date:	Sat, 3 Apr 1993 20:50:09 -0800
From:	nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
To:	django@ccs.northeastern.edu
cc:	jptcs!tps@uu3.psi.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Code

> I'd also like to clarify a point, since I brought it up, that LPmuds
> and Dikus are not combat-oriented by nature. I personally feel that
> the LP environment is ideal to program in, better by far than the
> MOO environment.

It's been a long time since I've looked at LP, and I may have
forgotten stuff about it.  Could you suggest a list of things that
make the LPmud environment ideal, or at least superior to MOO?  (BTW,
I already know a couple, but I'm curious which you think are
important.)

> Anything that can be done in MOOs can also be done in LPs, and
> probably vice versa, but remember I'm biased.

Well, yeah, and I could put a socket interface in vi and use that too.
I think the real question here is software engineering costs---what
kinds of things do MOO and LPmud make simple and clear to do?

> LPs are object-oriented, too, can handle arbitrary socket
> communications,

MOOs can handle stream connections (TCP in the current implementation)
in the MOO character set, which is the printable ASCII set everywhere
right now.  I'm considering moving JaysHouseMOO to ISO-Latin1, but
there are some issues in adding characters that not all of your users
can type directly.

MOO doesn't make any pretence of dealing with raw binary data, which I
see as an advantage.  We can't do UDP, but it's simple to build
external programs that keep I/O and CPU intensive things like...maybe
I should just post my MOO networking manifesto?

> and more closely resemble a UNIX shell than anything else when you
> are a wizard.

I don't see this as an advantage.  :-/

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Sat Apr  3 21:11:29 1993
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To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows List)
Subject: Updates on MOO v1.x.x?
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I know Pavel must be busy because we have yet to see any updates (especially
that message about the update that would be posted in a week several 
months ago) but is there any updates on progress? 

Yeh, its my 'disk based database' request again... just so no one forgets!

I'm also a little worried about using Linux for the MOO. It seems to have
a 64MB filesize limit from what I read. I think Jay Carlson has some
experience with it. Is that going to be a problem?

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request
  Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux)
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If a girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"-Deborah Gibson

From theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu!nop Sat Apr  3 23:35:19 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Jonathan Bradshaw's message of Sat, 3 Apr 1993 21:05:34 PST <m0nfMti-0000HWC@void.decio.nd.edu>"
Message-ID: <9304040729.AA06035@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
Date:	Sat, 3 Apr 1993 23:29:01 -0800
From:	nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
To:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Updates on MOO v1.x.x?

> I'm also a little worried about using Linux for the MOO. It seems to have
> a 64MB filesize limit from what I read. I think Jay Carlson has some
> experience with it. Is that going to be a problem?

The file size limit is dependent on the file system, I think---I think
I heard that there's basically no limit on file size in any of the
file systems aside from `minix' and `msdos'.

The last time I looked, Linux gcc miscompiled lookup_prep() or
somesuch function.  The result was that you couldn't add verbs with
preps other than "any" or "none".  I suspect this is the result of a
buggy stdargs implementation, and I bet it's been fixed by now.

Otherwise, we get to edit assembly code by hand.  :-(

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From ipac.caltech.edu!dave Sun Apr  4 11:21:46 1993
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Date:	Sun, 4 Apr 1993 11:16:00 -0700
From:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
To:	django@ccs.northeastern.edu (Robert Leslie)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LP vs MOO etc.

The argument about what flavor MUD is best is timeless, but let me say why
MOO was chosen as the server for AstroVR, a collaborative tool for astronomical
researchers:

1.)  It has a simple, yet (nearly) complete embedded programming language,
     with simpler syntax than C and more familiar syntax than Forth,
2.)  It is object-oriented,
3.)  The server code is very robust, with uptimes in the months range,
4.)  It is very well supported at PARC, and provides the basis for a
     real-world application there,
5.)  The core db is very well documented, and it is easy to document additions,
6.)  The db is all in one file, so parts of it can't get lost,
7.)  It is able to connect to other servers with open_network_connection(),
     which is necessary for us so we can access some large database servers,
8.)  An excellent client (mud.el+moo extensions) exists.

As well, there are several limitations of MOO for our purpose.  It doesn't
support floating point arithmetic.  We get around this by installing an 
arithmetic server available via open_network_connection() for now, though this
is slow for small calculations.  It does not have multiple inheritance, which
would be a convenience, but is not a requirement.  

Cheers,

		   Dave Van Buren

From ccs.northeastern.edu!django Mon Apr  5 00:25:27 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Sat, 03 Apr 93 20:50:09 PST.\"
             <9304040450.AA05854@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>---"
Message-ID: <9304050414.AA01826@denali.ccs.northeastern.edu>
Date:	Sun, 4 Apr 1993 21:14:48 -0700
From:	Robert Leslie <django@ccs.northeastern.edu>
To:	nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Code

>It's been a long time since I've looked at LP, and I may have
>forgotten stuff about it.  Could you suggest a list of things that
>make the LPmud environment ideal, or at least superior to MOO?  (BTW,
>I already know a couple, but I'm curious which you think are
>important.)

Here are, at least, things which I feel make the LP environment ideal. This
doesn't make it ideal for everybody, as for example Dave Van Buren has given
very good reasons for using a MOO in his environment. I would be interested in
hearing other people's reasons for choosing MOO. One good reason I can think
of is its relative simplicity: Designing a good LPmud from scratch is no easy
task. (Fortunately, you don't always have to start from scratch.)

1. The LP "mudlib" (equivalent to the MOO core db) is a hierarchical
filesystem comprised of various ASCII files, mostly files describing LP
objects. Objects are identified by their placement in the filesystem rather
than being assigned a permanent ID number. (This doesn't solve the portable
object renaming problem by itself, but combined with good programming
practices and good mudlib design it can drastically simplify the process
involved in porting objects to other muds.)

2. Objects are not loaded until they are needed. Thus it is possible to have a
very large mudlib without needing to store every object in memory at once.
Objects can also be removed from memory when they are no longer needed (but
still remain on disk to be easily recreated).

3. Objects can inherit characteristics of one or more other objects (multiple
inheritance). Objects can naturally override inherited functions, or call an
inherited function explicitly much like C++. Multiple occurrences of an object
can also exist (called "clones") in addition to the "master" object.

4. Objects are programmed in a language called LPC, which is syntactically
similar to C. You are fully capable of exploiting the C preprocessor for
#defines, #includes, #ifdefs, and the like. The similarity between C and LPC
stops before including pointers, although LPC adds other various useful
datatypes such as "string" and "object", and has full support for dynamic
arrays. Various implementations of LP also include associative arrays
(mappings) and floating point real numbers. LPC code is stored in ASCII files
in the mudlib, usually with a .c extension. When an object is referred to that
hasn't been loaded into memory yet, the LPC code is compiled and tokenized
dynamically.

5. Every characteristic in an LPmud is completely defined by the mudlib. That
is, there is no preconceived notion of "wizard" or "programmer" unless you
build that into the mudlib. One object, the so-called Master object in the
mudlib, controls who is allowed to do what by answering questions asked by the
LP driver. (For example, a function valid_write() is called in the Master
object whenever a user caused an object to try to write to a file in the
mudlib.) All security is implemented in the mudlib this way. NB, the LP driver
does enforce some security, such as not allowing any file access to occur
above the root of the mudlib hierarchy.

6. Every piece of interaction between the user and the mud is likewise
completely determined by the mudlib. When a new user connects, the LP driver
calls a function in the Master object and expects it to return a new object to
act as the "body" for that user. So it is up to the mudlib to handle user
authentication if desired, and set whatever privileges the user is entitled
to, in addition to manipulating the virtual world in which the user is to
live.

7. Since the mudlib has a filesystem, objects are free to read/write whatever
auxiliary files it likes, so long as the mudlib has defined privilege for it.
Objects have the ability to save all of their variables' values into datafiles
so they can later be restored. This is normally how user data is kept: each
user's object saves its contents into a datafile unique to that user (things
like status and encrypted password are stored this way).

8. Also because of the hierarchical filesystem, each "programmer" can be given
a home directory to store all of his or her own object definitions. A decent
structure can even allow users to directly FTP files into and out of the
mudlib so that LPC code can be edited locally instead of online. (Some FTP
daemons have been modified to recognize and authenticate mud users by reading
their encrypted passwords from the object datafiles, and setting their home
directories accordingly.)

9. One implementation of LP supports socket communication, talking directly to
another mud (so transfer of basic LPC datatypes is possible) or using either
UDP or TCP to talk to any Internet service. As an example, it is possible to
create an object which inherits a "telnet" object coded elsewhere in the
mudlib, and speak to any remote host using the telnet protocol.

10. When I say LP resembles a UNIX shell, I only mean that most LPmuds tend to
implement your basic UNIX commands into the mudlib so that you can manipulate
mudlib files in a manner you're probably already familiar with: cd, ls, more,
cp, mv, rm, etc. All of these are implemented in the mudlib using LPC. Of
course, you don't have to implement all or any of these, and could devise a
completely different way to give (or not give) users access to the files in
the mudlib. One possible approach is to make the filesystem itself the
virtual realm, so that the equivalent of 'cd' actually walks you through the
filesystem, sightseeing the files as you go by.

As I said, none of this makes LP necessarily better than MOO or any other
variety of MUD for any given purpose, but I do think it makes it one of the
most flexible.

Several general clients exist for talking to LPs, but creating a really good
one (perhaps with an X/graphic interface) really isn't much more difficult
than designing a protocol and implementing it into the mudlib. All messages
can be filtered through the mudlib before being dumped to the user, so it is
simply a matter of packaging the information into the protocol spoken by the
client. The ability is there; it just hasn't been brought to its fullest
potential yet. Actually, I was quite impressed to see a complete windowing
client implemented in LPC (!!) which ran on the server and worked with just
your basic telnet. A step in the right direction, but it would probably be
better to run the client locally (and write it in something besides an
interpreted language).

What other considerations do people find make MOOs a good environment as
opposed to LP or any other environment? Do any of the items I've listed seem
like a better alternative to the existing MOO environment?

Cheers,
- Rob

...............................................................................
  - No gnu have never after fret far, even Eva hung on -   django@ccs.neu.edu

From phyvs0.anu.edu.au!dxb105 Mon Apr  5 00:32:47 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "4" "April" "1993" "19:00:11" "-0700" "David Bofinger" "dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au" nil "50" "RPGs and \"My MUD is better than your MUD\"" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sun, 4 Apr 1993 19:00:11 -0700
From:	David Bofinger <dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au
Subject: RPGs and "My MUD is better than your MUD"

> Has anyone written a basic combat system, or a RPG system? If so, and
> it's not too much code, could you post or email the code? I'm pulling
> out my hair trying to figure this out!!!

The one on LambdaMOO is a bit of a monster, partly because Tim and I never
anticipated how large it would grow. A lot of it was never optimised for
efficiency, and it was a kludge in the first place, because it was intended
to overlay on the RPG-less MUD structure ghond set up for AlphaMOO. For
instance, if a MUD were written from scratch to be an RPG environment, it
would be natural to make the generic player a descendant of the generic
monster. That option wasn't available to us. Also, there are several things
I would do differently if I wrote such a system today, e.g. skills should
be objects.

Basically, while LambdaRPG is in the public domain as far as I'm concerned,
if you don't understand it you're going to find it hard to use. And if you
can understand it you'll find it just as easy to write your own, especially
if you intend to make RPG integral to your MUD. Being able to assume all the
rooms support RPG activity, for instance, makes things easier and faster.

So take it off LambdaMOO if you want, but don't if you're smart. :-)

> Anything that can be done in MOOs can also be done in LPs, and
> probably vice versa, but remember I'm biased.

One thing that's very different about the social environment of a typical
LPMUD and a typical MOO is the method of acheiving programming rights. On
an LPMUD this is usually very restricted, on a MOO it is usually encouraged.
My understanding is that this is partly (largely?) a consequence of the
LPMUD permissions system, or its absence. LPMUDs have little choice but to
trust their wizards whereas MOO can hand out a programmer bit knowing that
the user can't do anything too seriously horrible.

>>[MOO] does not have multiple inheritance, which would be a convenience,
>> but is not a requirement.

As long as you know how you want it to work. For what its worth I'll
exercise my pseudo-democratic right of acclaimation in support of Greg's
proposal.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Bofinger	AARNet:	dxb105@phys.anu.edu.au
                Snail:	Dept. of Theoretical Physics, RSPhysSE, ANU, ACT, 2601
------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Cheers,

		   Dave Van Buren

From sco.com!chrisn Mon Apr  5 12:07:33 1993
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Date:	Mon, 5 Apr 1993 11:55:16 -0700
From:	"The Horror, The Horror" <chrisn@sco.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, uu3.psi.com!jptcs!tps@sco.com
Subject: Re: Code

	
	 Has anyone written a basic combat system, or a RPG system? If so, and
	it's not too much code, could you post or email the code? I'm pulling
	out my hair trying to figure this out!!!
	
	Thanks!

I implemented a sort of combat system without the RPG. 
It basically consisted of adding a vitality property 
to the player object, as well as a die verb.

It was then easy to create weapons which tweeked the
vitality, after which it was checked, if <= 0 then
call the player:die(), armor is also easy to implement.

I'm not all that much into the combat or RPG aspects of
MUDding, but quite a few of our users are and requested
mechanisms for wreaking havoc upon others. I suppose the
next step will be implementing "sanctuary", or robo cops,
or whatever. (sigh)

The point being that it isn't difficult to implement with
a little bit of coding.

ccn

From morwyn.uucp!root Mon Apr  5 15:57:53 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "4" "April" "1993" "12:46:30" "-0700" "Forrest Aldrich" "forrie@morwyn.uucp " "<199304041946.AA03254@morwyn.UUCP>" "5" "New server, etc." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sun, 4 Apr 1993 12:46:30 -0700
From:	forrie@morwyn.uucp (Forrest Aldrich)
Sender: root@morwyn.uucp
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: New server, etc.

Along with the possible release of a new server, can we expect to see 
a newer, updated LambdaCore.db file which will, hopefully, include some 
of the newer commands available (like @dump, etc.)?

Forrest

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Apr  5 17:25:15 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "5" "April" "1993" "17:16:58" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: New server, etc." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <199304041946.AA03254@morwyn.UUCP>
Date:	Mon, 5 Apr 1993 17:16:58 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: New server, etc.

> Date:	Sun, 4 Apr 1993 12:46:30 -0700
> From:	forrie@morwyn.uucp (Forrest Aldrich)
> To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
> Subject: New server, etc.
> 
> Along with the possible release of a new server, can we expect to see 
> a newer, updated LambdaCore.db file which will, hopefully, include some 
> of the newer commands available (like @dump, etc.)?

I will try to get around to making a new core release pretty soon, independent
of when I finally get around to releasing server version 1.8.0.

	Pavel

From ccs.northeastern.edu!django Mon Apr  5 18:38:01 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "5" "April" "1993" "18:33:47" "-0700" "Robert Leslie" "django@ccs.northeastern.edu" nil "46" "Re: \"My MUD is better than your MUD\"" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Sun, 04 Apr 93 19:00:11 PDT.\"
             <0096A932.532B3D40.25652@phys.anu.edu.au>h!"  I to"
Message-ID: <9304060133.AA06032@denali.ccs.northeastern.edu>
Date:	Mon, 5 Apr 1993 18:33:47 -0700
From:	Robert Leslie <django@ccs.northeastern.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: "My MUD is better than your MUD"

> One thing that's very different about the social environment of a typical
> LPMUD and a typical MOO is the method of acheiving programming rights. On
> an LPMUD this is usually very restricted, on a MOO it is usually encouraged.
> My understanding is that this is partly (largely?) a consequence of the
> LPMUD permissions system, or its absence. LPMUDs have little choice but to
> trust their wizards whereas MOO can hand out a programmer bit knowing that
> the user can't do anything too seriously horrible.

Dave is right, LPs typically have a very different social environment than
MOOs. I'm not sure why. As I mentioned before, I think one of the reasons is
because LPs have traditionally attracted the RPG'ers.

However, there's no reason why an LP couldn't encourage building the same way
MOOs do. Older versions of LP didn't have a good permissions system, but you
will find any recent version carries good mechanisms for enforcing security at
any level you desire. (Remember, all security is implemented in the mudlib,
not the driver itself.) Many LPs typically have a multitude of layers of
permissions, often more than is really needed.

I think part of the trick for attracting the "right" social environment is to
give users the ability to program from the start, instead of rewarding them
with it after completing several game quests, as LPs tend to do. There's no
reason an LP couldn't do this, though, and I think it's worth trying.

Several people have asked me for locations of LPmuds to try and locations for
LP source code. My recommendation for anyone who wants to see a running LP is
to visit TMI-2 (The Mud Institute) at tmi.ccs.neu.edu 5555. They work almost
exclusively on building a base mudlib for any LPmud, and will usually give
programming abilities to anyone who asks. It has good on-line documentation
for using commands and for programming in LPC. They have also built an
interesting "Conference Centre" which they have used to hold moderated
conferences on varying subjects affecting the MUD (or LPmud) community.

There are presently a handful of developers extending the original LPmud
source in their own ways. One which I consider to be one of the best is called
MudOS, and can be found along with a few of the others at ftp.ccs.neu.edu in
/pub/mud/drivers. Also at that site, you will find The Totally Unofficial List
of Internet Muds, compiled monthly by Scott Goehring, as
/pub/mud/docs/current-mudlist. This list includes just about every MUD that
wants to be publicly known, and is a good source if you want to try out the
flavour a few different muds.

Cheers,
- Rob
...............................................................................
  - No gnu have never after fret far, even Eva hung on -   django@ccs.neu.edu

From morwyn.uucp!root Wed Apr  7 10:41:46 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "7" "April" "1993" "06:32:33" "-0700" "Forrest Aldrich" "forrie@morwyn.uucp " nil "14" "Client program ports" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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From:	forrie@morwyn.uucp (Forrest Aldrich)
Sender: root@morwyn.uucp
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Client program ports

Some time ago, there was talk about porting tinytalk to work with the
non-networking version of MOO.  Has any work been done so far with this?
Would using the *.el code be sufficient, or would that require the
socket libs as well?

Curiously, I wonder if it would be easy to hack tinytalk (or some other
client... there are some good ones out there) and the sysv_client.c
program together... somehow, allowing the sysv_client.c routines to
do the 'connecting' work, and separating the tinytalk code to do the
filtering, etc.

Any comments or ideas?

Forrest

From mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz!adonkin Wed Apr  7 16:23:04 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "7" "April" "1993" "16:09:48" "-0700" "Andrew Donkin" "adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz" nil "27" "Pipe clients" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 7 Apr 1993 16:09:48 -0700
From:	Andrew Donkin <adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Pipe clients


|Some time ago, there was talk about porting tinytalk to work with the
|non-networking version of MOO.  Has any work been done so far with this?

	I am also interested in a pipe-only client, because the MOO server
here is limited to local access.  Currently I'm using an Emacs shell
running `client_sysv', but I'm a sucker for bells and whistles and a proper
client would be groovy.

|Would using the *.el code be sufficient, or would that require the
|socket libs as well?

	Without ever seeing tinytalk I can't make comparisons, but I would
really like to know if there's a version of the Emacs mud client (mud.el)
that uses SysV-style pipes rather than socket connections.  I think Emacs
is a great environment for a MOO client, considering the amount of text
manipulation required, and unlimited history.  I am utterly clueless
regarding Emacs LISP, however.  I sure hope someone out there has done all
the hard work before me :-}

|Forrest

	Thanks in advance,

,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
|            Andrew Donkin - adonkin@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz            |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'

From cis.ohio-state.edu!weiler Wed Apr  7 22:38:09 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "7" "April" "1993" "22:25:07" "-0700" "Jerry Weiler" "weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu" nil "15" "Re: SysV FIFOs and tinytalk" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Andrew Donkin's message of Wed, 7 Apr 1993 16:09:48 PDT <9304072309.AA07204@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz>"
Message-ID: <9304080525.AA02822@ichthyosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date:	Wed, 7 Apr 1993 22:25:07 -0700
From:	Jerry Weiler <weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu>
To:	adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: SysV FIFOs and tinytalk

Oooops. You did say that you're using SysV style local connections.

OK, I hacked SysV style FIFOs in, too, using client_sysv as a guide.

All three modes now seem to work OK in tinytalk: BSD/TCP, BSD/local,
and SysV/local (at least as far as I checked - tell me if you have any
problems)

I put the new copy on parcftp as tinytalkw3.tar.Z. same place

Happy MOOing!

- Jerry Weiler
weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu
Lynx on LambdaMOO

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Fri Apr  9 06:32:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "9" "April" "1993" "06:04:18" "-0700" "Chris Vaughn" "vaughn@udel.edu" nil "12" "Minimum system requirements" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Fri, 9 Apr 1993 06:04:18 -0700
From:	Chris Vaughn <vaughn@udel.edu>
Sender: <@cis.udel.edu,@hercules.cis.udel.edu:vaughn@udel.EDU>
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Minimum system requirements


Hello everyone.  I just joined the list, and I've been wondering what the
minimum system requirements are for running a LambdaMOO system.

I've looked through the many pieces of documentation, but I haven't been
able to find any such information.

Thanks,
Chris Vaughn

PS Are the LambdaCore User and Programmer Manuals in the contribs directory
at the FTP site still valid?  They seem kind of old.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Apr  9 10:28:34 1993
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Message-ID: <9304091721.AA24225@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 9 Apr 1993 10:21:50 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	vaughn@udel.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Minimum system requirements

>PS Are the LambdaCore User and Programmer Manuals in the contribs directory
>at the FTP site still valid?  They seem kind of old.

There are probably still true statements in those documents.  I would
imagine that the number of false statements has gained a majority by
now.  I'm not sure if it's appropriate to delete them yet...

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Apr  9 15:15:23 1993
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Date:	Fri, 9 Apr 1993 15:06:49 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	vaughn@udel.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Minimum system requirements

> Date:	Fri, 9 Apr 1993 06:04:18 -0700
> From:	Chris Vaughn <vaughn@udel.edu>
> 
> Hello everyone.  I just joined the list, and I've been wondering what the
> minimum system requirements are for running a LambdaMOO system.

That's hard to say, but I'll take a shot at it.  You need a UNIX system, either
BSD or SysV, with at least 5 meg each of virtual memory and disk.  You wouldn't
have much fun with such a system, though.  If you anticipate the place growing
substantially, you should start with at least 10 meg of virtual memory and 20
meg of disk.  Also, you'll be happiest with as much physical memory as you can
get.

So much of the requirements depend on how big your MOO gets and how many people
use it, that it's tough to give you some hard numbers.  LambdaMOO itself, by
far the largest MOO I'm aware of, runs on a Sun SPARCstation IPX with 128 meg
of physical memory, 1.4 gigabytes of disk, and maybe 400 meg of swap space
(virtual memory).  The current database file is about 70 megabytes long.

	Pavel/Haakon/Lambda

From morwyn.uucp!root Fri Apr  9 16:51:55 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "9" "April" "1993" "08:12:09" "-0700" "Superuser" "root@morwyn.uucp" nil "40" "FIFO tinytalk" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Fri, 9 Apr 1993 08:12:09 -0700
From:	Superuser <root@morwyn.uucp>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: FIFO tinytalk
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I've recently compiled the FIFO tinytalk, and had some problems...

First of all, I'm on a SCO UNIX 3.2.4 system with no networking.  There
were some local changes I had to make, such as getting the defines for
<sys/time.h> from elsewhere (as they are not here), and there was a
problem with TIOCGWINSZ not being defined; I had to delete the #ifdefs
for this to get tinytalk to compile at all (even using GCC2.3.3).  I also
had to change <strings.h> to <string.h>.

After I got things compiled and installed, I tried calling tinytalk with
the proper arguments (all permissions of the MOO et al are correct).  If
I tried this as a non-privileged user, I got the following message:

$ tinytalk ./client 777
% Opening server FIFO: Permission denied
% Couldn't connect to initial world.

However, if I did this as root, it would simply pause, with no output, and
freeze.  Then, when I went to press <DEL> to get out, it corrupted the
client program, every time:

# file client
client:		data

Whereas it was:

# file client
client:	    iAPX 386 executable

This cannot be right.  

I wonder if there might be a way to combine the routines and functionality
of client_sysv.c into tinytalk.  It would seem more feasible to do it
that way, rather than have 2 programs involved, IMHO.

So, in short, I haven't gotten it to work yet.  If anyone else might have
clues as to what needs to be done to correct this, I would appreciate the
help.  Thanks.

Forrest

From harlequin.com!kmp Sat Apr 10 21:07:32 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "10" "April" "1993" "21:03:51" "-0700" "Kent Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "11" "n lines flushed" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sat, 10 Apr 1993 21:03:51 -0700
From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: n lines flushed

In getting caught up on "read new on *soc" (never having read it before)
on lambdamoo, I saw lots of <n lines flushed> and just assumed that it
was lines of long messages that had been judiciously pruned by a wizard
who was trying to compact the database.  The idea that this was network
buffer overflow didn't occur to me until yduJ set me straight just now.
The message should be changed to reflect the real situation so I'd know
to retry my showing of individual messages that got truncated or missing
messages that I didn't end up seeing.  I suggest something like:
 "network buffer overflowed. n lines have been lost"
-kmp (Mickey@LambdaMOO)


From sage.cc.purdue.edu!kilgore Sun Apr 11 09:42:48 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "11" "April" "1993" "09:37:57" "-0700" "Michael Kilgore" "kilgore@sage.cc.purdue.edu " nil "9" "MOO and MSDOS" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sun, 11 Apr 1993 09:37:57 -0700
From:	kilgore@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Michael Kilgore)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO and MSDOS

I was wondering if it was possible to compile the server for a single user
setup (NP_SINGLE) on MSDOS.  I tried to do some compiling, however, I have
a problem, there are no socket related routines for my compiler.  Would anyone
have any pointers in removing or modifying the socket related code from the
server?

any help would be appreciated,
Mike


From soda.berkeley.edu!lim Sun Apr 11 14:02:28 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "11" "April" "1993" "13:48:00" "-0700" "Lincoln Myers" "lim@soda.berkeley.edu" nil "23" "MS-MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sun, 11 Apr 1993 13:48:00 -0700
From:	Lincoln Myers <lim@soda.berkeley.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MS-MOO

Here are the things that I see that make it not work right out of the box
on msdos and other pc operating systems (os/2, windoze).
	- They don't usually have sh, sed, ed, explicit cpp, etc. making
	  configure hard to use.
	- Everything in network.c needs changing, since PC operating systems
	  don't do tcp/ip (usually), non-blocking yet cooked mode input, etc.
	  You'll have to rewrite the functions in network.c, probably using
	  kbhit() and getch().
	- exec() and wait() are different.  fork() without exec() cannot be
	  duplicated, so you'll have to change the database save code to
	  do the save itself rather than fork() a twin.
	- The timer routines are slightly different.
	- crypt() doesn't exist.

The most significant and undefeatable problem, specific to msdos is:
	- 640k and no virtual memory means there isn't enough memory to load
	  core.db

You'll probably want to use djgcc and whatever dos extender works with it (or
a freely-available unix-clone such as Linux or 386BSD) to defeat the last
problem.  (these solutions need a 386 or better).

Lincoln

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Apr 12 11:47:25 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "12" "April" "1993" "11:36:05" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re:  n lines flushed" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <9304110655.AA06822@mwilson.async.vt.edu>
Date:	Mon, 12 Apr 1993 11:36:05 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu
cc:	kmp@harlequin.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  n lines flushed

> Date:	Sat, 10 Apr 1993 23:55:51 -0700
> From:	mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu (Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson)
> 
> I think that the 'n lines flushed' line is *not* a product of MOO.

This isn't true; the message *does* come from the MOO server and I have fixed
it along the lines Kent recommended.

The server *must* have such a facility because the underlying network
architecture (TCP) is providing a reliable stream service and therefore must
include some kind of flow control which therefore means that the server may
have to block in sending data to the client.  Thus, the server will sometimes
have to buffer up data for the client and those buffers may at some point
overflow.

	Pavel

From mwilson.async.vt.edu!mike Mon Apr 12 13:15:57 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "12" "April" "1993" "13:03:34" "-0700" "Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson" "mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu " nil "6" "Re:  n lines flushed" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Mon, 12 Apr 1993 13:03:34 -0700
From:	mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu (Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu
Cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  n lines flushed

I guess I jumped the gun on that one.  I haven't looked at either the code
for MOO, not the code for TinyFugue.  Having hence, pondered the idea of
that statement, it makes much more sense for the server to have been doing
it all along.  
Zaphod@VampMOO (Kicking himself for writing a stupid letter after coming
home toasted from a party :))

From mizzou1.missouri.edu!CCJOE Wed Apr 14 10:14:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "April" "1993" "10:05:43" "-0700" "Joe Heck" "CCJOE@mizzou1.missouri.edu" nil "7" "A general query for the Moo folks..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Organization: University of Missouri-Columbia Campus Computing, 314-882-2000
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Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 10:05:43 -0700
From:	Joe Heck <CCJOE@mizzou1.missouri.edu>
To:	MOO Cows <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: A general query for the Moo folks...

Had there been any port of the MOO server code to the Macintosh systems?
I know they're just PC's, and I'm likely to get flammed, but it's what I
have access to and would like to see it.

Thanks,
 joe                          (314) 882-5000
 ccjoe@mizzou1.missouri.edu

From unidata.com!james Wed Apr 14 11:04:08 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "2" "April" "1993" "06:42:29" "-0800" "james@unidata.com" "james@unidata.com" "<9304141758.AA02390@falcon>" "43" "RE:A general query for the Moo folks..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Fri, 2 Apr 1993 06:42:29 -0800
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: RE:A general query for the Moo folks...


>Had there been any port of the MOO server code to the Macintosh systems?
>I know they're just PC's, and I'm likely to get flammed, but it's what I
>have access to and would like to see it.

The line continues to blur between "just PC's" and workstations, and I did
manage to build 1.7.0 on the Mac, single-user. Unfortunately, that habit
the MOO has of keeping the database in RAM means big trouble for PCs, which
are still trying to get used to the idea of virtual memory. I don't have
a machine with enough RAM (virtual or otherwise) to load the LambdaCore,
and minimal.db is no fun, no fun at all.

My solution? Well, I've tried to hack diskbasing into 1.7.0, with some luck.
The thing is currently using the resource manager as it's DBMS, slow but
easy. I'm able to transform LambdaCore into resources and then swap objects
in and out as required, but there's still a massive memory leak somewhere
that has prevented me from actually being able to use the core.

It was obvious that I was able to get as far as I had because of work Pavel
had done towards diskbasing. I am unsure of the many assumptions I had to
make. For this system to work, for example, "retrieve" must always be called
to obtain a valid object pointer. Also, any call to "retrieve" might result
in the out-swapping of any other object, so that after executing the following
snippet:
  x = retrieve(objid);
  y = retrieve(objid+1);

only y could be known to contain a valid object pointer. With the continued
imminence of Pavel's disk-based server, I decided to set this aside and wait,
frustrating though it is to be so close, yet so far away. Pavel, can you offer
any encouragement either along the lines of "you're close" or "give up and
wait?" Either would be nice to hear.

So, the short of it is... I can build a non-diskbased MOO server for the Mac,
but it won't do you much good unless you have vast tracts of RAM to play with.
Believe me, you'd spend less time getting frustrated with minimal.db than I'd
spend recompiling the server :).
  -James/Minstrel-

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\
| James Powell - Software Engineer? - Mac/UNIX/VR/RDBMS - jamesp@unidata.com  |
|                   "No matter where you go, there you are."                  |
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Apr 14 11:19:30 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "April" "1993" "11:08:35" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: RE:A general query for the Moo folks..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <9304141758.AA02390@falcon>
Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 11:08:35 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	james@unidata.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: RE:A general query for the Moo folks...

> Date:	Fri, 2 Apr 1993 06:42:29 -0800
> From:	james@unidata.com
> 
> Also, any call to "retrieve" might result in the out-swapping of any other
> object, so that after executing the following snippet:
>   x = retrieve(objid);
>   y = retrieve(objid+1);
> only y could be known to contain a valid object pointer.

This is almost certainly a disaster.

> Pavel, can you offer any encouragement either along the lines of "you're
> close" or "give up and wait?" Either would be nice to hear.

Give up and wait.  Sorry!

	Pavel

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Wed Apr 14 12:06:47 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "April" "1993" "12:00:30" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "75" "Re: A general query for the Moo folks..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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             <9304141758.AA02390@falcon>"
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Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 12:00:30 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	james@unidata.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: A general query for the Moo folks...


> Pavel, can you offer any encouragement either along the lines of
> "you're close" or "give up and wait?" Either would be nice to hear.

I happen to have been looking at Marcus Ranum's cache code recently,
and I think I've worked out how I'm going to deal with caching in
Coldmud.  I'll discuss mjr's cache code first, and then how I plan to
revise it.  The ideas I discuss should be just as applicable to MOO as
they are to Coldmud.

The code I'm going to discuss is copyright 1991 by Marcus Ranum, and
so might be any derivative works.  On the other hand, the code does
get used in Tinymush and Coolmud and is part of the
freely-distributable Untermud; as far as I know, mjr doesn't mind
people using it.  He can be contacted at mjr@decuac.dec.com.

The basic philosophy of mjr's code is that you have 'active' and
'inactive' chains of object holders.  (The number of active and
inactive chains is called the 'cache width', and you select a chain by
hashing the object ID.)  The active chain holds objects that the cache
believes to be important to your program; they will not be swapped out
under any circumstances.  The inactive chain may contain some empty
holders, as well as objects that the cache code believes not to be
important to your program.  These objects can be swapped out (using a
'dirty' bit to keep track of whether they have to be written or just
forgotten about).

At any point, your program can tell the cache code that it doesn't
care about any objects ("resetting the cache"), at which point all
containers in the active chains are moved to the inactive chains.
>From that point until the next time the cache is reset, the cache
moves requested objects onto the active chains from the inactive
chains or from disk.  In order to keep the size of the cache
relatively constant, constant, the cache reuses inactive object
holders when it reads an object in from the disk, swapping out any
object the recycled holder might have contained.  If there are no
inactive object holders available on the appropriate inactive chain,
then the cache grows in size.

Alright, that's mjr's code, minus a few details.  The problem with
this code is that at some point during the uptime of the program, the
cache is likely to blow up and load most of the database into memory.

This can happen in two cases in Coldmud: first, because of the
multiple-inheritance scheme I'm using (which I discussed in previous
messages to this list), parts of my code have to traverse the children
digraph of an object in order to update their ancestor precedence
lists.  If the object is the root object, or, say, 'Generic Described
Object', then mjr's code would load in most of the database.

Second, and independent of Coldmud's LRUJ inheritance scheme, it's
going to be fairly common that Joe Average Programmer decides to call
a method on a whole slew of objects.  (For that matter, if your core
is badly designed, Joe Average User might manage it as well.)  At no
point during interpretation of a task can Coldmud release all of the
objects it's holding onto; unless Coldmud can release objects one at a
time, the cache will load each visited object into memory, and not
release it until the task is done.

I plan to use a scheme conceptually very much like mjr's but using
reference-counting instead of an overall cache reset.  Retrieving an
object already stored in an active chain ups its reference count;
retrieving an object not stored in an active chain installs it in the
appropriate active chain with a reference count of 1.  Any piece of
code that retrieves an object is responsible for releasing it, which
decreases the reference count of the object in the active chain and,
if the reference count hits 0, moves it to the inactive chain (where
it may be swapped out on a later retrieve).

By storing the cache data in the objects themselves, rather than using
object holders, I can avoid having to do a search through the active
chains on a release, at the expense of easy reusability.

--GBH


From glia.biostr.washington.edu!jsp Wed Apr 14 13:36:32 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "April" "1993" "13:32:59" "-0700" "Jeff Prothero" "jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu " nil "23" "virtual memory" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 13:32:59 -0700
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: virtual memory

Just on the offchance someone is re-inventing a wheel and would
prefer not to:
  I've posted tinyMuq's virtual memory module to
glia.biostr.washington.edu's anon-ftp incoming/ as muq_vm.tar.Z.
This module can be used a number of ways (e.g., it has support
for copying garbage collection) but in the likely most relevant
mode, it can be used as a virtual-memory replacement for malloc()/
realloc()/free(), with vm_malloc() returning a 32-bit abstract
pointer instead of a hard pointer.  The main runtime cost should
be that instead of doing ptr->field in about 2 clock cycles, you're
going to have to call vm_loc(ptr) at about 15 clock cycles conjectured
average time.
  I have a test suite which runs about 20 minutes which the module
passes, but it has never been used in a running system:  bugs may
remain.
  The code is fairly well documented internally, and likely most
readers of the list don't want to hear more;  I can field questions
via email if anyone wants.  I've included only the minimum fileset
in the above tarfile, I'll be happy to make more available on request.
  Jeff
  jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu
  Oh, this is gnu-copyleft code, if it matters.


From venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz!adonkin Wed Apr 14 18:01:31 1993
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Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 17:51:25 -0700
From:	Andrew Donkin <adonkin@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Destroying a character


I have a few newbie questions - please bear with me.

=  To recycle a player, I can `@toad' then `@recycle' them - that I
   understand.  Is there an easy way to recycle of of that player's objects
   without looping through their .owned_objects and @recycling them one by
   one?  Like, perhaps, a `@totallyscrewplayer' verb that I have missed?

=  How do I take advantage of core updates when they are released?  Say when
   LambdaCore 1.8 arrives, how can I extract my local info and re-
   incorporate it into the new core?

Thanks in advance - 

,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
|            Andrew Donkin - adonkin@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz            |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'

From unidata.com!james Wed Apr 14 18:10:32 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "2" "April" "1993" "13:51:00" "-0800" "james@unidata.com" "james@unidata.com" nil "25" "Re: A general query for the Moo folks..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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             <93Apr14.110848pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> .
    "
Message-ID: <9304150107.AA04054@falcon>
Date:	Fri, 2 Apr 1993 13:51:00 -0800
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: A general query for the Moo folks...

>> Also, any call to "retrieve" might result in the out-swapping of any other
>> object, so that after executing the following snippet:
>>   x = retrieve(objid);
>>   y = retrieve(objid+1);
>> only y could be known to contain a valid object pointer.
>
>This is almost certainly a disaster.

Yeah, I knew this'd take some more work. Is my first assumption (that retrieve
is always used to fetch an object pointer) sound? Also, is there a clean
way to free all memory allocated to an object (it's name, verbdefs, propdefs,
propval, and the object itself, and whatever else)? I'm trying to do it
manually now, and I'm afraid I'm missing something. I know I said I wasn't
going to work on this, but I'm still damnably curious.

>> Pavel, can you offer any encouragement either along the lines of "you're
>> close" or "give up and wait?" Either would be nice to hear.
>
>Give up and wait.  Sorry!

Thanks to Greg Hudson and Jeff for the reviews of other approaches to disk-
basing. Besides pointing us to other implementations, your descriptions help
highlight the problems with diskbasing. I hope we get to see a portable MOO
implementation soon.
  -James-

From unidata.com!james Wed Apr 14 18:44:35 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "2" "April" "1993" "14:23:12" "-0800" "james@unidata.com" "james@unidata.com" nil "6" "MOO on the Mac" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Fri, 2 Apr 1993 14:23:12 -0800
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO on the Mac


Well, I just yanked my diskbasing code out and rebuilt with the RAM-based
stuff. Pumped up the VM on this Quadra to 32 megs, and it seems to handle
the 'core just fine. I'll clean the interface up a little and upload it to
parcftp tomorrow.
  -James/Minstrel-

From tamaix.tamu.edu!seh9407 Wed Apr 14 22:41:35 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "April" "1993" "22:35:08" "-0700" "Sarah Elizabeth Heacock" "seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu " nil "17" "New MOO wiz" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9304150051.AA18678@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz> from \"Andrew Donkin\" at Apr 14, 93 05:51:25 pmven --------"
Message-ID: <9304150534.AA37363@tamaix.tamu.edu>
Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 22:35:08 -0700
From:	seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu (Sarah Elizabeth Heacock)
To:	adonkin@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz (Andrew Donkin)
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: New MOO wiz
Content-Type: text

Can anyone give me some pointers as to common security leaks in
programming in MOO? (IE, if you are a janitor on a MOO, what do
you need to look out for/be careful when coding to make sure that
others can not use your code to gain access to commands and powers
they otherwise shouldn't have?)

I don't intend on doing too much code on the janitor/wiz/director
type character until I know more about MOO, but was hoping that 
someone might be willing to help me not lay myself open to blatant
security loopholes

(Like, for example, when you force an object on MUSH, you have to remember to
put all the commands in {}... taht's the kind of thing I am talking about.)

Sarah E. heacock
seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu


From netcom.com!dwb Thu Apr 15 00:34:37 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "April" "1993" "00:34:05" "-0700" "David W. Berry" "dwb@netcom.com " nil "15" "Re: A general query for the Moo folks..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 15 Apr 1993 00:34:05 -0700
From:	dwb@netcom.com (David W. Berry)
To:	MOO Cows <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: Re: A general query for the Moo folks...

At 1005 4/14/93 -0700, Joe Heck wrote:
>Had there been any port of the MOO server code to the Macintosh systems?
>I know they're just PC's, and I'm likely to get flammed, but it's what I
>have access to and would like to see it.
  Well, I don't know about MacOS ports, but I've ported MOO servers to A/UX
(Apple's unix for the Mac) on two separate occasions with no serious
problems.





David W. Berry           dwb@netcom.com         (408) 321-0154
Greenwing Enterprises;  394 Southbay Dr.;  San Jose, CA  95134


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Apr 15 11:52:44 1993
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References: <9304150051.AA18678@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
Date:	Thu, 15 Apr 1993 11:41:10 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	adonkin@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Destroying a character

> Date:	Wed, 14 Apr 1993 17:51:25 -0700
> From:	Andrew Donkin <adonkin@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
> 
> =  To recycle a player, I can `@toad' then `@recycle' them - that I
>    understand.  Is there an easy way to recycle of of that player's objects
>    without looping through their .owned_objects and @recycling them one by
>    one?  Like, perhaps, a `@totallyscrewplayer' verb that I have missed?

Not that I'm aware of, though a very simpleminded one would be easy to write.

> =  How do I take advantage of core updates when they are released?  Say when
>    LambdaCore 1.8 arrives, how can I extract my local info and re-
>    incorporate it into the new core?

Unfortunately, there is no simple way to do this and, arguably, no even
feasible way.

	Pavel/Haakon

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Thu Apr 15 12:05:16 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 14 Apr 1993 22:35:08 PDT.\"
             <9304150534.AA37363@tamaix.tamu.edu>"
Message-ID: <9304151857.AA02293@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Thu, 15 Apr 1993 11:57:50 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu (Sarah Elizabeth Heacock)
cc:	adonkin@venus.cs.waikato.ac.nz (Andrew Donkin), moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: New MOO wiz

Random tips:

1.  Every wizard-owned verb is a potential security hole; don't write
    a wizardly verb if a nonwizardly one will do the job.

2.  Use set_task_perms(caller_perms()) where possible.  Anything bad
    that you do in such a verb will only screw the caller.  Note that 
    this doesn't completely protect you, since the caller might be another 
    wizard verb.

3.  If you make any references to "player" under the assumption that
    this is a command verb and (player==whoever typed the command),
    make sure the verb is -x.

    This is particularly important if the verb contains set_task_perms(player).

    At one point we had a number of breakins on Lambda resulting from
    verbs being inadvertantly left +x.  The current LambdaCore should
    have a version of @verb that has -x be the default for non
    this-none-this verbs.

4.  set_task_perms(caller.owner) is usually a mistake.

    A single instance of this means that no wizard should own a child
    of anything not itself owned by someone trusted.  E.g., wizard
    owns A, cracker owns B==parent(A), cracker installs B:breakin that
    calls a verb that does set_task_perms(caller.owner), cracker calls
    A:breakin... now the verb is running with wizard permissions and
    the set_task_perms is basically useless.

5.  Be extremely careful with verbs that call either eval() or
    set_verb_code().  These can take arbitrary text and run it with
    your permissions, so if you write, e.g., eval(x) in wizard-owned
    code (or even your own code), you have to ask yourself, "Where is
    x coming from and who has control over it?"

    In particular, if x is coming from an argument:
     (a) put in set_task_perms(caller_perms())
     (b) check all WIZARD verbs that call this.
    
    Use $no_one:eval() where you can.

Many of these tips have their counterparts for non-wizard code,
the worry being that a careless verb might enable someone to usurp
the verb-owner's permissions.  

This is, in fact, the flip-side to (1).  That is, although you'll
sleep easier if it's a nonwizard verb; if that nonwizard owns
something important you now have to worry about who can usurp his/her
permissions as well.  In particular, the released LambdaCore has a
single player $hacker who owns everything of interest.

In fact, you probably don't want to be writing new Hacker
verbs anyway.  If you're planning a new facility of some sort, the
right thing to do is create a distinct player and have the verbs
be owned by that player.  That way, any mistakes you make will
only compromise that player.

This is the reason why on Lambda, $editor.owner is a distinct
player, though the issue there is as much protecting the editor
against mistakes in the rest of the core as protecting the core
against mistakes in the editor.  $editor.owner is something of a
special case since $verb_editor.owner is able to rewrite any verb
on the moo, thus its permissions have to be as guarded as wizard
permissions are.

Actually the $verb_editor is just a particular case of (5) since it
contains a wizard-owned verb that calls set_verb_code().

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From parc.xerox.com!masinter Thu Apr 15 12:21:39 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "15" "April" "1993" "11:57:38" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "34" "Re: Destroying a character" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Pavel Curtis's message of Thu, 15 Apr 1993 11:41:10 -0700 <93Apr15.114120pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <93Apr15.115740pdt.99278@poplar.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 15 Apr 1993 11:57:38 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Destroying a character

This is what I've been using lately to zap inactive players:
================================================================
#13331:"@zap"   any any any
"@zap player";
whostr = args[1];
if (!(callers() ? caller_perms() | player).wizard)
  player:notify("Yeah, right... you wish.");
  return;
elseif ($command_utils:player_match_failed(who = $string_utils:match_player(whostr), whostr))
  return;
elseif (whostr != who.name && !(whostr in who.aliases) && whostr != tostr(who))
  player:notify(tostr("Must be a full name or an object number:  ", who.name, "(", who, ")"));
  return;
elseif (who == player)
  player:notify("If you want to toad yourself, you have to do it by hand.");
  return;
endif
this:("@report")(tostr(dobj = who));
if (time() - who.last_connect_time < 3 * 30 * 24 * 60 * 60)
  player:tell("***** LESS THAN 3 MONTHS IDLE ****");
endif
if ($command_utils:yes_or_no("@toad " + who.name + "?"))
  if ((email = who.email_address) && (current = $registration_db:find_exact(email)) && (ind = $list_utils:iassoc(who, current)))
    current[ind] = {@current[ind], "zapped due to inactivity"};
    $registration_db:insert(email, current);
  endif
  for x in ({@setremove(who.owned_objects, who), who})
    player:tell("x ", this:object_audit_string(x));
    $recycler:_recycle(x);
  endfor
  player:tell(whostr, " zapped!");
else
  player:tell(whostr, " saved!");
endif

From eowyn.radonc.washington.edu!weber Sun Apr 18 00:16:03 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sun" "18" "April" "1993" "00:10:00" "-0700" "Eric Weber" "weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu " nil "15" "read without echo" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304180710.AA00828@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu.eowyn>
Date:	Sun, 18 Apr 1993 00:10:00 -0700
From:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu (Eric Weber)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: read without echo


Has anyone implemented an option to do a read() without echoing to the user?  

I know how to enable and disable echoing on a socket, but I can't figure out
how the MOO read() function actually works.  I can't seem to locate where the
server actually determines that the string it got from the socket needs to be
given to a running task rather then parsed as a command.  The actual bf_read  
function doesn't seem to actually do much.

If someone could enlighten me on the gory details of read(), I would be
eternally grateful.

-- Eric



From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Sun Apr 18 14:26:12 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sun" "18" "April" "1993" "14:19:58" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "3" "read without echo" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Eric Weber's message of Sun, 18 Apr 1993 00:10:00 PDT <9304180710.AA00828@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu.eowyn>"
Message-ID: <9304182119.AA25708@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 18 Apr 1993 14:19:58 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: read without echo

I thought the MOO didn't echo anything at all, and it was your client
that was doing the echoing for you...  You'd have to do some client
negotiation to get it to turn off echoing for you.

From eowyn.radonc.washington.edu!weber Sun Apr 18 16:44:22 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sun" "18" "April" "1993" "16:08:15" "-0700" "Eric Weber" "weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu " nil "8" "read without echo" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: <9304182119.AA25708@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Message-ID: <9304182308.AA01032@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu.eowyn>
Date:	Sun, 18 Apr 1993 16:08:15 -0700
From:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu (Eric Weber)
To:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: read without echo


Inded, the client does do the echoing.  However, the telnet RFC describes a
protocol whereby the server can ask the client to turn echoing on or off.  
This will work for many (but not all) clients.  The problem is where to insert
this code in the server.

-- Eric


From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Sun Apr 18 17:35:06 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sun" "18" "April" "1993" "17:29:58" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "50" "Re: read without echo" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Sun, 18 Apr 93 16:08:15 -0700.
             <9304182308.AA01032@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu.eowyn>"
Message-ID: <9304190030.AA36820@oliver.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 18 Apr 1993 17:29:58 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu (Eric Weber)
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: read without echo


> However, the telnet RFC describes a protocol whereby the server can
> ask the client to turn echoing on or off.  This will work for many
> (but not all) clents.

The RFC which describes the telnet echo option is not the telnet RFC
(854) but RFC 857.  This is just a minor nit.

As for clients, this will work with VT as of version 2.15, TF as of a
recent version, with Uush, with some version of mud.el (but not
moo.el, as far as I know), and of course telnet.

The vast majority of MOOers probably use moo.el or TF, and probably
versions of TF that don't support the telnet protocol.  This means
they will see funny-looking characters or extra spaces when the server
sends the IAC WILL ECHO or IAC WONT ECHO.

While we're talking about server-client communications, I should talk
about prompt protocols.  VT 2.15, new versions of TF and TUsh, and
some version of mud.el support the IAC GA prompt protocol.  This means
that if the server sends a partial line (not terminated with a
newline) and then an IAC GA, the client will treat the text as a
prompt.  Users of old clients will see funny characters or extra
spaces.

VT 2.15 and new versions of TUsh also support the IAC EOR prompt
protocol.  Under this protocol, the server negotiates with the client
to turn on the option, sending an IAC WILL EOR and turning on the
option when it receives an IAC DO EOR.  Then it sends IAC EOR
sequences after prompts just as above.  Users of old clients will see
funny characters or spaces on startup, but not afterwards.

A nit on the IAC EOR protocol: the server has to be careful with
prompts at login time.  If a server using this protocol receives the
IAC DO EOR while prompted input is pending, it should immediately send
an IAC EOR.

RFC 854 describes the IAC GA sequence along with the telnet protocol.
RFC 885 describes the telnet EOR option.  Neither were intended as
prompt terminators, although one could argue that prompts fit into the
general idea of either one.

I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to put these things into MOO.
Ken Keys and I pushed for prompt protocols because of the existing
LPmud server, not because we thought prompts were a great thing.
Sticking to line-based communication with no fancy maneuvers has an
aesthetically pleasing simplicity.

--GBH


From mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz!adonkin Sun Apr 18 22:38:02 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sun" "18" "April" "1993" "22:31:14" "-0700" "Andrew Donkin" "adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz" nil "24" "Exits as direct objects" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304190531.AA09359@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
Date:	Sun, 18 Apr 1993 22:31:14 -0700
From:	Andrew Donkin <adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Exits as direct objects


Yet Another Newbie Question:  I'm programming an exit that responds to
verbs of its own (such as `open' and `close').  I create them `rd' and
`this none none', and they work fine when applied to the object number of
my exit.  For example, `open #177' works fine, but `open west' responds
with "I don't understand that".  `west' is, of course, object #177.

This happens with both verbs defined in the exit itself, and verbs defined
in the parent class, which is a child of $exit.  It happens when `west' is
the real name of the object, and when `west' is only one of the aliases.
There are no other `west' exits, of course.

I'm confused.  Does the parser not check the textual names of exits when
searching for the direct object?  If not, should I put `west' in the
contents field of the room so that the parser checks it along with the
non-exit objects in the room?  Please tell that it's just something silly
I've done, and is easily solved.

Thanks in advance - 

,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
|            Andrew Donkin - adonkin@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz            |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Mon Apr 19 05:31:30 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "19" "April" "1993" "05:22:15" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "6" "resume(<taskid>)" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304191222.AA00290@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 05:22:15 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: resume(<taskid>)

I seem to remember chatting to someone who knew someone who knew someone
else who'd had a go at implementing a 'resume(<taskid>)' built-in for the
server.  Does anyone know anyone who knows anything about this.  Sorry to
be vague.

Vague@SomewhereOrOtherPerhapsMOO

From whyanext.com!eric Mon Apr 19 12:00:21 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "19" "April" "1993" "11:48:22" "-0700" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " nil "33" "A new twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 11:48:22 -0700
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: A new twist on an old MUD social issue

MOO folk,

On the TechMOOseum (a MOO "soon" to become part of a real-life  
exhibit at The Tech Museum of Innovation), I'm concerned that at one  
time or another there may be a character who insists upon using foul  
language or unacceptable behavior.  This is hardly a new or unique  
concern, but a portion of the population of this particular MOO will  
be visitors at the real-life museum, many of them young children.

Although the museum is very interested in exposing new technologies  
to the general public - and this very issue would be of interest to  
the visitors - we creative exhibit designers must also cover our  
bums.  In general, I do not advocate MOO censorship, but we need to  
find a way to keep the MOO "clean" at least for families visiting the  
real museum.

I'm interested in collecting ideas for handling this situation, so if  
you have a story to tell or a technical implementation to suggest,  
let's hear it!  One idea is declare a "clean" zone for people  
connecting from the museum.  There would have to be some sort of  
mechanism (i.e. server hack) to at least attempt to filter out  
obscenities or MOOsex activity, etc.  Connecting from outside of the  
museum would be just like any other MOO - the MOO community would  
have to come up with solutions for anything that isn't socially  
accepted.

By the way, this is but one of the exciting things happening on The  
TechMOOseum - 156.151.253.1 8888 - so feel free to stop by if these  
things interest you.

Thanks!

	Eric / Ahtraddis

From sparc.bighouse.unipress.com!clay Mon Apr 19 12:43:15 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "19" "April" "1993" "12:22:06" "-0700" "Clay Webster" "clay@sparc.bighouse.unipress.com " nil "12" "Re: A new twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 12:22:06 -0700
From:	clay@sparc.bighouse.unipress.com (Clay Webster)
To:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: A new twist on an old MUD social issue
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> let's hear it!  One idea is declare a "clean" zone for people  
> connecting from the museum.  There would have to be some sort of  
> mechanism (i.e. server hack) to at least attempt to filter out  
> obscenities or MOOsex activity, etc.  Connecting from outside of the  

Auto-toad'em. Three strikes (in a 'clean' area) 'n' yer-out.
______________________________________________________________________________

Clay Webster, clay@unipress.com "Now I know why they call television a medium.
DB Appl Progmr/Tech Mrkt Coord   It's never rare, or well done."
908-287-2100 ext. 920                                          -- Mighty Mouse
______________________________________________________________________________

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Apr 19 19:44:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "19" "April" "1993" "19:36:43" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "8" "Exits as direct objects" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Andrew Donkin's message of Sun, 18 Apr 1993 22:31:14 PDT <9304190531.AA09359@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz>"
Message-ID: <9304200236.AA27761@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 19:36:43 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Exits as direct objects

The built-in server does not recognize objects not present in the
actual .location of the player in commands.  However, if you have some
recent LambdaCore, you'll have exit verb matching in the :huh system.
As long as the verbs on your exits are +x, things should work.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Apr 19 19:56:31 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "19" "April" "1993" "19:51:28" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "5" "Exits as direct objects" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304200251.AA28960@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 19:51:28 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu
cc:	adonkin@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Exits as direct objects

Whups!  I lied.  The fancy exit-matching :huh is *not* in the core,
it's just in a room on LambdaMOO (#17755).  This functionality should
probably be moved into the core, but of course that won't do existing
users much good.
						yduJ

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Apr 19 19:57:51 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "19" "April" "1993" "19:50:31" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "10" "A new twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Eric Schwartz's message of Mon, 19 Apr 1993 11:48:22 PDT <9304191848.AA00669@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>"
Message-ID: <9304200250.AA28912@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 19:50:31 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	eric@whyanext.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: A new twist on an old MUD social issue

One problem with machine-censored text is that people are quite
clever.  The mud wrestling pit on LambdaMOO has some machine
censorship, but users are frequently quite clever in coming up with
ways to be obscene without using any of the proscribed words.  But
it's a good first cut, especially if you do something drastic to first
time offenders so they don't get the opportunity to start scheming.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Apr 20 10:10:51 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "20" "April" "1993" "09:39:15" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "24" "Re: read without echo" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <9304180710.AA00828@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu.eowyn>
Date:	Tue, 20 Apr 1993 09:39:15 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: read without echo

> Date:	Sun, 18 Apr 1993 00:10:00 -0700
> From:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu (Eric Weber)
> 
> ... I can't figure out how the MOO read() function actually works.  I can't
> seem to locate where the server actually determines that the string it got
> from the socket needs to be given to a running task rather then parsed as a
> command.  The actual bf_read function doesn't seem to actually do much.
> 
> If someone could enlighten me on the gory details of read(), I would be
> eternally grateful.

The functions read() and suspend() are supported by special magic in the MOO
interpreter.  On return from the bf_* routines for these functions, if no error
is to be signalled, the interpreter bundles up the state of the task and calls
into the task manager to save the suspended task in the appropriate place.  For
read()ing tasks, this is attached to the task queue for the player whose
connection is being read.  The next time an input line is to be processed for
that connection, the read()ing task is noticed and resumed, with the read()
call returning the input line.

The relevant code is in the OP_BI_FUNC_CALL case of the interpreter (in run()
in execute.c), and in make_reading_task() and run_ready_tasks() in tasks.c.

	Pavel/Haakon/Lambda

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Apr 20 10:10:51 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "20" "April" "1993" "09:44:10" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: resume(<taskid>)" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <9304191222.AA00290@sapphire.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Tue, 20 Apr 1993 09:44:10 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: resume(<taskid>)

> Date:	Mon, 19 Apr 1993 05:22:15 -0700
> From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> 
> I seem to remember chatting to someone who knew someone who knew someone
> else who'd had a go at implementing a 'resume(<taskid>)' built-in for the
> server.  Does anyone know anyone who knows anything about this.  Sorry to
> be vague.

This is on my list for inclusion in a near-term release, perhaps 1.8.0.

	Pavel

From ncm.ncm.interlan.com!bild Tue Apr 20 11:44:41 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "20" "April" "1993" "11:34:07" "-0700" "bilding at ncm" "bild@ncm.ncm.interlan.com " nil "29" "An old twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Tue, 20 Apr 1993 11:34:07 -0700
From:	bild@ncm.ncm.interlan.com (bilding at ncm)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: An old twist on an old MUD social issue



Like many things on the MOO and MUD in general, censorship
seems not to have been perfected as a simple mechanism
of code yet ... alas, it may be that someone will have to
get their hands dirty and monitor for obscenity.
Orwell suggests the easiest and most fun way to do this,
simply having each MOO room in the 'cleansed' area contain
a 'vidscreen' object that feeds what it hears to an
agent of censorship.  That agent can be a person, at first, 
but on the regular part of the MOO (i.e. pseudo-free) you 
could sponsor a coding competition to see who can come
up with the best 'nasty-text' catching NPC to listen in
and learn to spot unclean ideas expressed on your MOO.
You could liquidate those characters (the ones not actually
logged in from the Museum, that is) who use NastySpeak
and perhaps offer their quota to those whose code successfully 
terminated them...

After a while, you might need no human intervention to 
enact the repression of expression you propose, the ultimate
Virtual Big Brother :) 

bild@ncm.interlan.com  

ps.  Jokingly, I might suggest using port 1984 ...




From cs.stanford.edu!bhayes Wed Apr 21 06:31:44 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "April" "1993" "06:18:51" "-0700" "bhayes@cs.stanford.edu" "bhayes@cs.stanford.edu" nil "4" "Re: An old twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Tue, 20 Apr 93 11:34:07 PDT.\"
             <9304201834.AA08630@ncm.ncm.interlan.com>"
Message-ID: <9304211318.AA25396@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 21 Apr 1993 06:18:51 -0700
From:	bhayes@cs.stanford.edu
To:	bild@ncm.ncm.interlan.com (bilding at ncm)
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: An old twist on an old MUD social issue

I recall the Dartmouth 'animal' program that would play twenty
questions to try to guess an animal.  People were very imaginative in
the ways they got obscene answers and questions into the database.
And your animal couldn't be a peacock ..

From hplb.hpl.hp.com!mjp Wed Apr 21 06:53:46 1993
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Date:	Wed, 21 Apr 1993 06:44:36 -0700
From:	Mike Prudence <mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Hanging MOO server and o_n_c()

Hi all,

We've got a bit of a problem with the MOO running here at HP.  We're
on 1.7.0, with a database gotten from an ancient LambdaCore.  Our
symptom is a server lockup caused suspiciously around the time that a
database dump is performed.  It's now happened twice, and we've
previously been running trouble free for months at a time.

I've noticed a defunct child process hanging around when the MOO
hangs, and the server itself just sits there - accepting no
connections, consuming no CPU time.

So - has anyone seen anything similar ?  Our machine is a HP9000/835,
running HP-UX 8.0.

On a possibly related note, I've just started playing around with
using outboard number crunchers for MOO tasks, and this means we have
a lot of open_network_connections() going on.  Is there any chance
that using this server feature could cause some sort of lockup ?  Just
wondering - you never know.

Cheers,

Mike/blip

mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com                   "Only those who attempt the absurd will 
                                                     achieve the impossible."

From parc.xerox.com!kerch Wed Apr 21 08:46:57 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "April" "1993" "08:35:51" "-0700" "Berry Kercheval" "kerch@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: An old twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: <9304211318.AA25396@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
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References: <9304201834.AA08630@ncm.ncm.interlan.com>
	<9304211318.AA25396@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 21 Apr 1993 08:35:51 -0700
From:	Berry Kercheval <kerch@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bhayes@cs.stanford.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: An old twist on an old MUD social issue
Reply-to: kerch@parc.xerox.com

>>>>> On Wed, 21 Apr 1993 06:18:51 -0700, bhayes@cs.stanford.edu said:
bhayes> I recall the Dartmouth 'animal' program that would play twenty
bhayes> questions to try to guess an animal.  People were very imaginative in
bhayes> the ways they got obscene answers and questions into the database.
bhayes> And your animal couldn't be a peacock ..

I seem to recall that "Fanny Hill" was Cleland's response to a wager
that he could not write a sexually explicit story without recourse to
obscenity and foul language.  If you've ever read it you'll find it
full of "ivory pillars of manhood" and the like.  Not a dirty word in
it, yet as explicit as Hustler.

I think the moral here is that mere vocabulary-based filtering will
not eliminate folks determined to be offensive, though it may help
with most of the juvenile jerks.

  --berry

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Apr 21 10:22:39 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "April" "1993" "10:14:57" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "17" "re: Hanging MOO server and o_n_c()" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Apr 1993 10:14:57 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: re: Hanging MOO server and o_n_c()


Mike Prudence <mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com> sez:

>On a possibly related note, I've just started playing around with
>using outboard number crunchers for MOO tasks, and this means we have
>a lot of open_network_connections() going on.  Is there any chance
>that using this server feature could cause some sort of lockup ?  Just
>wondering - you never know.

You're not the only person harbouring the suspicion that there IS something
nasty happening when the server tries to dump AND there's onc()s hanging
around.  Wasn't there a server mod announced a while back, or some reference
made to a change to the onc() part of the server source. I'm too lazy to
scan back-issues of moo-cows myself.  Anyone feel like saying more on the
subject.

Andy (Networker)

From xerox.com!KMP.PARC Wed Apr 21 17:19:06 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "April" "1993" "17:10:00" "-0700" "kmp@harlequin.com" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "76" "An old twist on an old MUD social issue" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: <93Apr21.083601pdt.25549@reynaldo.parc.xerox.com>,
             <9304200250.AA28912@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Message-ID: <19930422001024.6.KMP@[192.124.144.142]>
Date:	Wed, 21 Apr 1993 17:10:00 -0700
From:	kmp@harlequin.com
Sender: KMP.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: An old twist on an old MUD social issue

I think vocabulary screening could be made to work, but addresses
the problem at the wrong level.  Some people -want- to have sexual
conversations with others, and that should be permitted as long as
people are all consenting.  The question in my mind is how to 
implement consent.

What strikes me as the way to win would be to keep a small ring buffer
of messages typed to players (and the sources of that info, such as what
@paranoid keeps), and to permit someone at any time to freeze the
information in a `sealed envelope' (perhaps even encrypted so that it
could be kept in the database for a long time without having the
database prodded by an external program in order to reveal its contents
prematurely).  

 >"Hi there.
 You say, "Hi there."
 JoeLoser says "**** ***"
 >@save_incident
 A log of the recent conversation fragment is being created.
 Enter a one-time encryption password:
 x892ksj
 Your conversation fragment has id #234257.
 Please remember this id and the password you have given.
 The password will be needed later to unlock the saved information.
 If you believe that a MOO Law has been violated, 
 you can report the incident with @report_incident.
 >"You'd better go away and leave me alone, JoeLoser.  I've warned
   you about this before I have recorded evidence of your abusive
   language and I am prepared to report these incidents if they continue.
 You say, "You'd better [...]"
 JoeLoser apologizes profusely and promises never to do it again.
 JoeLoser has left.
 >

That person could then make their accusations and if it came to trial,
the envelope could be unsealed to be used as additional evidence.  I
would hope that the mere knowledge of that information waiting would be
enough to keep it from being opened in a lot of cases.  If the envelope
were not opened, the information in it would remain private and
eventually be disposed of.

I believe that what I am proposing is the moo equivalent of what I
consider to be a reasonable service now starting to be offered by the
phone company where someone who receives a harrassing phone call can,
after the fact, ask that the phone company notify the police.  The
callee can't actually get the caller's phone number, but can still do
the necessary operation of turning the information over to the police.
Would it be socially and legally proper, and would it be computationally
feasible, to keep the stack traces for the last ten things typed to each
active player, just in case of this situation?

My main concern is about whether the information could be appropriately
safeguarded while in the ring buffer waiting to find if it is to be
kept.  Perhaps even then it should be encrypted in a way that only the
MOO owner has access to.

It would probably bother me if the same kind of information were being
kept on phones, so maybe there's some other privacy concern that I'm not
thinking of.  Or maybe I just don't trust the Phone Company not to
knuckle under to the FBI if they randomly want to peruse people's
conversations for no good reason.  I want the online information
instantly expunged as soon as its ring buffer size is exceeded, and I
want the information available to no one.  Similarly, I want the saved
envelopes available to no one unless needed specifically by one of the
participants in the conversation for use in a `trial'--no casual uses 
permitted.

As a special case, too, people should have a list of trusted friends
(controlled by verbs named @trust and @distrust), and recording should
reliably not take place whenever a room was filled with people all of
whom trusted each other.

Just the knowledge that this after-the-fact reporting could be done even
by those who had not been prepared in advance might deter a lot of
would-be offenders because there would not be the sense of potential
victims being quite so `alone' and `undefended'.

From pmdb.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Thu Apr 22 13:19:38 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "13:08:59" "-0700" "TIM SAILER" "sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov " nil "10" "Player Creation." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:08:59 -0700
From:	sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov (TIM SAILER)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Player Creation.
Content-Type: text

I just closed our MOO down for public player creation. Now, how does one
go about creating characters and giving them passwords? Same thing
with multiple guests too....

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From smd6.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Thu Apr 22 13:33:09 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "13:15:14" "-0700" "Jacqueline Hamilton" "hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov" nil "15" "Re: Player Creation." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:15:14 -0700
From:	Jacqueline Hamilton <hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player Creation.

> 
> I just closed our MOO down for public player creation. Now, how does one
> go about creating characters and giving them passwords? Same thing
> with multiple guests too....
> 
> Tim

Use `@make-player <playername>'.  Theres other options too, check the
help files.

As for guests, as long as they're kids of $generic_guest, thats how many
guests you have.  We're running 7 guests on DFMOO.  The Seven Dwarves,
go figure. :)

-j.

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Apr 22 13:49:40 1993
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:42:44 -0700
From:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Player Creation

On the subject of guests, I just thought I'ld note that since the command
to log in as a guest is "connect Guest", One of thge guest must have either
the name or the alias "Guest". Otherwise, you can only log on as a guest
by explicitly connecting to the guest character. Anyhow, just a pice of note. :)

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz!ard Thu Apr 22 14:55:06 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "14:46:24" "-0700" "Andrew Donkin" "ard@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz" nil "15" "Email from inside the MOO." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 14:46:24 -0700
From:	Andrew Donkin <ard@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Email from inside the MOO.


	One of the options for @make-player is an email address.  Is "real"
email (at the risk of offending anyone who believes, quite rightly, that
MOO mail is "real" also) supposed to be sent to that address?  If so, via
what mechanism?  It sure isn't working here.  We're running MH6.8 on
Solaris 2.1 (that could explain a few things).

	It's no great hassle - we haven't many players and are in constant
contact with them anyway, but I'd like to know if I haven't set something
up properly.

,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
|               Andrew Donkin - ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz             |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'


From nic.gac.edu!eostrom Thu Apr 22 17:21:05 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "12:10:20" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@nic.gac.edu " nil "28" "Re: Email from inside the MOO." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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 Apr 22, 93 02:46:24 pmmigh"
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 12:10:20 -0700
From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	ard@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz (Andrew Donkin)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Email from inside the MOO.
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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> 	One of the options for @make-player is an email address.  Is "real"
> email (at the risk of offending anyone who believes, quite rightly, that
> MOO mail is "real" also) supposed to be sent to that address?  

Yes.

>								 If so, via
> what mechanism?  

You.

>		   It sure isn't working here.  

Well, that's probably because you aren't using it right.


Joe eyes himself warily.

Okay.  Since LambdaMOO doesn't have open_network_connection, and hence
can't send mail, the way we do it is, somebody does a @make-player and
then sends a form letter to the email address.  This is not
ideal.

A MOO with open_network_connection could rewrite @make-player to send
mail to the address itself.  A good start would be to port JaysHouse's
$network (and change the values of properties that are
JH-specific)--then it wouldn't be hard to hack @make-player to call
$network:sendmail with some appropriate arguments.

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Thu Apr 22 17:26:56 1993
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In-Reply-to: "<9304230010.AA13857@hotspur.gac.edu>; from \"Erik Ostrom\" at Apr 22, 93 12:10 pm"
Message-ID: <9304230022.AA16985@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 17:22:01 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
cc:	ard@mars.cs.waikato.ac.nz, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Email from inside the MOO.

> 
> > 	One of the options for @make-player is an email address.  Is "real"
> > email (at the risk of offending anyone who believes, quite rightly, that
> > MOO mail is "real" also) supposed to be sent to that address?  
> 
> Yes.
> 
> >								 If so, via
> > what mechanism?  
> 
> You.
> 
> >		   It sure isn't working here.  
> 
> Well, that's probably because you aren't using it right.
> 
> 
> Joe eyes himself warily.
> 
> Okay.  Since LambdaMOO doesn't have open_network_connection, and hence
> can't send mail, the way we do it is, somebody does a @make-player and
> then sends a form letter to the email address.  This is not
> ideal.
> 
> A MOO with open_network_connection could rewrite @make-player to send
> mail to the address itself.  A good start would be to port JaysHouse's
> $network (and change the values of properties that are
> JH-specific)--then it wouldn't be hard to hack @make-player to call
> $network:sendmail with some appropriate arguments.
> 

I have done just this. The command REQUEST/CREATE will allow creation of 
new characters and send the password to their e-mail address. The same
program can be invoked by any guest using @request and a variation of
the program is used for @make-player. It is great.

-- 
  Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | Prodigy XMSN02B | Ham N9OXE
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
"If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"-Deborah Gibson

From bonnie.ics.uci.edu!glowe Thu Apr 22 22:47:59 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "21:53:37" "-0700" "\"Glen H. Lowe\"" "glowe@bonnie.ics.uci.edu" nil "10" "LambdaMOO on 386bsd" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 21:53:37 -0700
From:	"Glen H. Lowe" <glowe@bonnie.ics.uci.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LambdaMOO on 386bsd


Hi, has anyone got LambaMMOO to work on under 386bsd?

I managed to compile it with the current patchkit + gcc 2.3.3
and the binary executes just fine, but when I telnet localhost 7777
I get "connection refused".

Thanks for your help.

Glen

From mwilson.async.vt.edu!mike Thu Apr 22 23:46:23 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "23:23:36" "-0700" "Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson" "mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu " nil "11" "Re:  LambdaMOO on 386bsd" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 23:23:36 -0700
From:	mike@mwilson.async.vt.edu (Mike 'What Day is it?' Wilson)
To:	glowe@bonnie.ics.uci.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  LambdaMOO on 386bsd

A friend of mine is running it, and that same problem happened to us...
the problem turned out to be one of byte reversal (thanks to Pavel for
helping us with that one!) .... 7777 is 0001111001100001 in binary.
reverse the high and low order bits and you get 0110000100011110 which turns
out to be 24862 in decimal.  telnet to localhost 24862 and you should get
connected.  Since we didn't want that as a port for our 386Bsd MOO, we did
the next logical thing.  We changed the restart file to default to port
24862 as the port that MOO listens too.  Since byte reversal goes both ways,
we can telnet to localhost 7777 now and it works fine.
Zaphod@VampMOO
(Mike Wilson in the RealWorld!)

From nic.gac.edu!eostrom Fri Apr 23 10:14:23 1993
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In-Reply-to: "<930422134244.21600328@CANTH.HACKS.ARIZONA.EDU> from
 \"A VAX's nightmare\" at Apr 22, 93 01:42:44 pm"
Message-ID: <9304231701.AA13871@onza.gac.edu>
Date:	Fri, 23 Apr 1993 05:01:51 -0700
From:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player Creation
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> On the subject of guests, I just thought I'ld note that since the command
> to log in as a guest is "connect Guest", One of thge guest must have either
> the name or the alias "Guest". Otherwise, you can only log on as a guest
> by explicitly connecting to the guest character. Anyhow, just a pice of note. :)
> 
Actually, I believe this is incorrect.  At least in the most recent
version of LambdaCore, $login:connect tests whether the requested
character is a descendant of $guest, and if so will either log in the
user as that guest, or select a different guest character if the
requested one is in use.  This is a slight simplification.

I should also note that JH has a @make-guest command, which I think
I'll go port to LambdaMOO now.

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Apr 23 10:50:37 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "April" "1993" "10:43:24" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "15" "Re: Player Creation" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Fri, 23 Apr 1993 10:43:24 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	eostrom@nic.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom),
	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare),
	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player Creation

well, you're both right.  Any name (including "guest") for which you
want the "Either that player does not exist..." message NOT to appear
must be the name/alias/objectid of some existing player.  If you want
a particular name (like "guest" or "visitor") to give you a guest
character, then the corresponding player must be a descendant of
$guest, though connecting as that player may indeed eventually connect
you with a different player depending on what the named player's
:defer verb decides to do.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog
	


From nyx.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Fri Apr 23 18:25:42 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "April" "1993" "01:56:04" "-0700" "Nicholas LaFlamme" "nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu " nil "7" "Verb ownership and parenting" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Apr 1993 01:56:04 -0700
From:	nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu (Nicholas LaFlamme)
To:	MOO-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Verb ownership and parenting

  Is there any way to retain ownership of a verb on children of the
  object that the verb is coded on?  Something similar to removing
  the "c" bit is what I'm looking for..

				Nicholas LaFlamme
				nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu


From pyros.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Fri Apr 23 18:36:53 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "April" "1993" "18:24:59" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "17" "RE: Verb ownership and parenting" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Fri, 23 Apr 1993 18:24:59 -0700
From:	WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Verb ownership and parenting

>
>  Is there any way to retain ownership of a verb on children of the
>  object that the verb is coded on?  Something similar to removing
>  the "c" bit is what I'm looking for..
>
>				Nicholas LaFlamme
>				nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu

Um, when a child of an object is created, it doesn't actually define a version
of the verb in question as is the case with properties. (define isn't the
right term, but bear with me) Anyhow, the child's verb is actually the parent's
verb with a few adjustments. (such as this being set to the child instead of the
parent). So if you want to change the verb on a child of the object, change the
verb on the parent and it will affect the child.

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From cis.ksu.edu!ghost Fri Apr 23 21:23:40 1993
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From:	ghost@cis.ksu.edu (Ryan Brown)
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Subject: NeXT question
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Howdy all,
 I know that this has been hashed over before, but as we all know,
I'm not too quick to catch on sometimes, so I need something explained
to me in simple english...
 I will be setting up a MOO hopefully by the end of the month on a NeXT,
and saw the note about the vm_allocate errors, and how to fix them. Could
someone please email me how to do this, in plain english, without it requiring
root access? 
 Thanks,
Ryan
Dagard@Lambda
ghost@cygnus.cis.ksu.edu

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Fri Apr 23 21:36:31 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "April" "1993" "21:25:59" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "23" "Re: NeXT question" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304240426.AA05069@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Fri, 23 Apr 1993 21:25:59 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	ghost@cis.ksu.edu (Ryan Brown)
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: NeXT question

> 
> Howdy all,
>  I know that this has been hashed over before, but as we all know,
> I'm not too quick to catch on sometimes, so I need something explained
> to me in simple english...
>  I will be setting up a MOO hopefully by the end of the month on a NeXT,
> and saw the note about the vm_allocate errors, and how to fix them. Could
> someone please email me how to do this, in plain english, without it requiring
> root access? 
>  Thanks,
> Ryan
> Dagard@Lambda
> ghost@cygnus.cis.ksu.edu
> 

So far as I know there is no solution apart from frequent dumps and having
a program to monitor for the MOO dying. A perl script would be best but
I don't know how to work in perl so mine uses a 'ps' hack...

-- 
  Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | Prodigy XMSN02B | Ham N9OXE
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
"If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"-Deborah Gibson

From eowyn.radonc.washington.edu!weber Sat Apr 24 20:06:00 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "24" "April" "1993" "20:00:00" "-0700" "Eric Weber" "weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu " nil "16" "more on read()" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304250300.AA01563@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu.eowyn>
Date:	Sat, 24 Apr 1993 20:00:00 -0700
From:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu (Eric Weber)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: more on read()


When I put a read() instruction in #0:do_login_command, the MOO seems
to get very confused.  I wrote a simple verb like this

read(player)
notify(player, "HI");
return #3;

(#3 is Wizard in the minimal db, which is what we are using)

When I try to connect, it repeatedly reads lines and writes "HI", but
it doesn't actually connect.

-- Eric



From pyros.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Sat Apr 24 20:30:33 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "24" "April" "1993" "20:21:56" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "36" "RE: more on read()" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sat, 24 Apr 1993 20:21:56 -0700
From:	WEB@pyros.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	weber@eowyn.radonc.washington.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: more on read()

>
>When I put a read() instruction in #0:do_login_command, the MOO seems
>to get very confused.  I wrote a simple verb like this
>
>read(player)
>notify(player, "HI");
>return #3;
>
>(#3 is Wizard in the minimal db, which is what we are using)
>
>When I try to connect, it repeatedly reads lines and writes "HI", but
>it doesn't actually connect.
>
>-- Eric
>

Okay, I'm not too certain on this but I'm gonna take a shot at it.
#0:do_login_command is a server task. I have been told that you can't call
read() from it. (Why, I don't know. Someone care to answer that?)
Anyhow. Heres my best understanding of what goes on when a player connects
to the MOO.

First #0:do_login:command gets called with no arguments. This can be used to
do things like print a welcome message etc. (See $login:parse_command for more
on that). The server then waits for the player to enter a command. (Note that
the SERVER is doing the read. Not the DB.) Those words are placed into the
variable "args" as a list. From that list you can parse the login command
and find a player number to return. So follow this construct and you
should be okay.

This of course assumes I have the general procedure correct. If I don't, I
would apprecieate someone helping me out. :)

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO



From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Apr 25 09:26:16 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "25" "April" "1993" "09:15:33" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "5" "New LambdaCore database released" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sun, 25 Apr 1993 09:15:33 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: New LambdaCore database released

I have just released a new version of the LambdaCore database, at long last.
You can FTP it from host `parcftp.xerox.com', directory `pub/MOO', files
`LambdaCore-25Apr93.db' and `LambdaCore-25Apr93.db.Z'.

	Pavel/Haakon/Lambda

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Apr 25 09:42:58 1993
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Date:	Sun, 25 Apr 1993 09:36:23 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: New Core



Mmmm, really, really great.  I guess NOW I'll have to start writing a
diff/patch system to work on different versions of the core.  Excellent, as is
I didn't have enough to do already.  There really HAS got to be a better
way of making changes to the core available without totally trashing stuff that
you've designed yourself.

Ignore me, I'm just mouthing off.

Maybe.

Net.

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Sun Apr 25 23:56:26 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "25" "April" "1993" "23:50:40" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " "<m0nnM5R-0000SJC@void.decio.nd.edu>" "20" "DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Sun, 25 Apr 1993 23:50:40 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows List)
Subject: DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


I have a wierd problem (again, its a NeXT, what isn't wierd!) Many times
the MOO will stop using hostnames and switch to IP addresses. Hostnames
will not work on O_N_C() connects and @@who will show the IP address of
the user. WAIT! The machine that the MOO is on still works JUST FINE.
I can telnet using a hostname and connections in net-stat and 'w' show
proper hostname addresses. I could understand if the machine was unable
to convert but why does the NeXT work and the MOO running on it not? This
is not consistent. It will for most of the time, then it doesn't and when
I come back later, its working again. 

Is the MOO using different calls for matching? If I can't use ONC() to
connect to 'x.y.z' and yet 'telnet x.y.z' works fine where is this
coming from?

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request
  Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux)
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
"If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"-Deborah Gibson

From hplb.hpl.hp.com!mjp Mon Apr 26 00:57:40 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "April" "1993" "00:50:46" "-0700" "Mike Prudence" "mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com" nil "45" "Re: New Core" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Sun, 25 Apr 93 09:36:23 PDT.\"
             <9304251636.AA17008@garnet.cm.cf.ac.uk>uci"
Message-ID: <9304260743.AA25302@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 00:50:46 -0700
From:	Mike Prudence <mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: New Core

Howdy all,

Andrew writes:

> Mmmm, really, really great.  I guess NOW I'll have to start writing
> a diff/patch system to work on different versions of the core.
> Excellent, as is I didn't have enough to do already.  There really
> HAS got to be a better way of making changes to the core available
> without totally trashing stuff that you've designed yourself.

As someone in the same boat, I've just taken the attitude that
LambdaCore is just an example of how to put things in a MOO, and not
necessarily the best way to do it, either.  Our core database (if you
can call it such) has a number of things that have a similar effect to
stuff that appears to be on Lambda, but done in different and arguably
better ways.

As 'core' upgradability was never part of the gameplan (excuse me if
I'm wrong, Pavel) I think we just have to forget about it.  Even if
you could upgrade your core, the amount of documentation on it is
nothing short of pitiful, especially if you want to do any serious
modifications or - God forbid - understand the *why* and *how* behind
such things.

As one of the authors of the LambdaCore documentation that can be
found on parcftp, I know what I'm talking about.  It also shows the
trend that those documents, which are still perfectly relevant to the
MOO I run, are now completely useless for the new LambdaCore.  Is
there no-one on Lambda who can be bothered to keep these up to date ?
More Kudos to Pavel for keeping the Lambda server documentation up to date.

There's more to MUDding than writing MOO code, I tell you.

> Ignore me, I'm just mouthing off.

Yeah, me too.  Still, count your blessings.  The whole problem could
have been avoided by not releasing the server code to us grunts so we
can run our own MOOs.

Cheers,

Mike/blip, the arch-documenter

mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com                   "Only those who attempt the absurd will 
                                                     achieve the impossible."

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Apr 26 08:58:58 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "April" "1993" "08:48:33" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "26" "Re: DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <m0nnM5R-0000SJC@void.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 08:48:33 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT

> Date:	Sun, 25 Apr 1993 23:50:40 -0700
> From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> 
> I have a wierd problem (again, its a NeXT, what isn't wierd!) Many times
> the MOO will stop using hostnames and switch to IP addresses. Hostnames
> will not work on O_N_C() connects and @@who will show the IP address of
> the user.

In order to protect itself from unbounded delays in converting numeric IP
addresses into DNS names, the server sets a five-second timeout on its calls to
gethostbyaddr().  If the timer goes off, the server longjmp()s out of the call
to gethostbyaddr() and falls back on simple numeric output.  Sometimes, this
leaves the implementation of gethostbyaddr() in an inconsistent state and it is
unable to perform translations any longer.  Occasionally, as you point out, it
actually recovers from this inconsistency and resumes normal operation.

There does not appear to be any way for me to work around this problem except
for taking out the timeout code.  I'm unwilling to do that because it leaves
the server open to catatonia if, for example, somebody's Yellow Pages server
goes away for a while.

Of course, the inconsistency in the state of gethostbyaddr() is limited to the
server's process, so it's no surprise that the rest of the processes on the
machine can still do translations properly.

	Pavel

From pmdb.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Mon Apr 26 10:18:26 1993
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Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 10:11:04 -0700
From:	sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov (TIM SAILER)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: clients
Content-Type: text

Is anyone using mud.el or a similar client for emacs? What is it about
the one you are using that makes it the one you use?

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From cheshire.oxy.edu!reavis Mon Apr 26 11:21:51 1993
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Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 11:04:24 -0700
From:	Paul Herbert Reavis <reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu>
To:	moo-cows list <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: Mr. Spell
Reply-to: Paul Herbert Reavis <reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII


Someone pointed this out to me awhile back, and I checked the new database
to see if it was still there....

Object #34 in LambdaCore, Mr. Spell, is quite a big little guy. I couldn't
find any of the recommended help (help spelling and help @spell) and
couldn't find any way to use him (though admittedly I didn't try too
hard). So, as my friend recommended, I deleted him. @recycle doesn't work
(runs out of ticks), so I had to ;recycle(#34) him. And the database went from

	1661592 Apr 26 01:05 NewMoo.db

to
	1075029 Apr 26 10:55 NewMoo.db.new

A significant decrease in size (600k or so less, a 37% decrease (rough)), no?

Thus, I wondered:

	a) If he's there by mistake (if an automatic coremaker is being used,
		the @recycle problem might prevent his deletion)
	b) If he's supposed to be there, is it really worth the huge size?
	c) are there any other bloated objects lying around?

Input, please.

paul.



{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}{}{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{}{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{}{}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{}

    	pure form
    	real gone
	like wild
	good vibes
	everything is cool
	there are these forms i like to watch
	there are these shapes that take to me
	everything is cool
		
					-pylon





From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Apr 26 12:18:36 1993
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Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:08:48 -0700
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: <defunct> processes from dumps.

 
Need I say more? I don't get <defunct> processes from client
connections but I still get them from @dumps. We dump thrice daily and
I had 6 of them after two days...

Any ideas? Since the stuff for client connections is clean, wait2() is
clearly working.

--JRP [Shirgall@all over the place]

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Apr 26 12:21:26 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Paul Herbert Reavis's message of Mon, 26 Apr 1993 11:04:24 PDT <Pine.3.05.9304261013.A29805-b100000@cheshire.oxy.edu>"
Message-ID: <9304261853.AA07414@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 11:53:46 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

Oops.

Mr.Spell has been in the core and out of it...  The verbs that are
used with him are currently residing on #3133 at LambdaMOO, where they
migrated during one of his "out of the core" spates.  They never got
moved back to $player (well, $builder would be more appropriate)
because some of us are bozos.  I noticed this fact not too long ago,
but then forgot to do anything about it.

Now, of course, the core release has been made, so it'll be a while
til the verbs get back in the core.

BTW, when I recycled $spell out of my DB I got rid of the properties
by hand and then used @recycle.  You can fill the hole in your DB with
renumber(create(#1)); reset_max_object(), by the way.

Whether or not Mr. Spell is worth the huge size is for you to decide.

Hmm, it just occurred to me that now that features are in the core,
all of the Mr. Spell verbs could be put on a feature object, which
would be helpful to those LambdaCore recipients who wish to remove it,
so they wouldn't have to hunt down all the individual verbs to remove.

From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Mon Apr 26 12:42:38 1993
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Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:32:00 -0700
From:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell, and memory

Well, I just recycled mine.  I was using the Nov 24, 1992 release of the core.  
585,000 bytes are now gone.
I'm on a NeXT with 8 Mb of RAM.  This is a BIG help.  It should help to avoid a 
vm_allocate error in the near future.  Now, can anyone tell me where I can 
delete the verb code from that used Mr. Spell (the late, Mr. Spell)?  I can 
manually trace thru, but I am quite lazy, I'd rather write a long e-mail messge 
and ask someone else to do teh work for me.

- u-dude@LambdaMOO
  Wilson@OpalMOO
  Wilson@DimensionsMOO
  Wilson@ScrabbleMOO
  Wilson@GEG
  Wilson@TechMOOseum
  Wilson@VampireMOO

  and Wilson on several defunct MOO's!

Wilson bows.

ps.  May the schwartz be vith you, and live long and perspire.


From cheshire.oxy.edu!reavis Mon Apr 26 13:02:59 1993
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Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9304261202.A4359-c100000@cheshire.oxy.edu>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:47:03 -0700
From:	Paul Herbert Reavis <reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu>
To:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 26 Apr 1993, Judy Anderson wrote:

> Oops.
> 
> Mr.Spell has been in the core and out of it...  The verbs that are
> used with him are currently residing on #3133 at LambdaMOO, where they
> migrated during one of his "out of the core" spates.  They never got
> moved back to $player (well, $builder would be more appropriate)
> because some of us are bozos.  I noticed this fact not too long ago,
> but then forgot to do anything about it.
> 
> Now, of course, the core release has been made, so it'll be a while
> til the verbs get back in the core.
> 
> BTW, when I recycled $spell out of my DB I got rid of the properties
> by hand and then used @recycle.  You can fill the hole in your DB with
> renumber(create(#1)); reset_max_object(), by the way.
> 
> Whether or not Mr. Spell is worth the huge size is for you to decide.
> 
> Hmm, it just occurred to me that now that features are in the core,
> all of the Mr. Spell verbs could be put on a feature object, which
> would be helpful to those LambdaCore recipients who wish to remove it,
> so they wouldn't have to hunt down all the individual verbs to remove.

The spelling may or may not be useful to some people; I personally prefer
the space, but would understand if it was left in, since such a thing
wouldn't be much fun to program. However, the first time Mr. Spell and I
met, I tried @describe #34. on him, with the probably obvious dismaying
results. But watching the screens and screens of properties go by gives
you at least some idea of what's in the thing, and it seemed to me that
there was an awful lot of probably lambdamoo-specific stuff. Leaving a
speller in is one thing, but a speller with a bunch of words you'll never
use is another. 

Comments?

paul.

{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}

	You like to think that you're an intellectual. But you're just 
	another boring bisexual. "I met Andy Warhol at a really chic party!" 
	Blow it out your hairdo, 'cuz you work at Hardees. Eighty pounds of 
	makeup on your art school skin, eighty points of I.Q. located within. 
	You know what you are? You're a bunch of artfags. 

	Choke on this, you danceateria types...

						-the dead milkmen



From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Mon Apr 26 13:07:10 1993
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Message-ID: <9304261955.AA18490@garnet.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:55:38 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Wilson, and memory


The man said:

>- u-dude@LambdaMOO
>  Wilson@OpalMOO
>  Wilson@DimensionsMOO
>  Wilson@ScrabbleMOO
>  Wilson@GEG
>  Wilson@TechMOOseum
>  Wilson@VampireMOO
>
>  and Wilson on several defunct MOO's!
>
>Wilson bows.

Mmm, well you can be Wilson on MonohazeMOO too if you wannit that bad.  I just
changed my name.  I still reckon my dad's bigger than your dad tho' ;)

Andy (Networker@AnyMOOBaaaadEnoughToHandleMOO-net,386sNeedNotApply-Acieeeeed!)

[sorry, childish of me]

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Apr 26 13:09:10 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Paul Herbert Reavis's message of Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:47:03 -0700 (PDT) <Pine.3.05.9304261202.A4359-c100000@cheshire.oxy.edu>"
Message-ID: <9304261958.AA13830@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:58:27 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

I didn't think that Mr. Spell had LambdaMOO specific stuff in it; I
thought it was just /usr/dict/words off some random unix machine.
Certainly any dictionary contains words that any individual will never
use.  The point of dictionaries is that they contain a superset of all
the words that individuals use, or, the union of all people's
vocabularies.

From cheshire.oxy.edu!reavis Mon Apr 26 13:15:41 1993
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Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:00:03 -0700
From:	Paul Herbert Reavis <reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu>
To:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 26 Apr 1993, Judy Anderson wrote:

> I didn't think that Mr. Spell had LambdaMOO specific stuff in it; I
> thought it was just /usr/dict/words off some random unix machine.
> Certainly any dictionary contains words that any individual will never
> use.  The point of dictionaries is that they contain a superset of all
> the words that individuals use, or, the union of all people's
> vocabularies.

I agree; remember that I'm speaking mostly in ignorance from a single
glance over the entries, I really have no idea. Again, this is a hefty
thing to add in without a whole lot of necessity... Need a modular core,
really, I guess, so things like this can easily be patched in or left out
of a database. At present, good documentation of the core with a listing
of the larger objects and simple instructions on paring the thing down
even further would be great- I for one plan on sifting through each item;
my account space is a premium and every little bit counts.

paul.



{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}

	You like to think that you're an intellectual. But you're just 
	another boring bisexual. "I met Andy Warhol at a really chic party!" 
	Blow it out your hairdo, 'cuz you work at Hardees. Eighty pounds of 
	makeup on your art school skin, eighty points of I.Q. located within. 
	You know what you are? You're a bunch of artfags. 

	Choke on this, you danceateria types...

						-the dead milkmen



From pmdb.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Mon Apr 26 13:32:02 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "April" "1993" "13:22:58" "-0700" "TIM SAILER" "sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov " nil "10" "Another dumb question" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:22:58 -0700
From:	sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov (TIM SAILER)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Another dumb question
Content-Type: text

We are setting up mailing lists on JanusMOO to get us started, and
users besides the .wizards can't seem to read the list even though
it's +r. Am I missing something very obvious again?

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From nyx.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Mon Apr 26 13:50:43 1993
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Message-ID: <9304262038.AA01844@nyx.cs.du.edu>
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:38:56 -0700
From:	nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu (Nicholas LaFlamme)
To:	sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov (TIM SAILER)
cc:	MOO-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Another dumb question

> 
> We are setting up mailing lists on JanusMOO to get us started, and
> users besides the .wizards can't seem to read the list even though
> it's +r. Am I missing something very obvious again?
> 
> Tim
> 
> -- 
>                             Tim Sailer
>                       sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov
>              "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"
> 

  Ok.  WHo can read and wrte to a newsgroup/mailing list is dictated
by two appropriately named props, .writers and .readers.  Do:help
$mail_recipient and it should tell you who to set up those props for
the desired effects.
-- 
 ____________________
|Nicholas E. LaFlamme|   The world can be saved by steam!
|  Programmer, Poet  |                -Prof. Steamhead NHS
| Vagrant and Madman.|
|____________________|   Oh, Steamhead!  It'll NEVER fit!  It's too Big!!
                                -Ex-robogal Terry     
nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu   Don't fret, My dear.  I'll simply apply more
G'ran@DragonsFire        lubricant and work ing very gently...heh...
				-Prof. Steamhead  ZetraMan issue 1


From hplb.hpl.hp.com!mjp Tue Apr 27 02:40:36 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "27" "April" "1993" "02:32:36" "-0700" "Mike Prudence" "mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com" nil "12" "Re: Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 26 Apr 93 12:58:27 PDT.\"
             <9304261958.AA13830@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9304270925.AA16853@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 02:32:36 -0700
From:	Mike Prudence <mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell

Hi all,

Can someone explain to me, in small, easy to understand words, why one
would want a spell checker imbedded in one's MOO ?

Cheers,

Mike/blip

mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com                   "Only those who attempt the absurd will 
                                                     achieve the impossible."


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Apr 27 10:36:12 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Mike Prudence's message of Tue, 27 Apr 1993 02:32:36 PDT <9304270925.AA16853@hplb.hpl.hp.com>"
Message-ID: <9304271623.AA06444@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 09:23:04 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

   From: Mike Prudence <mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com>

   Can someone explain to me, in small, easy to understand words, why one
   would want a spell checker imbedded in one's MOO ?

Because misspelled descriptions and messages are the scourge of the
galaxy, and having easy access to a spell checker might help people
correct their typos.

Really, I find misspelled words reach up and hit me over the head with
a hammer, really jarring me out of whatever suspension of disbelief I
might have achieved.  I understand that this internalization of the
written language at such a low level doesn't happen to everyone, which
is why there are some people who can't spell well, and don't notice
when words are misspelled.


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Apr 27 10:36:12 1993
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Message-ID: <18762.9304271426@cs.aston.ac.uk>
Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 07:26:57 -0700
From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk>
Sender: <@aston.ac.uk:vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.UK>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell

I wonder what other code is lurking in the depths of the db.. can we get rid of
it?? WHo knows?? Personally I wouldn't risk it, unless someone comes up with
a simple method that removes all trace of the offending item..
At least then I could blame someone else when my MOO goes down again!!

MagicDragon@MagicMOO   (134.151.52.8 7777)
MagicDragon@LambdaMOO   ,                            vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk
MagicDragon@OpalMOO

"I know I'm my best friend.." - James Hetfield 1984

From sco.com!chrisn Tue Apr 27 11:38:40 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "27" "April" "1993" "08:23:35" "-0700" "\"The Horror, The Horror\"" "chrisn@sco.com" nil "18" "Re: Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 08:23:35 -0700
From:	"The Horror, The Horror" <chrisn@sco.com>
To:	mjp@hplb.hpl.hp.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell

	
	Hi all,
	
	Can someone explain to me, in small, easy to understand words, why one
	would want a spell checker imbedded in one's MOO ?
	
	Cheers,
	
	Mike/blip
	

The Reply Message
 You are gazing at the desciption of the reply message, sent in reply
to your query. Why indee?
There is a mess of electrons on the screen, wry humor and first cup
of coffe in the morning here.



From pmdb.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Tue Apr 27 11:47:11 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "27" "April" "1993" "11:36:17" "-0700" "TIM SAILER" "sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov " nil "11" "caller" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 11:36:17 -0700
From:	sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov (TIM SAILER)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: caller
Content-Type: text

I'm trying to make an intercom system. I have the intercom:tell,
but I can't figure out how to only intercept the 'say' stuff, and
not the emote or other stuff related to *:tell.
Help?

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Tue Apr 27 12:41:20 1993
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Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 12:32:20 -0700
From:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	sailer@pmdb.sep.bnl.gov, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: caller

>I'm trying to make an intercom system. I have the intercom:tell,
>but I can't figure out how to only intercept the 'say' stuff, and
>not the emote or other stuff related to 

Try 'help callers()'. You'll want to use something like:
  if ("say" in $list_utils:slice(callers(), 2)

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From glia.biostr.washington.edu!jsp Tue Apr 27 12:53:01 1993
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Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 12:47:32 -0700
From:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT

| In order to protect itself from unbounded delays in converting numeric IP
| addresses into DNS names, the server sets a five-second timeout on its calls...
I've thought of splitting a mud into two unix tasks, one to handle interactive
stuff, and one to take big time hits such as this.  The regular interactive
one would have to be pre-emptive enough to be able to suspend the task
taking the hit, of course ... probably not hard in this instance.


From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Tue Apr 27 17:08:32 1993
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Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 1993 16:57:00 -0700
From:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOOing

And then the 15th came.  And Wilson accepted an offer to go to another MOO.  And 
Wilson added it to his list.  It was the 15th overall.  And Wilson ennumerated:
  u-dude@lambdaMOO
  Wilson@DimensionsMOO
  Wilson@TechMOOseum
  Wilson@opalMOO
  Wilson@VampireMOO
  Wilson@MagicMOO
  Wilson@MediaMOO
  Wilson@GEG
  u-dude@PlayHouseMOO (defunct)
  Wilson@JaysHouseMOO (defunct)
  Wislon@ZenMOO (defunct)
  u-dude@Neuromancer (defunct)
  Wilson@KnownSpaceMOO (defunct)
  Wilson@Monohaze
  Wilson@ScrabbleMOO

Okay, anymore I should know about?

----------------------------------------
 My sig is holding out for more money and a multi-year contract.
----------------------------------------


From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Wed Apr 28 07:13:00 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "06:54:21" "-0700" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" nil "88" "Graphical Moo" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 06:54:21 -0700
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Graphical Moo


Hi all !

Since two weeks or so I am building a graphical moo.
I have taken tinytalk (telnet substitution) and added
some graphical features. Now, if a player logs in, an
additional graphic output window is opened.
Conversation is still done via the xterm, but graphics
are displayed in this window.
My client also recognizes mouse clicks and cursor key presses.

The moo server stays unmodified. The graphic commands are
sent to the client like ordinary text. The speciality is,
that each graphic command starts with a ~ (tilde).
The client recognizes these commands and does the stuff
in the graphics window.

The client understands the following commands:

- Set translation table. This command allows different mud
  systems to choose the set of bitmaps they require.
  In game, the moo only uses the numerical or one character
  IDs of the bitmaps.
  At the moment, the bitmaps have to be available on the 
  client's machine.

- Upload new (background) map. This map may be larger than
  the window. The map is sent as a array of strings. The
  client then translates these strings into bitmap IDs
  using the translation table.

- Add a new (foreground) object (e.g. a player/monster/...)
  These objects all have numerical IDs, so that the moo
  is not bounded to 256 (127 ?) characters.

- Delete an object.

- Change position of an object.

- Set focus to an object. If the focused object is moved,
  then the window scrolls to keep the object in the middle
  of the window.

Cursor keys are translated into the proper direction, e.g. 
" n" + CR.
Mouse clicks are sent as a tripple:  {x_pos,y_pos,key_number}.
Where x and y position is the position in squares on the
map.

This system works quite nice now. At least on our local
net at home (4 workstations).

But one of the reasons why I write this message is the
following:

I am also just thinking about a suitable (fantasy) combat 
system. I want to build the combat system like the one
used in the Gurps roleplaying system.

There should be a time between one attack and the next one.
Just like a time the player needs to re-ready the weapon.

Also, I want to prevent players from running around
and hitting the enemy occasionaly. Like engage, attack
and run away. That would end in rather a dance than a fight,
and the player with the faster connection to the moo would 
probably win.

What about the following procedure:

Whenever a player attacks, it takes at least one second
until the player re-readies his weapon. During this second
the player can neither attack nor move. If readying the
weapon takes longer, the player may move, but not attack.

Also, moving and attacking exhausts the player (fatique).
If the player is exhausted, he is unable to move for some
seconds (until he refreshes a bit).

I think it is not good to change the fork command and allow
intervals of less than one second for delaying the actions (?)

Any comments / ideas ?

Greetings,    Stefan

--
staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Apr 28 07:24:32 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 05:34:50 -0700
From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Guests...

A daft question I know - but I can't seem to get any guests to work,...
I've given them all an r and f flag, but I can't seem to make them into players.
I've also tried setting $login.create_enabled to 0, but they still don't work..
what am I missing here..????

MagicDragon@MagicMOO

"Drink up, shoot in, let the beatings begin" - James Hetfield 1988

From falryx.com!falryx Wed Apr 28 07:27:11 1993
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Message-ID: <falryx.1086394505G@128.121.50.145>
Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 07:21:05 -0700
From:	"Edward L. Wallace" <falryx@falryx.com>
To:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOOing
Reply-to: ted@falryx.com


>And then the 15th came.  And Wilson accepted an offer to go to another MOO.  

[ long list of MOOs ]

>Okay, anymore I should know about?

For those of you interested in roleplaying a Pern (a la Anne McCaffery)
theme and joining the famous ranks of net-Pernies (I know we've got a bad
rep.. :) ) DragonsFire MUSE has officially made the switch to MOO.  Tho' we
currently have a memory crunch and building is disabled until next week, you
can reach it via: netman.widener.edu 4444.  Programmer bits are available to
any who want them - and we ask that competent programmers, capable of
exploiting MOO, please note rules of etiquette.  Currently roleplaying is a
bit stagnated as several MUSE users try to get the hang of the more powerful
MOO.

Again, this is Anne McCaffrey's Pern world - the focus is on roleplaying,
rather than coding, etc. etc.

Falryx@LambdaMOO
Ted Wallace '93
Dartmouth College - Department of Physics and Astronomy

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Apr 28 12:27:09 1993
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Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Guest again

Even after typing ;set_player_flag(#guest,1) my guests still fail to function
aarrgghh ! what's going on here - they are all descendants of $guest as well!!

MagicDragon@MagicMOO

From csr.uvic.ca!mmcalees Wed Apr 28 12:27:09 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 12:17:36 -0700
From:	mmcalees@csr.uvic.ca (Michael McAleese)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Combat Systems


  Regarding Stefan's query on combat systems, and the timing problems
therein, I'm trying to implement a combat system that side-steps those
problems entirely.  It's a copy of the _Lost Worlds_ combat system, for
any who might know this method.  Briefly, it requires both combatants
to pick a maneuver and then the result can be figured out.  This allows
for lag and dithering on the part of one player, it also allows for pauses
in combat while each soliloquize each other.  My current plan has an
option for one person to press the attack if it seems that their 
opponent is taking too long to respond with a maneuver, this give the
opponent notice that they have 15 seconds to pick a maneuver or they will
get dodge or jump away.
  Another bonus with this combat system is that its very visual.  Most
systems give you something like:

  Bill hits Bob very hard.
  Bob misses Bill.
  Bill massacres Bob very hard.

  ... which is a bit boring in a text-only environment.  My alternative:

  Bill slashes low against Bob.
  Bob tries to kick Bill.
  Bill slashes at Bob's legs and knocks him down, wounding him slightly.
  Bob kickes out but doesn't hit and is knocked down.
  Bill thrusts low against Bob.
  Bob tries to jump up.
  Bill thrusts low but Bob leaps up and Bill misses him.  Bob leaps into
  the air.

  Well, you get the idea.  The basic premise is that combat timing can
be ajudicated by making it more of a series of choices, like a card game,
rather than a real-time thing.  I don't think this would really detract
from MU* combat, in fact in a role-playing environment I think it would
add to it.  Rather than two figures bashing away at each other like 
clockwork, it becomes more of a series of moves and counter-moves.



From cool.vortech.com!clay Wed Apr 28 12:34:09 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "12:25:20" "-0700" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "31" "The GodNet, David Koresh, and the FBI" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 12:25:20 -0700
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (moo)
Subject: The GodNet, David Koresh, and the FBI
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In case you didn't think the Government was watching you...

Today, I received a call regarding the GodNet.  This call came from a
government agent working in conjunction with the FBI as part of the ongoing
investigation connected to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.

Somewhat humorously, the Government seemed to believe that the GodNet was
an entire, real computer network, perhaps run by Religious Fanatics.  In fact,
the agent hinted that in "commentary" about the GN he had seen included 
references to "fanatics", "the One True God", "the True Pope", and "the 
Anti-Christ."

When I first tried to explain the it was game, the agent seemed confused.  
However, I think he eventually understood and our conversation ended.

He never explained how the Government had learned of the GodNet.

However, since the interview was entirely by phone, and not in person, I 
assume that, fortunately, They were only exploring all possible 
connections to the Branch Davidians.  My guess is that They have flagged all
recent Internet traffic with the word "GOD" in it and were slowly processing
all these "leads."

Just an interesting anecdote.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Wed Apr 28 12:47:10 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 12:38:00 -0700
From:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu
To:	clay@cool.vortech.com
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: The GodNet, David Koresh, and the FBI

Hmmmmmmmm.....Big brother IS watching after!



From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Apr 28 13:16:02 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "13:10:53" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "13" "FBINet" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 13:10:53 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: FBINet



Yep, well don't let it worry you, they've been doing it for years.  And it's
more likely the NSA or the blokes from Langley, than the FBI.  Or ComCon, or
etc, etc.  I remember when I helped install a LISTSERV package on the UK's main
net gateway at Rutherford Appleton Labs.  I had to spend a week or so wading
through live e-mail, news feed, etc looking for bounced transmissions.  I was
21 at the time.  Security?  My ass.  Luv, and call it an end to this thread ok?

Is the disker ready yet, huh?  Please let it be soon ;)

Andyworker


From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Wed Apr 28 14:05:27 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "13:52:08" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "17" "Networking stuff" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 13:52:08 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Networking stuff

As many people now know, I've begun my foray into the dangerous, glamourous
world of open_network_connection() usage from my little limited-access MOO.
I've written simple verbs that let me connect to a port on a remote machine
from within the MOO. Easy enough. I can log into other MOOs and I can get
finger listings from people's port 79s. However, when I try to connect to
port 23 or 513 in hopes of actually doing some useful UN*X system interface
type of stuff, I don't get the 'login: ' prompt I would expect. In fact, I 
get nothing at all. I generally just have to wait for the connection to time 
out. My theory as to why this doesn't work is as follows: 1) Port 23 doesn't
work because straight telnet works with continuous charater echoing, rather
than whole strings at a time. 2) Port 513 ddoesn't work because I know jack 
[stuff] about rlogin. I can see that. But I still want to make stuff work.

Can anyone offer an o_n_c() newbie some tips?

Thanks!
====Rob. CF@Lambda, Opal, JaysHouse, and Fore)

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Apr 28 14:21:19 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "14:20:43" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca" nil "18" "Re:  Combat Systems" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Message-ID: <9304282120.AA09042@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 14:20:43 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: <@garfield.cs.mun.ca:byron@docboy.cs.mun.CA>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com, mmcalees@csr.uvic.ca
Subject: Re:  Combat Systems

I once coded a combat system on a personal moo I ran just for myself and a
few others.  I took the simulation approach, I attempted to remove the
distinction between NPC's and players.  All NPC's and players had a bunch of
stats like endurance, stamina and strength all of which were modelled using
forked tasks and interaction between each other.  Ie, if you are tired you
don't hit as hard and can't avoid being hit as easily etc... The NPC's followed
tracks using a list containing commands similar to what the player would type
to do the same thing, for example {"go north", "unlock door with key", "open
door", "go north", "close door", "lock door with key",..., "go south"}. I also
implemented a bunch of hooks to determine whether the NPC attacked first.

Byron... (Tarod@LambdaMOO)
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Apr 28 14:35:01 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "14:25:53" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" "<9304282125.AA03823@palnu.research.microsoft.com>" "27" "Re: Guest again" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 28 Apr 1993 12:18:01 PDT.\"
             <19321.9304281918@cs.aston.ac.uk> approp"
Message-ID: <9304282125.AA03823@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 14:25:53 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	vaughaog <vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Guest again

>   Even after typing ;set_player_flag(#guest,1) my guests still fail to function
>   aarrgghh ! what's going on here - they are all descendants of $guest as well!!

The short answer:  
  If you're using the most recently released LambdaCore, try @make-guest.

  In previous cores you can create a child of $guest and then @detoad it,
  though you then have to do various things like fix up description and gender.

The long answer: 

In order for a guest (or any player for that matter) to be recognized
by $login:connect command (or any of the other commands that deal with 
player names), the character name has to be in $player_db.

$wiz_utils:set_player(#p), called by @detoad and @make-guest, takes care
of this and a number of other things like making sure the object in
question is a descendant of $player, making sure it owns itself if
it's not a guest, and various other things.

set_player_flag(#p,1) does not do any of this.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From cheshire.oxy.edu!reavis Wed Apr 28 15:21:47 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 14:32:30 -0700
From:	Paul Herbert Reavis <reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu>
To:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphical Moo
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Wed, 28 Apr 1993 Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at wrote:

> I am also just thinking about a suitable (fantasy) combat 
> system. I want to build the combat system like the one
> used in the Gurps roleplaying system.

I've been working on this as well.

> There should be a time between one attack and the next one.
> Just like a time the player needs to re-ready the weapon.
> 
> Also, I want to prevent players from running around
> and hitting the enemy occasionaly. Like engage, attack
> and run away. That would end in rather a dance than a fight,
> and the player with the faster connection to the moo would 
> probably win.
> 
> What about the following procedure:
> 
> Whenever a player attacks, it takes at least one second
> until the player re-readies his weapon. During this second
> the player can neither attack nor move. If readying the
> weapon takes longer, the player may move, but not attack.
> 
> Also, moving and attacking exhausts the player (fatique).
> If the player is exhausted, he is unable to move for some
> seconds (until he refreshes a bit).
> 
> I think it is not good to change the fork command and allow
> intervals of less than one second for delaying the actions (?)
> 
> Any comments / ideas ?
> 
> Greetings,    Stefan
> 
> --
> staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at

Gurps is one of the best RPG systems I've seen, and seems optimal for
computer implementation... however, as with any combat system, real time
is almost always going to be much longer than game time. The gurps system
is based on rounds of one second, but it takes more than that just to
specify what you want to do in that second! A Gurps combat session might
last a half hour or more in real time, but the combat being modeled might
only have taken 30 seconds or so of game time. For the most part, MOO game
time = real time, so you can't just use the game system straight; you have
to sacrifice some of the realism and make each combat round just long
enough to specify an action. 
	AD&D combat is actually a little better suited, timewise, since a
combat round in AD&D is considered to consist of a flurry of blows and
parries, rather than the single round -> single attack concept of gurps. I
believe an AD&D combat round is six seconds or so. However, I loathe AD&D
combat so much due to its unsophistication and complete lack of anything
resembling real parry rules, so gurps it is. You could (as most game
systems do) separate the combat sequence completely from normal game
sequences, throwing the combatants into a special state independent of
everyone else. Then you could have a prompt-based combat system, which
makes the outcome more dependent on the character's level and abilities
than on the player's typing speed. (within reason, you need to jog them
somewhat to keep things going at a reasonable pace) But then you still
have to deal with the time problem, because regardless of all the
abstractions you throw in its path, the rest of the MOO's time is still
plodding on.
	Easiest and most practical: an "attack" by one character on
another initiates a single combat sequence in which the antagonist
attacks, and the protagonist is prompted for parrying/defense if
applicable. This will be a COMPLETE nightmare, however, with large pitched
battles. Maybe you could rule that all combat can only take place on every
nth second or something, for synchronization and sanity's sake.
	Blah, blah, blah. Sorry so disorganized, just some of my thoughts
on the subject. I don't claim to be very experienced with MOO combat, so
may be making some pretty damn obvious statements. Disclaim off.

paul.
	

{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}

		Hey, there, look at you! Don't you look like Siouxie Sioux. How
	long it take to get that way? What a terrible waste of energy. You wear
	black clothes you're so poetic; sad to say you're just pathetic. Get 
	into the grooves, get out of my way. I came here to drink, not to get 
	laid. Why don't you just go on home? If you want to moan you'll have to
	moan alone.

						-the dead milkmen



From tamsun.tamu.edu!apj6796 Wed Apr 28 15:38:29 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "15:28:27" "-0700" "Albert Paul Jimenez III" "apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu" nil "16" "Re: Combat systems : Reat time vs Game time" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 15:28:27 -0700
From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Combat systems : Reat time vs Game time


I am eventually going to have the opportunity to implement a combat system
from scratch and so have been giving it some thought. Like you, I found that
existing RPG systems are well thought out and decided to use (at least initially
) the HERO system .... I dont know if you are familiar with it, but based on
your dex you get a certain number of actions/roun which translates into attacks
or parries. I was thinking of having people set up a preset 'attack pattern'
that would then be applied during combat - thus allowing reasonably quick combat
but still allowing for customization to a particular character's needs/abilities


Just my $.02

 --Paul 
   (Zachary@LambdaMOO,groan,Darker Realms,Tsunami...)


From phyvs0.anu.edu.au!dxb105 Wed Apr 28 19:43:02 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "19:30:40" "-0700" "David Bofinger" "dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au" nil "36" "Timing in Combat Systems" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 19:30:40 -0700
From:	David Bofinger <dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	dxb105@phyvs0.anu.edu.au
Subject: Timing in Combat Systems

LambdaRPG's method of handling netlag is to keep track of how many action
points each creature in the battle has used. Creatures get separated into
two classes, call them proactive (things that do things of their own
initiative, e.g. players and some of the smarter monsters) and reactive
(things that only react when invited to by the system, e.g. the generic
monster). The idea is to not let anyone who is proactive get too far ahead
of anyone else, e.g. if I type in five-hundred attack commands against
Fubar, who is logged in from the New Zealand Antarctic Territory on an 8
baud modem and can't possibly say in time what he's going to do, the system
has to do something for him, based preferably on what he has previously set
as his standard action in that case, but otherwise on some default, like
"hit him back". Which costs Fubar action points, dragging him back to the
pack. If a reactive creature gets ahead you don't care, because reactive
creatures can be trusted not to act if they haven't fallen behind. And it's
important they don't, otherwise infinite loops become much more probable.

The effect of this is that game time (action points) is completely
emancipated from real time. So players with bad netlag can still compete
effectively, but there may be a price in suspension of disbelief. If you
don't think this is a good thing there are various compromises one can
make, e.g. a continuous trickle of action points to everyone, but this
requires you to choose a time scale for your combat, and any player whose
netlag isn't short compared with it will be in deep trouble, while any
player whose netlag _is_ short compared with it will get bored. LambdaRPG
was effectively a compromise because of the existence of proactive monsters
on heartbeats, like Prowler.

This is, IMAO, one of the (few?) things I actually got _right_ on
LambdaRPG, and would recommend to others.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Bofinger	AARNet:	dxb105@phys.anu.edu.au
                Snail:	Dept. of Theoretical Physics, RSPhysSE, ANU, ACT, 2601
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We stare at [the extraterrestrials] through the fence, and they stare at us,
and the only question is: who's throwing the peanuts?" -`Sundiver', David Brin

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Wed Apr 28 22:18:37 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "22:06:22" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "12" "More networking..." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 22:06:22 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: More networking...

Okay, off the UNIX subject, I've set up a while loop to do read()'s so the MOO
doesn't try to parse all the lines I get from the remote source. That's fine.
No problem there. Okay, but what if I want allow select lines to go through 
and be parsed. Maybe by using an 'escape string' that prefixes each line to be
parsed as a MOO command rather than just read. I don't see any obvious way to
let lines be parsed after I've set up the while loop. I admit I haven't 
really tried anything in code here, but every potential solution I've come up
with has been obviously flawed for one reason or another. Can anyone offer any
suggestions?

Thanks.
====Rob.

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Wed Apr 28 22:33:48 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "April" "1993" "22:23:33" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "20" "Followup.." "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Apr 1993 22:23:33 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Followup..

Okay... I've gotten it to accept a command by inserting the following:

if(line == "Command Forthcoming")
  suspend(1);
endif
line = read(conn);
this:handle(line);

(This is in the while loop, pretty much just like the example verb in 'help
open_network_connection(). )

My question *now* is, "How does one insure that one and *only* one line gets
through during the suspend time?" This seems a rather kludgy way to let stuff
through to me, and sorta sloppy to boot, since rather than counting the lines
that come through (which I'd really like to do, but I can't since if I run it
through a verb, I can't take it back thru the parser, can I?) it just allows
lines through for a specific amount of time.

Thanks again...
====Rob, presuming he'll get this right sometime BEFORE hell freezes over..

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Thu Apr 29 02:46:51 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "April" "1993" "02:39:15" "-0700" "vaughaog" "vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk" "<2709.9304290939@cs.aston.ac.uk>" "5" "YP names" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: YP names

Ok - I understand the timeout mechanism on the IP address translation in @@who,
and before, I had one or two numerical addresses, but now - they are all
numerical, including the machine I'm on.. this can't be right.. any ideas???

MagicDragon@MagicMOO

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Apr 29 11:11:20 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "April" "1993" "10:57:06" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: YP names" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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References: <2709.9304290939@cs.aston.ac.uk>
Date:	Thu, 29 Apr 1993 10:57:06 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: YP names

> Date:	Thu, 29 Apr 1993 02:39:15 -0700
> From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk>
> 
> Ok - I understand the timeout mechanism on the IP address translation in
> @@who, and before, I had one or two numerical addresses, but now - they are
> all numerical, including the machine I'm on.. this can't be right.. any
> ideas???

As I explained in my earlier message on this topic, once the server has had to
timeout a name-server lookup, all further lookups may fail, leaving you with
only numerical addresses.  The only fix is to reboot the server.

	Pavel

From ccs.northeastern.edu!django Thu Apr 29 20:45:33 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "April" "1993" "20:38:17" "-0700" "Robert Leslie" "django@ccs.northeastern.edu" nil "19" "Re: DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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             <9304271947.AA22595@glia.biostr.washington.edu>ran        "
Message-ID: <9304300338.AA16248@denali.ccs.northeastern.edu>
Date:	Thu, 29 Apr 1993 20:38:17 -0700
From:	Robert Leslie <django@ccs.northeastern.edu>
To:	jsp@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: DNS failures from within the MOO on NeXT

> | In order to protect itself from unbounded delays in converting numeric IP
> | addresses into DNS names, the server sets a five-second timeout on its
> | calls...
>
> I've thought of splitting a mud into two unix tasks, one to handle
> interactive stuff, and one to take big time hits such as this.  The regular
> interactive one would have to be pre-emptive enough to be able to suspend
> the task taking the hit, of course ... probably not hard in this instance.

This is, in fact, exactly what LPmuds do. Each time a new user connects, the
IP address is sent to a sister process for the gethostbyaddr() call. The
server then continues processing until an answer arrives (if ever). The answer
can then be cached for future reference.

The sister process is very small and consumes comparatively no CPU. It could
potentially handle other tasks that are also likely to block, but to date no
one has been able to think of anything else.

 -dj

From merrimack.edu!hencheyj Thu Apr 29 21:19:06 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "April" "1993" "21:11:35" "-0700" "\"Jean L. Henchey, Merrimack College\"" "hencheyj@merrimack.edu" nil "82" "thought this'd tickle everyone! :-)" "^Date:" nil nil "4"])
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Date:	Thu, 29 Apr 1993 21:11:35 -0700
From:	"Jean L. Henchey, Merrimack College" <hencheyj@merrimack.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: thought this'd tickle everyone! :-)

[extraneous mail forwards deleted]


I got this one from a friend who got it from some BBS,just enjoy it.

            LET IT BE

>From the Jerry Pournelle RT on Genie
           By LADY.LUCK
Compiled by Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr.
Reprinted from STReport #9.14

 Sung to Beatles "Let it Be":

   When I find my code in tons of trouble,
   Friends and colleagues come to me,
   Speaking words of wisdom:
   "Write in C."

   As the deadline fast approaches,
   And bugs are all that I can see,
   Somewhere, someone whispers:
   "Write in C."

   Write in C, write in C,
   Write in C, oh, write in C.
   LISP is dead and buried,
   Write in C.

   I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
   For science it worked flawlessly.
   Try using it for graphics!
   Write in C.

   If you've just spent nearly 30 hours
   Debugging some assembly,
   Soon you will be glad to
   Write in C.

   Write in C, write in C,
   Write in C, yeah, write in C.
   Only wimps use BASIC.
   Write in C.

   Write in C, write in C
   Write in C, oh, write in C.
   Pascal won't quite cut it.
   Write in C.

   {
        Guitar Solo
   }

   Write in C, write in C,
   Write in C, yeah, write in C.
   Don't even mention COBOL.
   Write in C.

   And when the screen is fuzzy,
   And the editor is bugging me.
   I'm sick of ones and zeros,
   Write in C.

   A thousand people swear that T.P.
   Seven is the one for me.
   I hate the word PROCEDURE,
   Write in C.

   Write in C, write in C,
   Write in C, yeah, write in C.
   PL1 is 80s,
   Write in C.

   Write in C, write in C,
   Write in C, yeah, write in C.
   The government loves ADA,
   Write in C.


--- Squish-OS/2
 * Origin: Tee Ee: The Place to BE! BBS The Experiment 01150-15245 (2:285/405)


From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Wed May  5 06:38:42 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "5" "May" "1993" "06:24:00" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu" nil "49" "New permissions hierarchy" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 5 May 1993 06:24:00 -0700
From:	Chad Wilson <CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: New permissions hierarchy



I've had this idea for awhile.
 AlphaWizard, and BetaWizard.

The b_wiz generally has the same perms as the old wizard, but has fewer
adm-type things available to their perms.
The a_wiz is the archwizard and who ever the a_wiz trusts with such high
powers.

Common wizards should not have the ability to make other people wizards.

Common wizards should not have the perms to freely create new players unless
expressly given the perms to.

Common wizards should not be able to give out programmer bits unless expressly
given the perms to.

So here's the new hierarchy:
  #1
  --
   \
    generic gendered object
    -----------------------
            \
             generic player
             --------------
                   \
                    generic builder
                    ---------------
                          \
                           generic programmer
                           ------------------
                                 \
                                  generic beta wizard
                                  -------------------
                                       \
                                        archwizard
 This would also require a change to the perms system.
 There would have to be new properties.
  .player
  .builder
  .programmer
  .beta
  .arch

Am i just crazy?



From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Wed May  5 08:57:27 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "5" "May" "1993" "08:38:54" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "29" "New permissions" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 5 May 1993 08:38:54 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: New permissions

Sounds like an interesting idea. As I see it, this is very much the same as
the ParaWizard idea that floated around on LambdaMOO several months ago, but
approached from the opposite angle. Rather than adding powers to an extended
group of ordinary programmers to make our ParaWizzes, we're removing powers
from regular Wizards. I'd certainly like to, at times, take away some powers
from my wizards, not for punishment, or because they've done anything wrong
(beyond accidentally recycling the living room, that is.. I'm about to
implement a delayed destruction feature after that incident). Anyhow, though,
when you talk about modifying whole permissions systems, it may be a bigger
task than it at first seems.  Consider that first, you may have to change
several server verbs to work with the new permissions. Second, unless you're
willing to modify the server in such a way that beta wizards have only
universal read permission, rather than universal read/write permission (a
very serious and strict limitation on a wizard, in my estimation), any beta
wizard who really wanted archwizard powers could get them relatively easily,
barring any calls to server functions which operate only if player.arch.
Granted this would be an unscrupulous sort of beta-wiz who would do this sort
of thing, but if you don't feel you can trust the wizards on your MOO enough
that you feel comfortable giving them their limitations verbally, why are
they wizards on your MOO in the first place?

Honestly, I'm afraid it sounds like I don't like the idea, but that's not true.
I do like it, but can't help thinking that it's enough trouble keeping
programmers from hacking wizbits. I tend to think what you want to do, as far
as limiting wizards, could be better and easier accomplished with core hacks
and trust.

Just musing, and pitching in my twopence...
====Rob.

From iastate.edu!jsmart Wed May  5 10:30:03 1993
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Message-ID: <9305051722.AA18108@iastate.edu>
Date:	Wed, 5 May 1993 10:22:26 -0700
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: New permissions


It seems to me that if you want a 'sub-wiz' class, you could simply make a
programmer class with some canned wiz-perm verbs (including a @list and @edit),
and change $perm_utils:controls to
return args[1] == args[2].owner || args[1].wizard ||
       parent(args[1]) == $nearwiz;

or something like that (it isn't THAT simple, you have to look for loopholes,
too).  I personally don't like the idea of layers and layers of hardcoded
security.  If you must resort to hardcoded means to prevent wizards from doing
stuff, consider resigning as Archwiz.  You aren't really doing your job.  You
can't blame it on anyone else.  YOU are the one that is in charge of anyone you
could blame.

Cassnak@lambdamoo
Kade@Monohaze
jsmart@iastate.edu
John Smart @ RL

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed May  5 10:45:15 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "5" "May" "1993" "10:36:37" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "8" "New permissions" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Message-ID: <9305051736.AA00509@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 5 May 1993 10:36:37 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	jsmart@iastate.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: New permissions

Note that on LambdaMOO we have already done similar things, though
done with rooms rather than programmer classes.  There's the Star
Chamber, which lets members of the Architecture Review Board look at
things like other people's quota, and the Registrar's Office, which
lets registrars create new players and do various administrative tasks
related to registration.  These all rely on being !x to ensure
security of "player" and then check that player is in the approved
list of people to execute the command.

From binky.ics.uci.edu!glowe Wed May  5 23:34:17 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "5" "May" "1993" "23:22:30" "-0700" "Glen Hougan Lowe" "glowe@binky.ics.uci.edu" nil "5" "New LambdaMOO Core" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 5 May 1993 23:22:30 -0700
From:	Glen Hougan Lowe <glowe@binky.ics.uci.edu>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: New LambdaMOO Core

I thought I saw ahile back that there is a new core
(1.8) available.  What changes have been made between
1.7 and 1.8?

Glen

From cheshire.oxy.edu!t_pascal Thu May  6 15:20:14 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "6" "May" "1993" "15:10:15" "-0700" "C. Regis Wilson" "t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu " nil "16" "ZenMOO core" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Thu, 6 May 1993 15:10:15 -0700
From:	t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: ZenMOO core


I've put the ZenMOO core database on beta.xerox.com, in the /pub/MOO/contrib
directory.  It's 300K compress, 800K otherwise.  There is a readme file.

Warning:  In it's present state, it is for hackers mostly.  Someone should
write some docs, and fix up, if they want.  I'm perfectly happy using eval
command lines :)

As a side note, ChaosMOO is still there, has anybody even used it?  It's
probably originally run under the 1.5.20 server :) :) :)
---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal    |  "I sometimes like to read the newspaper while
1600 Campus Road, Box 829    |   eating luch.  That way I don't have to mow
Los Angeles, CA 90041        |   the lawn."
                             |               --A deep (?) thought
   t_pascal@{{{cub,jaguar,cheetah}.math},bobcat,cheshire,tiger}.oxy.edu 

From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Thu May  6 22:47:47 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "6" "May" "1993" "11:44:02" "-0700" "Michael Richardson" "mcr@sandelman.ocunix.on.ca " nil "30" "Moving all parsing into the DB" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Thu, 6 May 1993 11:44:02 -0700
From:	mcr@sandelman.ocunix.on.ca (Michael Richardson)
Sender: <@mail.uunet.ca:sandelman.ocunix.on.ca!mcr@micor>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Apparently-To: ocunix-mail-moo-cows@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Moving all parsing into the DB
Newsgroups: ocunix.mail.moo-cows


  I've been working on a `Matrix' similar to the stuff that was on
KnownSpace via Cyberdeck's (only without need of the cyberdeck. That
is what your terminal is for :-)

  I need to build better matching, and from what I understand about
the way matching happens, I can't overide whether or not an item will
be matched on the player or room, since the huh verbs don't happen
until *after* server matching. 
  One solution is not to actually .contents, but rather user another
property. (And there are some potentially good reasons to do that.)
  My preferred solution is to take all the parsing into DB. Has anyone
done this already? Pavel, I know this was one of the plans, did you
ever write any code? 
  If someone has duplicated the current server verb processor in MOO
(with or without server mods), I would love to use it as a basis.
  Thanks.

p.s: someone asked about mud.el and clients. I can't imagine using MOO
*without* mud.el. I'm willing to maintain and merge changes that
anyone else may have made over the one found in on parcftp's contrib
directory. Mail them to mcr@sandelman.ocunix.on.ca, or cheaper for me:
mcr@physics.carleton.ca. 


-- 
   :!mcr!:            |  The postmaster never | So much mail, 
   Michael Richardson |    resolves twice.    |  so little time.
HOME: mcr@sandelman.ocunix.on.ca     Bell: (613) 798-0698
SCHOOL: 192228@physics.carleton.ca      

From tamsun.tamu.edu!apj6796 Fri May  7 11:28:50 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "7" "May" "1993" "11:17:30" "-0700" "Albert Paul Jimenez III" "apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu" nil "28" "Re: In-db parsing" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Fri, 7 May 1993 11:17:30 -0700
From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: In-db parsing


Awhile back, on (now defunct) NeuroMOO, I implemented this in order to be
able to do command-line pre-processing (ie. handle stuff before the commandline got to it) so it IS possible (EASY EVEN!). What I did was this:
in $in_db_parsing_player:confunc, set up a read() loop like:
  cmdline="";
  while (cmdline!="@quit")
    cmdline=read(); /* or was that read(cmdline) ? whatever... */
    fork(0)
      this:parse(cmdline);
    endfork
  endwhile
whoops! in the while() check, also check for connectedness.....
then, get the :parse verb and everything it depends on from the generic puppet
on LambdaMOO.... there are 2 problems that will arise: 
  1) $command_utils:do_huh line 8: subst/caller/caller.location
     this is becuase i think this verb expects to be called by a room, not a person... eitherway, this is necessary, or it will bomb on bad input. and its a
booger to track down.
  oh.. also, the verb needed isnt :parse its :do on #7680@LambdaMOO
  2) you wont be able to execute !x verbs. obvisously. even a wizzed verb isnt
extremely useful here... there are solutions to this, but theyre really hacks
(ie. switch the perm bit on teh verb, fork (0) switch perms BACK, endfork, call verb. ) and are NOT real secure either... the real answer lies in version
1.8 of the server which will make wizcalls override the !x bit.

enjoy! and I hoped I helped...


   --Zachary
     (@LambdaMOO, groan, Andersons, tsunami IV, Genocide, DR,...)

From harlequin.com!kmp Mon May 10 13:35:00 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "9" "May" "1993" "19:52:04" "-0700" "Kent Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "17" "What?  No EXITFOR ??" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Sun, 9 May 1993 19:52:04 -0700
From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	kmp@harlequin.com
Subject: What?  No EXITFOR ??

yduJ informs me that MOO has no EXITFOR primitive.
I just wrote:

    for entry in ($time_utils.time_units)
      if (unit in entry[2..length(entry)])
        nsec = nsec + entry[1] * n;
      endif
    endfor

I actually -want- to stop the loop after I find the first entry, since
no others will match, but I guess I'll have to keep spinning my wheels
through the whole list, consing away as I go.

In an interpreted-only language with the chronic lagginess that
LambdaMOO (for example) exhibits, any elegance argument that says that
exitfor is not "the right thing" for situations like this are surely
misguided.

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Mon May 10 13:51:31 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "10" "May" "1993" "13:38:05" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "7" "Lack of EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 13:38:05 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Lack of EXITFOR

Um, in situations where I don't want to spin through a whole loop after I've found the match I was looking for, I just put my loop in a separate this-none-this
verb with "return nsec;" or whatever inside the if structure. Yes it is 
inelegant programming technique, but the "return" does act, for all practical
purposes, like an exitfor in that case.

'Zat what you were looking for?
==== Rob.

From harlequin.com!kmp Mon May 10 14:22:43 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "10" "May" "1993" "14:17:28" "-0700" "Kent Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "31" "Lack of EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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In-Reply-to: "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville's message of Mon, 10 May 1993 13:38:05 PDT <9305102038.AA06072@sun4.math.uah.edu>"
Message-ID: <26134.199305102117@sonata.harlequin.com>
Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 14:17:28 -0700
From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Lack of EXITFOR

   Date: 	Mon, 10 May 1993 13:38:05 PDT
   From: thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas)

   Um, in situations where I don't want to spin through a whole loop after
   I've found the match I was looking for, I just put my loop in a separate 
   this-none-this verb with "return nsec;" or whatever inside the if structure. 
   Yes it is inelegant programming technique, but the "return" does act, 
   for all practical purposes, like an exitfor in that case.

   'Zat what you were looking for?
   ==== Rob.

Thanks for the suggestion.  As it happens, I knew I could do this, and
wasn't really looking for a solution so much as to be on record that
the current situation is a loser, in hopes that one day Pavel will see
fit to fix it.  A separate verb is what I'd do if the loop were very
long or sufficiently purposeful to deserve its own name.  I do't
expect this particular one to be; I just think it's exemplary of a
problem that wants a graceful solution.

I was told that Pavel had given in to people who purported to represent
"goodness and purity of essence" in language design and who had claimed
that EXITFOR was the Devil's work, and that he had bought into that 
religion.  On the assumption that this was so, I was providing counterpoint.

As a language designer myself, I'm sensitive to the issue of "what the
language should provide" and "what the user should be able to do on
his own".  As a technical matter, anything above a Turing Machine
could be lumped in the latter category, but I like to have higher standards.
Nearly every well-thought-out language I can think of (e.g., Lisp, Teco, 
and HyperTalk--just to name a few) gets this right; MOO should, too.

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon May 10 14:36:54 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "10" "May" "1993" "14:34:32" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca" nil "16" "EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 14:34:32 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: EXITFOR

I don't know about a exitfor keyword but a standard BREAK command to exit
the current loop would be handy.  Assuming that the data for the for loop is
pushed onto a stack with some identifier saying it's FOR data it would be 
a trivial task to implement.  All that would have to be done is to pop the
data and free it, then skip to the next endfor.  In C the for keyword is 
just shorthand for a while loop but since the moo FOR does something not
readily conceptualised in a while context, perhaps a break keyword would be
the thing.

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon May 10 18:03:52 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "10" "May" "1993" "15:35:00" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: Lack of EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <26134.199305102117@sonata.harlequin.com>
	<9305102038.AA06072@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 15:35:00 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kmp@harlequin.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR

> Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 14:17:28 -0700
> From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
> 
> I was told that Pavel had given in to people who purported to represent
> "goodness and purity of essence" in language design and who had claimed
> that EXITFOR was the Devil's work, and that he had bought into that 
> religion.

You were told wrongly; in fact, I attempted on this list some time ago to get
some help in designing a good such construct but was unsuccessful.  Take a look
in the archives (parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/mail/MOO-Cows-199*.mail) for the
discussion of BREAK and CONTINUE, probably in 1992.

	Pavel

From ahab.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Mon May 10 19:26:58 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "10" "May" "1993" "20:25:50" "-0700" "H. Peter Anvin N9ITP" "hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "49" "Re: Lack of EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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In-Reply-To: <93May10.153500pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> from "Pavel Curtis" at May 10, 93 03:35:00 pm
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Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 20:25:50 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR
Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Content-Type: text

> 
> > Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 14:17:28 -0700
> > From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
> > 
> > I was told that Pavel had given in to people who purported to represent
> > "goodness and purity of essence" in language design and who had claimed
> > that EXITFOR was the Devil's work, and that he had bought into that 
> > religion.
> 
> You were told wrongly; in fact, I attempted on this list some time ago to get
> some help in designing a good such construct but was unsuccessful.  Take a look
> in the archives (parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/mail/MOO-Cows-199*.mail) for the
> discussion of BREAK and CONTINUE, probably in 1992.
> 
> 	Pavel
> 

How about an extended C-style:

	break <n>;
	continue <n>;

Where <n> marks the # of loops to break out of, may they be for, while
or repeat loops (defaults to 1).

>From what I heard from people, this construction would be a Good
Thing.

Also, a in-db comment statement would definitively be nice.

	/hpa

For the benefit of the uninitiated:

Break equals an unconditional jump to just after <n> loop termination
statements (net, i.e. minus any new loop initiation statements).

Continue equals an unconditional jump to just *before* the <n>:th net
loop termination statement.




-- 
INTERNET:  hpa@nwu.edu    FINGER:    hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
BITNET:    HPA@NUACC      IBM MAIL:  36073 at IBMX400
HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN  NeXTMAIL:  hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
Most inappropriatly named startup command, winner:  Microsoft Windows


From mit.edu!ghudson Mon May 10 22:39:26 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "10" "May" "1993" "22:38:21" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "28" "Re: Lack of EXITFOR " "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 10 May 93 15:35:00 -0700.
             <93May10.153500pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Content-Length: 1413
Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 22:38:21 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR 


> You were told wrongly; in fact, I attempted on this list some time
> ago to get some help in designing a good such construct but was
> unsuccessful.

I read through some of the archives on parcftp, and was quite
interested to read this discussion and other discussions related to
the language.  They reminded me of several things I need to adjust or
add in Coldmud.  I disagreed sharply with some of the writers on how
to resolve some of the flaws in the C syntax (for instance, rather
than rename the '=' and '==' operators, I prefer to eliminate the
assignment expression in favor of an assignment statement), but it was
still valuble reading.  It alerted me, for instance, that I'll have to
think about break and continue in combination with forked tasks, and
that text dumps of the database should be fully parenthesized.

As for break and continue, I implemented them in Coldmud as they exist
in C.  There's no built-in way to break out of two loops at once.  If
I were to allow this, I'd probably go along with Stephen White and
just give break and continue a count argument, since it's the simplest
way.  I'm loathe to do so, though.  I've written perhaps 40,000
debugged lines of C code, and I've never yet used a goto to break out
of two loops at once.  In fact, it seems like MOO programmers have
done quite a bit of work without a 'break' or a 'continue' at all,
even if they don't like it.

--GBH


From aero.org!obrien Mon May 10 23:35:31 1993
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 10 May 1993 22:38:21 PDT."
             <9305110538.AA00770@deathtongue> 
Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 23:34:34 -0700
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
Cc:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR 

Greg Hudson sez:
>As for break and continue, I implemented them in Coldmud as they exist
>in C.  There's no built-in way to break out of two loops at once.  If
>I were to allow this, I'd probably go along with Stephen White and
>just give break and continue a count argument, since it's the simplest
>way.  I'm loathe to do so, though.  I've written perhaps 40,000
>debugged lines of C code, and I've never yet used a goto to break out
>of two loops at once.  In fact, it seems like MOO programmers have
>done quite a bit of work without a 'break' or a 'continue' at all,
>even if they don't like it.

<Creak, snap, pop!>  This makes me feel reeeeely old, but:
BCPL, the predecessor language to C, which was used extensively
for application and system programming (especially at Xerox PARC),
defines "break" with a count argument.  So, historically at least,
it work just fine.

Mike O'Brien

From smd6.jsc.nasa.gov!hamilton Tue May 11 10:08:01 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "09:22:32" "-0700" "Jacqueline Hamilton" "hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov" nil "72" "moo cpu hog with closed sockets?" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 09:22:32 -0700
From:	Jacqueline Hamilton <hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: moo cpu hog with closed sockets?


I've just booted up a moo (1.7) on an HP (HP-UX feenix A.08.07 A 9000/705)
and have noticed what seems to be a serious problem.  I dont know if
this is a problem with my compiled version on the HP, or if it's common
to moos, but one thing's for sure - we can't run a moo there with this
sort of thing happening.

Here's the situation:  if a player gets netburped, or disconnects without
quitting, the moo immediately starts crunching up the cpu time, and a look
at 'netstat' shows the connection in a 'close_wait' state.

Some info:

[10:32:52] Load averages: 0.98  0.43  0.32.  Pages: 0 -   0.00% Idle
65 Processes: 61 Sleeping, 2 Running, 1 Stopped, 1 Zombie, 0 Others.
Memory:   8.57M  (   3.01M ) real,    7.37M  (   2.83M ) virtual,  25.05M free

S  USER      SUID  PID  NI PRI    SIZE     RSS  %WCPU    TIME CMD
R kira        303 20053 20 227   2.19M   1.88M 98.21%   18: 7 moo <----
R srl         202  6216 20 178    388K    376K  0.73%    0: 1 yamm
S bobf       1002  5034 20 154     64K    108K  0.16%    0: 8 telnet
S wjm        1000  4838 20 156    192K    132K  0.00%    0: 1 NewsMeister
S srl         202 28970 20 168    204K    160K  0.00%    0: 0 -csh
S parag       236  4445 20 158    280K     76K  0.00%    0: 0 -ksh
S ftp         500   224 20 154    296K    148K  0.00%    0: 6 gopherd
T bobf       1002  3449 20 178     80K    136K  0.00%    0: 0 telnet
S bobf       1002  1592 20 168    440K    256K  0.00%    0: 4 -tcsh
S parag       236  4456 20 154     80K    132K  0.00%    0: 2 telnet
Z ftp         500  5696 20 181      0K      0K  0.00%    0: 0 gopherd

Active Internet connections
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)
tcp    0    335  feenix.ftp-data        cc4.kuleuven.ac.be.1479
                                                                 FIN_WAIT_1
tcp    0      0  feenix.ftp             cc4.kuleuven.ac.be.1468
                                                             ESTABLISHED
tcp    0      3  feenix.3851            pip.shsu.edu.2222      ESTABLISHED
tcp    0      0  feenix.3673            csclass.utdallas.edu.telnet
                                                                 ESTABLISHED
tcp    0      0  feenix.telnet          CORPGATE.NT.COM.2805   ESTABLISHED
tcp    0      0  feenix.8888            widcat.Widener.EDU.3438
                                                                 ESTABLISHED
tcp    0      0  feenix.3599            pip.shsu.edu.telnet    ESTABLISHED
tcp    0      0  feenix.8888            smd6.jsc.nasa.gov.4381 CLOSE_WAIT<----
udp    0      0  feenix.domain          *.*
udp    0      0  127.0.0.1.domain       *.*

Something about this close_wait connection... I had been netburped off 
the moo at around 10:30.  Tried an experiment later on by quitting emacs
without logging off.  Same thing happened... cpu usage skyrocketed from
0.15% to 35% to 52% on up.

On a side note, perhaps related, perhaps not:  after initally compiling
the moo on the HP, I was able to boot up the server, but could not 
connect - all connections were immediately disconnected.  Someone advised
me to change line 65 of net_bsd_tcp.c to :

    proto->believe_eof = 0;

(previous value was 1), and things worked again.  I dunno if this is
related to the cpu problem or not.

Anyone have any advice on how to keep the moo from chewing up the cpu
on closed connections?  I'd prefer if disconnected players were really
disconnected; I don't know why the moo keeps them "connected" in some
fashion, but it's definitely giving the moo a bad name here, as nobody
is too pleased about 98% cpu usage from a moo.

Thanks.

-j.


From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Tue May 11 11:53:09 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "11:45:00" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu" nil "14" "MOO language extensions/additions" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 11:45:00 -0700
From:	Chad Wilson <CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO language extensions/additions

I like the idea of the EXITFOR statement, but I think it should be extended
further to all loops, even the while loop.

Another command:  skip
i have found it would be nice to skip one line or two instead of creating a
huge if-then-else-endif stucture to do teh same thing.  It's kinda like a goto
command that excepts the amount of lines to skip.

How about compiling the MOO code into machine code?  How much work is there to
it?  I don't know.

- Chad Wilson



From aero.org!obrien Tue May 11 12:28:12 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "12:20:33" "-0700" "Mike O'Brien" "obrien@aero.org" nil "19" "Re: MOO language extensions/additions" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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             <01GY1WU4BMSW8WYDK2@MIAVX1.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>lpha.x"
Message-ID: <199305111920.AA03501@aerospace.aero.org>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 12:20:33 -0700
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	Chad Wilson <CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO language extensions/additions

>How about compiling the MOO code into machine code?  How much work is there to
>it?  I don't know.

It's true that under some software architectures, this is a good idea.
ParcPlace Smalltalk does this, and the system is far faster than the original
bytecode-interpreted Smalltalk reference architecture.

As each method is invoked, the byte-codes are translated on the fly into
executable machine code, which is kept in a "native-code cache" in the
virtual machine (in MOO's case, the server).  Future invocations of the
method require only a lookup of the class of the receiver, to see if
it matches that of the cached code; if so, the method is executed in
machine code with no further ado.

This requires the creation of a platform-specific bytecode-to-machine-code
translator for each desired platform, however - not a small investment.
You have to really _want_ this kind of performance.

Mike O'Brien

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue May 11 16:09:13 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "15:58:32" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "61" "[H. Peter Anvin N9ITP: Re: Lack of EXITFOR]" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 15:58:32 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: [H. Peter Anvin N9ITP: Re: Lack of EXITFOR]

I think Peter intended to send this to MOO-Cows, not to me personally.

	Pavel

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 20:25:50 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR
Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)

> 
> > Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 14:17:28 -0700
> > From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
> > 
> > I was told that Pavel had given in to people who purported to represent
> > "goodness and purity of essence" in language design and who had claimed
> > that EXITFOR was the Devil's work, and that he had bought into that 
> > religion.
> 
> You were told wrongly; in fact, I attempted on this list some time ago to get
> some help in designing a good such construct but was unsuccessful.  Take a look
> in the archives (parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/mail/MOO-Cows-199*.mail) for the
> discussion of BREAK and CONTINUE, probably in 1992.
> 
> 	Pavel
> 

How about an extended C-style:

	break <n>;
	continue <n>;

Where <n> marks the # of loops to break out of, may they be for, while
or repeat loops (defaults to 1).

>From what I heard from people, this construction would be a Good
Thing.

Also, a in-db comment statement would definitively be nice.

	/hpa

For the benefit of the uninitiated:

Break equals an unconditional jump to just after <n> loop termination
statements (net, i.e. minus any new loop initiation statements).

Continue equals an unconditional jump to just *before* the <n>:th net
loop termination statement.




- -- 
INTERNET:  hpa@nwu.edu    FINGER:    hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
BITNET:    HPA@NUACC      IBM MAIL:  36073 at IBMX400
HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN  NeXTMAIL:  hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
Most inappropriatly named startup command, winner:  Microsoft Windows

------- End of forwarded message -------

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue May 11 16:09:33 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "16:01:13" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "25" "Re: Lack of EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <9305110225.AA21228@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu>
	<93May10.153500pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 16:01:13 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	hpa@nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR

> Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 20:25:50 -0700
> From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
> 
> How about an extended C-style:
> 
> 	break <n>;
> 	continue <n>;
> 
> Where <n> marks the # of loops to break out of, may they be for, while
> or repeat loops (defaults to 1).

I have never liked this idea because it's so error-prone.  Once I add this, I
can no longer wrap an arbitrary piece of code in another layer of looping
without going through and adjusting the counts on all of the contained break
and continue statements.  I know that this was a problem for BCPL programmers
who used this construct.

> Also, a in-db comment statement would definitively be nice.

It doesn't seem to me that there's any problem with just using `string
statements':

		"This is a comment.";

	Pavel

From leland.stanford.edu!snarflrd Tue May 11 16:19:44 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "16:18:44" "-0700" "snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu" "snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu" nil "26" "Re: [H. Peter Anvin N9ITP: Re: Lack of EXITFOR]" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 16:18:44 -0700
From:	snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: [H. Peter Anvin N9ITP: Re: Lack of EXITFOR]


> How about an extended C-style:
> 
> 	break <n>;
> 	continue <n>;

publicly used code on MU*s gets garbled and mangled enough without adding
this dubious 'feature' to allow people to write BASIC-style.

call me a 'whiney software purist' or whatever, but there's generally a reason
for using structured programming languages instead of label/goto/break/etc...
On a MU*, when someone goes in to change one of the big, ugly programs you
wrote, sticking part of code inside of a new level of
conditional/loop/whatever, suddenly everything breaks since you had put
in continue 5;  instead of continue 6;  ... and debugging that is a HUGE
nightmare.  if, instead, you spend the extra five minutes to ensure the
indepenedence of scoping levels the FIRST time it's written, this problem
never arises.

if i wanted to see unreadable hack-code, i'd go to MUSH or LP.  ;-)

(just my 2 cent vote.)

-traumahound  (firm believer that what people think they want isn't necessarily
               what's best for the Moo as a whole... ooh, sounds scary: "We
               know what's best for you..." :-)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue May 11 16:25:45 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "16:11:12" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "26" "Re: MOO language extensions/additions" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <01GY1WU4BMSW8WYDK2@MIAVX1.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 16:11:12 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO language extensions/additions

> Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 11:45:00 -0700
> From:	Chad Wilson <CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu>
> 
> I like the idea of the EXITFOR statement, but I think it should be extended
> further to all loops, even the while loop.

I think that this was the intent.

> Another command:  skip
> i have found it would be nice to skip one line or two instead of creating a
> huge if-then-else-endif stucture to do teh same thing.  It's kinda like a
> goto command that excepts the amount of lines to skip.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this strikes me as a truly awful
construct.  Write the if-endif statement; people reading your code will thank
you for it.

> How about compiling the MOO code into machine code?  How much work is there
> to it?  I don't know.

This would be a lot of work and probably wouldn't get you all that much
performance, since the MOO language has so many frequently-used constructs that
require non-trivial security checks (e.g., reading the value of a property,
calling a verb, etc.).

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue May 11 16:33:46 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "16:08:33" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "27" "Re: moo cpu hog with closed sockets?" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 16:08:33 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: moo cpu hog with closed sockets?

> Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 09:22:32 -0700
> From:	Jacqueline Hamilton <hamilton@smd6.jsc.nasa.gov>
> 
> Here's the situation:  if a player gets netburped, or disconnects without
> quitting, the moo immediately starts crunching up the cpu time, and a look
> at 'netstat' shows the connection in a 'close_wait' state.
>
> ...
> 
> On a side note, perhaps related, perhaps not:  after initally compiling
> the moo on the HP, I was able to boot up the server, but could not 
> connect - all connections were immediately disconnected.  Someone advised
> me to change line 65 of net_bsd_tcp.c to :
> 
>     proto->believe_eof = 0;
> 
> (previous value was 1), and things worked again.  I dunno if this is
> related to the cpu problem or not.

This is your problem.  The server is now in a constant reading loop for all
remote-disconnected users since it never believes that the far side has closed
the connection.  I don't know why things didn't work before you changed this,
but the fix was wrong.  I'll contact you directly to see about looking more
closely at the original problem (which is looking like a bug in HP/UX right
now).

	Pavel

From cheshire.oxy.edu!t_pascal Tue May 11 17:26:21 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "17:19:59" "-0700" "C. Regis Wilson" "t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu " nil "17" "Zen.db" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 17:19:59 -0700
From:	t_pascal@cheshire.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Zen.db


Sorry to post trivialities, but there was a small problem with the Zen core
on beta.  Any one who ftp'd it before this letter should type:

;$meditation_utils.degradees = {}

This fixes the problem with the high scores list; old object numbers were
still in the database.

Also, I added a quick wiz verb, "@motd" which will set the players' motd.
Thanks for reading.
---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal          |  "Point of darkness and gateway to
1600 Campus Road, Box 829          |   repose.  Reach out, pierce the fine
Los Angeles, CA 90041              |   fabric of the sheltering sky, take
                                   |   repose."  -_The Sheltering Sky_
   t_pascal@{{{cub,jaguar,cheetah}.math},bobcat,cheshire,tiger}.oxy.edu 

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Tue May 11 17:28:41 1993
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             <199305110634.AA18915@aerospace.aero.org>ed Apri"
Message-ID: <9305120025.AA15094@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 17:25:09 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Lack of EXITFOR

Problems that I have with `break n' where n is an integer:

(a) I hate counting; silicon is much better at this than I am...

(b) I have, on occasion, changed the outer control structure of a loop
    (such things as changing a for into a while or changing a singly
    nested loop into a doubly nested loop, ...).  It bothers me that in
    such a situation a `break n' can silently change its meaning.  

    If the break were somehow implicitly tied to a particular loop statement 
    (via a label or iteration variable name (*)) then this wouldn't happen
     --- at worst, I'd get an error of some sort if I were to 
    blow away the loop statement.

>> In fact, it seems like MOO programmers have done quite a bit of
>> work without a `break' or a `continue' at all, even if they don't
>> like it.

This is true.  It's also true that the plain C `break' would take care
of about 90-95% of the cases where I've been unhappy.  For that
matter, it's also true that once we get an exception handling
mechanism (which I have reason to believe is also on the agenda), 
we won't need `break' at all (assuming you're not totally disgusted 
by the idea of raising an exception just to get out of a loop...
--- I myself consider that worse than using a 'return').

One can also argue that we've also gotten along quite nicely without
multiple inheritance.  I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this,
however...

(*) Just to elaborate on this: with for loops, the iteration variable
serves as a perfectly good label (if you've got nested loops having 
the same iteration variable you're almost certainly doing something
wrong).  Using this for break statements solves the problem of having
to count:

   for i in ...
     for j in ...
       ...
       if (...)
         break i;
       endif
     endfor
   endfor

My point is that if one actually is going to go to the trouble of 
implementing `break n', one may as well do it this way instead and 
get something much less error-prone.

Making this work for while loops unfortunately requires more syntax,
though we can use something similar to the fork statement:

  while outer (pred)
    ...
    if (pred2)
      break outer;
    endif
    ...
  endwhile

Alternatively, we punt on adding new while syntax and force people 
to write things like

  for outer in [1..1000000000]
    if (!pred)
      break outer;
    endif 
    ...
    if (pred2)
      break outer;
    endif
    ...
  endfor

if they want multiple loop exits.  However, if one actually wants to go 
this route, I'd insist on having 
   for outer in [1..]
as a synonym for
   for outer in [1..$maxint]

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From cheshire.oxy.edu!reavis Tue May 11 20:21:57 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "19:50:09" "-0700" "Paul Herbert Reavis" "reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu" nil "7" "amiga users?" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 19:50:09 -0700
From:	Paul Herbert Reavis <reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu>
To:	moo-cows list <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: amiga users?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Any amiga users on this list? Specifically, programmers? I'm working on a
port... email reavis@cheshire.oxy.edu

paul.



From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue May 11 20:43:30 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "20:44:03" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca" "<9305120344.AA03699@docboy.cs.mun.ca>" "13" "Comments in MOOcode" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Message-ID: <9305120344.AA03699@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 20:44:03 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Comments in MOOcode

> It doesn't seem to me that there's any problem with just using `string 
> statements':
>
>		"This is a comment.";
>
>	Pavel
 
On that topic can one comment out code that uses string constants?  I can't
recall whether comments can contain double-quotes without an \.

ie.		"Is "this" a comment?";

Byron...

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue May 11 22:41:51 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "22:36:16" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "25" "Re: Comments in MOOcode" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <9305120344.AA03699@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 22:36:16 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Comments in MOOcode

> Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 20:44:03 -0700
> From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
> 
> > It doesn't seem to me that there's any problem with just using `string 
> > statements':
> >
> >		"This is a comment.";
> >
> >	Pavel
>  
> On that topic can one comment out code that uses string constants?  I can't
> recall whether comments can contain double-quotes without an \.
> 
> ie.		"Is "this" a comment?";

No, since these aren't really `comments' but rather instances of the more
general paradigm of using any expression as a statement (such as assignment
expressions), that isn't a legal statement.  You need to escape the quotes.  If
you want to `comment out' one or more lines of code, surround them by

		if (0) ... endif

and you won't have to worry about any embedded quotes.

	Pavel

From iastate.edu!jsmart Tue May 11 23:06:43 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "11" "May" "1993" "23:02:01" "-0700" "jsmart@iastate.edu" "jsmart@iastate.edu" nil "32" "Re: [H. Peter Anvin N9ITP: Re: Lack of EXITFOR]" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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In-Reply-to: "tramahound's message of Tue, 11 May 93 16:18:44 -0700.
             <9305112318.AA03248@sunlight.Stanford.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9305120602.AA02562@iastate.edu>
Date:	Tue, 11 May 1993 23:02:01 -0700
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: [H. Peter Anvin N9ITP: Re: Lack of EXITFOR]


>> How about an extended C-style:
>> 
>> 	break <n>;
>> 	continue <n>;
>
>publicly used code on MU*s gets garbled and mangled enough without adding
>this dubious 'feature' to allow people to write BASIC-style.
>
>if i wanted to see unreadable hack-code, i'd go to MUSH or LP.  ;-)
>
>(just my 2 cent vote.)
>
>-traumahound  (firm believer that what people think they want isn't necessarily
>               what's best for the Moo as a whole... ooh, sounds scary: "We
>               know what's best for you..." :-)

I agree. (so now are are at... what... four cents?)

I could further explain and bitch and rant and wax lyrical but, to me, the bottom
line is this:

Spaghetti is not good for computers.


Not allowing programmers to write anything BUT well structured code is in the
insterests of cpu and anyone trying to figure out the code.

If introduction of these commands ARE included, I request also adding a compiling
flag that can disable these commands.

Cassnak

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed May 12 09:31:48 1993
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 09:30:26 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Comment Stuff

So comments in moo code are expressions that have no affect since nothing is
being assigned.  

Does this mean that an expression evaluator is being run on each moocode
comment?  If so, is there inefficiency there? Is the expression evaluator
converting the comment to a string, allocating space for it in memory and
deallocating space for it afterwords when there is no assignment done?

Just Curious...

B.

From harlequin.com!kmp Wed May 12 11:00:19 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "10:56:47" "-0700" "Kent Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" "<662.199305121756@sonata.harlequin.com>" "35" "EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 10:56:47 -0700
From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	kmp@harlequin.com
Subject: EXITFOR

Hmm.  So much mail.  Well, I agree multiple level exits are good,
and I don't like break.  The following would do me:

 block <block_name>
   ... return_from <block_name>;
 endblock

That way I could do

 block search
   found = 0;
   for item in (search_path)
     if (item.lost)
       found=item;
       return_from search;
     endif
   endfor
 endblock

and even if it was a doubly-nested loop, I'd still win.
Similarly, for the "skip" concept that someone mentioned,...

 for x in (y)
   block skip
     if (x.skipme) return_from skip;
     ... more stuff ...
   endblock
 endfor

(In generaly, I actually like the simpler name "exit" better than
 "return_from", but I bet "exit" is a popular variable name in MOO, 
 so it's probably bad and I tried to pick another name that wasn't
 likely to upset things.  I don't know if the same problem exists
 for "block", but I presume Pavel can `easily' (at LagdaMOO's expense)
 check with @grep.)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed May 12 11:11:21 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "11:05:10" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: Comment Stuff" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <9305121630.AA08562@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 11:05:10 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Comment Stuff

> Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 09:30:26 -0700
> From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
> 
> So comments in moo code are expressions that have no affect since nothing is
> being assigned.  
> 
> Does this mean that an expression evaluator is being run on each moocode
> comment?  If so, is there inefficiency there? Is the expression evaluator
> converting the comment to a string, allocating space for it in memory and
> deallocating space for it afterwords when there is no assignment done?

No, the cost of `executing' a string comment is quite small; the string is put
onto the evaluation stack and then popped off again, just two reference-count
operations and *no* ticks.  The parsing and allocation of storage for the
string happens at the time the verb is defined, not each time it's run.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed May 12 11:32:46 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "11:14:23" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: EXITFOR" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 11:14:23 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kmp@harlequin.com
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: EXITFOR

> Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 10:56:47 -0700
> From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
> 
> (In general, I actually like the simpler name "exit" better than
>  "return_from", but I bet "exit" is a popular variable name in MOO, 
>  so it's probably bad and I tried to pick another name that wasn't
>  likely to upset things.  I don't know if the same problem exists
>  for "block", but I presume Pavel can `easily' (at LagdaMOO's expense)
>  check with @grep.)

No particular need, really.  Version 1.8.0 of the server already has a facility
for loading an old database into a new server that has some new keywords; it
checks for conflictingly-named variables and renames them during parsing.  This
was necessary in order to add the new exception-handling stuff.  I agree,
though, that `exit' might not be a very good choice of keyword for MOO...

	Pavel

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Wed May 12 15:26:05 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "15:17:16" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu " "<930512151716.216010b3@CANTH.HACKS.ARIZONA.EDU>" "22" "More break stuff.." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 15:17:16 -0700
From:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: More break stuff..

Well, since this seems to be a hot topic, I thought I'ld throw in my two
cents. (This makes the pot what? $2.50?)

If anything like break and continue are implemented, I would prefer that
they be as close to the standard C usage as possible as this is logical
and effective in %95 of applications. If I understand the code in execute.c
correctly, for a break, all that would need to be done when it is encountered
is to go back to the stack and keep popping off entries until you come to an
end*. In the case of a break from inside any other statement, it could
be treated as a return with no argument.

[So how close am I?]

As for continue, well, it may require slightly more manipulation since its
only completing an iteration of a loop rather than breaking out of it.
And since I haven't gone through enough of the code to understand whats
going on in this case, I can't really comment on an implementation.

Anyhow, in this manner, it seems quite workable to me at least. Comments?

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed May 12 15:48:07 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "15:40:32" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Re: More break stuff.." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 15:40:32 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: More break stuff..

> If anything like break and continue are implemented, I would prefer that
> they be as close to the standard C usage as possible as this is logical
> and effective in %95 of applications.

I'm not at all convinced that C is a very good example of language design.
Remember, it's not popular because it's good, it's popular because there was an
essentially free implementation at the right time.

In any case, the issue is not how to implement it (in fact, it's both easier
and harder than you make it sound; the actual emitted virtual machine
instructions could just be some pops and a branch, but there are also issues
involved with decompiling the object code back into source code again) but what
the construct should look like to the programmer.

	Pavel

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Wed May 12 16:52:02 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "16:37:24" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " "<9305122337.AA09658@sun4.math.uah.edu>" "62" "Another dream function..." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 16:37:24 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Another dream function...

This is such a completely tangential item, I don't know how it 
even relates to the discussion of BREAK statements and the 
like, but I'd like to see a function that can be called from 
within a verb which allows an object to refuse being matched 
by the parser. For example, if I define a "get" verb on a 
room, used for something unrelated to picking up objects, and 
I still want to be able to pick things up in the room, I have 
to write my own matching and hope the "get" verbs on the 
objects to be picked up are +x. Difficulty of actual server-coding 
aside, it would be much easier to be able to stick a function 
call in the verb which pops the parser back up to the 
object-matching level, enabling -x verbs to be called in such 
a situation, and allowing programmers to more flexibly specify 
situations in which calls to a given verb are not allowed.
 
Another example:
 
$thing:get this none this rd
 
if(this.location == player)
  "here's our hypothetical function";
  refuse_match();
else
  this:moveto(player);
endif
 
The way "get" usually works (in the distributed core, that is) 
is that if I have an object in my inventory called "thingy," 
there's an object in the room also called "thingy," and I want 
to pick up the thingy in the room, I will be unable to match 
it because the parser will get an ambiguous match from the 
thingy in my inventory. Likewise, I won't be able to drop the 
thingy I have.   
 
In the above verb fragment, I assume the following change has been 
made: In the case of an ambiguous match encountered by the 
built-in parser, it takes each object in turn and executes the 
called verb until one of the verbs executes completely without 
refusing the match. Any verb called from the command line can 
refuse matching whether it has been matched ambiguously or 
not. Thus the "get" verb on the room mentioned previously 
would in fact be matched by the parser, but a refuse_match() 
stuck in that get verb would force the parser to keep looking.
 
The way I see it, the refuse_match() function should return 
E_PERM or something if(callers()) because there's no reason I 
can see to refuse matching except at the top level. The 
real conflict I can see is people who program verbs which go 
through code which actually does stuff on the object in 
question, then ends the verb with a refuse_match() rather than 
a return. That could be problematic, though I'm not sure 
exactly how just yet.
 
In the case of "get" one would be inclined to argue that you 
can still pick up the object by it's object number, but I'm 
thinking in terms of Joe Nonprogrammer, who, ideally, should 
be completely shielded from the underlying structure of the 
MOO. Of course, that doesn't ever work out in reality, but 
it's a goal, anyway.
 
Thinking too much on too little sleep,
==== Rob.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed May 12 17:18:04 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "12" "May" "1993" "17:09:13" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: Another dream function..." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 17:09:13 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Another dream function...

> Date:	Wed, 12 May 1993 16:37:24 -0700
> From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas)
> 
> This is such a completely tangential item, I don't know how it 
> even relates to the discussion of BREAK statements and the 
> like, but I'd like to see a function that can be called from 
> within a verb which allows an object to refuse being matched 
> by the parser.

I think that making this a built-in function is a bit heavy-weight and leads to
a bunch of semantic difficulties, some of which you mentioned in your post.
If, instead, parsing is done in the DB, then the new (1.8.0) exception handling
mechanism would be sufficient; you simply raise a particular kind of error to
`throw' control back to the parser.

	Pavel

From cent1.lancs.ac.uk!xtd201 Sat May 15 08:39:34 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "15" "May" "1993" "08:26:54" "-0700" "Miss M Mccormack" "xtd201@cent1.lancs.ac.uk" nil "5" "HHouse of Wax" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Does anybody have connection details or anything of this MOO
Please?
Thanks!


From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Tue May 18 15:06:45 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "18" "May" "1993" "15:02:52" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " nil "30" "ideas for the next big release of MOO server." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 18 May 1993 15:02:52 -0700
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ideas for the next big release of MOO server.
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I have a short list of items i would like to see in the next BIG release
of the MOO server (2.0?).

Disk-based
----------
Okay, i'm not the only one.  I'm not the first to suggest it.  I just
wanted to reiterate it. 8)

Server-level $recycler
----------------------
Instead of using MOO code to implement the $recycler, put it at the server
level, where it would be much more efficient (and quicker).
no more worries of misinformed programmers using recycle(), it would be okay.
(This might screw up character generation, since it is the only thing that
doesn't use the $recycler in the new versions of the core.)

Case statment
-------------
An addition to MOO code.

BASIC even offers it, now.  no more
if...elseif..elseif..elseif..else...endif structure messing up nice tidy code.


That's all i can come up with as i'm very tired right now.


(My 5 cents worth.  I deem myself more important than 2 cents.)



From venedig.ai.univie.ac.at!paolo Tue May 18 15:29:57 1993
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Date:	Tue, 18 May 1993 15:20:03 -0700
From:	paolo petta <paolo@venedig.ai.univie.ac.at>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server

[original message by Chad Wilson ]
> 
> I have a short list of items i would like to see in the next BIG release
> of the MOO server (2.0?).
> 
> ...

Would it be difficult to introduce a `standard error stream' for outputs
(i.e. notify_err(), for example) ?  Its output should be merged with
the `standard output stream' (notify()) by default, but be discernible
at the client's request (i.e. by setting some property...). Would it
bog down the server too much?

That stream would/should be used for all those `error messages' which
are currently output via notify() (usually player:tell()) - for lack
of a different means.

I am pondering some ideas for a `2-dimensional' ```user-friendly'''
client (sg. like `curses-based' in UN*X - ugh!), and this would come in
handy... Then again I guess I am far too unexperienced to make such
requests, yet: please do excuse me if this is downright silly 8-(

Thank you!

pAolo
--
paolo petta                                            +43-1-5336112(Tel)
Austrian Research Inst. for Artificial Intelligence    +43-1-5320652(Fax)
Schottengasse 3, A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe     paolo@ai.univie.ac.at 

From ahab.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Tue May 18 19:01:09 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "18" "May" "1993" "19:53:09" "-0700" "H. Peter Anvin N9ITP" "hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "22" "Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 18 May 1993 19:53:09 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server.
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
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> 
> Server-level $recycler
> ----------------------
> Instead of using MOO code to implement the $recycler, put it at the server
> level, where it would be much more efficient (and quicker).
> no more worries of misinformed programmers using recycle(), it would be okay.
> (This might screw up character generation, since it is the only thing that
> doesn't use the $recycler in the new versions of the core.)
> 

Also, it would be nice to have a compile-time option of letting only
wizard-owned verbs call create() and recycle(), since some MOOs may
wish to implement independent ownership audit systems.

	/hpa

-- 
INTERNET:  hpa@nwu.edu    FINGER:    hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
BITNET:    HPA@NUACC      IBM MAIL:  36073 at IBMX400
HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN  NeXTMAIL:  hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
"Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray."  -- R. Heinlein


From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Tue May 18 19:20:31 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "18" "May" "1993" "19:09:16" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "39" "Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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             <9305182202.AA08885@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>"
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Date:	Tue, 18 May 1993 19:09:16 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server.


> Disk-based

This actually isn't terribly difficult to do.  There are existing
network layers (I'm thinking of Marcus Ranum's in particular) which
would allow MOO to be disk-based with few modifications.  The trick is
doing it well; if you're not careful, various things can cause most of
the database to be loaded in--and processes never give memory back to
the operating system.

> Server-level $recycler

You can't just up and decide to move database code into the server,
whether or not you'd like it to be faster.  Although I'm not as
familiar with the Lambda core as I should be, I would expect that the
recycler knows a lot more about the database than the server does.
For flexibility reasons, the server should probably know as little
about the database as possible; in my opinion, MOO knows too much as
it is.  I may be misunderstanding, though; if the recycler just
recycles object numbers, then it doesn't really matter whether it's in
the core or in the server.

> Case statement

I do like this one, although I havne't implemented anything like it in
Coldmud.  I'm not entirely sure how I'd like to see a case statement
structured, or what the best way of implementing it.

--GBH

P.S. For those who keep wondering what I'm talking about when I keep
mentioning Coldmud, it's a fairly generic multi-user object-oriented
database server and progrmaming language, borrowing a lot of ideas
from Coolmud.  I have a discussion list set up for it at
coldstuff@athena.mit.edu; send to coldstuff-request@athena.mit.edu to
subscribe.  Discussion is not archived and doesn't happen all that
often, since I haven't released a testing version yet.  I expect to
have a testing version ready sometime in early June.


From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Wed May 19 10:55:17 1993
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Date:	Wed, 19 May 1993 10:25:04 -0700
From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: New LambdaCore
Content-Type: text

OK... I just started messing with the new coredb to see what the latest 
and greatest is. Using mud.el to set the description now gives me an error:

#59:eval_cmd_string (this == #74), line 18:  Permission denied
... called from #59:eval (this == #74), line 9
(End of traceback)
#59:eval_cmd_string (this == #74), line 18:  Permission denied
... called from #59:eval (this == #74), line 9
(End of traceback)

Of course, I'm #74...... Any ideas?

Tim
-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From falryx.com!falryx Wed May 19 12:49:43 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "19" "May" "1993" "12:42:30" "-0700" "\"Edward L. Wallace\"" "falryx@falryx.com" nil "19" "Problems with Memory Management" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Wed, 19 May 1993 12:42:30 -0700
From:	"Edward L. Wallace" <falryx@falryx.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Problems with Memory Management
Reply-to: ted@falryx.com

I don't have the exact numbers off-hand, but I nonetheless have a concern.

DragonsFire MOO (a Pern-based MOO) is running on a Multi-proccessor machine
(under EP/IX, I believe).  

Our database consists of no more than ~4000 objects and is stored in
approximately 6-8 Megs of diskspace.  Interestingly -- and unfortunately --
we are running at approximately 16 Megs of RAM while online.

Is this a phenomenon a product of the multi-processor machine, or is it
typical of MOO servers?  I repeat that these aren't exact numbers (my site
admin is on jury duty so getting them will be hard).  He is, however, on
this list, and I encourage him to correct me. :)

Curious
Ted

Falryx@lambdamoo
Ted@dragonsfiremoo

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri May 21 11:09:35 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "21" "May" "1993" "09:44:19" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "22" "Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <199305182220.AA18751@moskau.ai.univie.ac.at>
Date:	Fri, 21 May 1993 09:44:19 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	paolo@venedig.ai.univie.ac.at
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server

> Date:	Tue, 18 May 1993 15:20:03 -0700
> From:	paolo petta <paolo@venedig.ai.univie.ac.at>
> 
> Would it be difficult to introduce a `standard error stream' for outputs
> (i.e. notify_err(), for example) ?  Its output should be merged with
> the `standard output stream' (notify()) by default, but be discernible
> at the client's request (i.e. by setting some property...). Would it
> bog down the server too much?

The approach we're taking in the Jupiter system to such a need (i.e.,
multiplexing the client's byte stream to the server) requires no server changes
at all.  We simply have prefix the appropriate lines of output with some
special string that the client recognizes; these lines are then treated
differently from normal output.

If you're concerned about security, you can also have the client, on startup,
give the server a special `key' string that must accompany all `out-of-band'
communications.  If the key is stored in an inaccessible place in the database,
spoofers won't be able to make the client believe it's hearing something
special.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri May 21 11:33:07 1993
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References: <falryx.1088228190E@128.121.50.145>
Date:	Fri, 21 May 1993 10:23:06 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	ted@falryx.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Problems with Memory Management

> Date:	Wed, 19 May 1993 12:42:30 -0700
> From:	"Edward L. Wallace" <falryx@falryx.com>
> 
> Our database consists of no more than ~4000 objects and is stored in
> approximately 6-8 Megs of diskspace.  Interestingly -- and unfortunately --
> we are running at approximately 16 Megs of RAM while online.
> 
> Is this a phenomenon a product of the multi-processor machine, or is it
> typical of MOO servers?

Yes, these numbers don't sound out of line to me; we've seen about a factor of
two increase between the on-disk and in-core copies of the DB.  Also, keep in
mind that the amount of memory used can grow if, for example, some task creates
a huge list and then throws it away.  Since the server has no portable way to
give memory back to the OS, this kind of bloat in the process size must simple
be lived with.  On LambdaMOO itself, we reboot every couple of weeks just to
drain this kind of swelling.

	Pavel

From leland.stanford.edu!snarflrd Fri May 21 13:24:36 1993
Status: RO
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Date:	Fri, 21 May 1993 13:23:00 -0700
From:	snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Cc:	paolo@venedig.ai.univie.ac.at, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server


> > Would it be difficult to introduce a `standard error stream' for outputs
> > (i.e. notify_err(), for example) ?  Its output should be merged with
> > the `standard output stream' (notify()) by default, but be discernible
> > at the client's request (i.e. by setting some property...). Would it
> > bog down the server too much?

> We simply have prefix the appropriate lines of output with some
> special string that the client recognizes; these lines are then treated
> differently from normal output.

maybe i'm being a potatoehaed, but why can't you use the socket to just send
out-of-band (OOB) data using the internet protocol:  as MSG_OOB - flagged
'send's.  Any client that isn't ready for this special protocol could be
recognized and setsockopt could be used to set it SO_OOBINLINE, thereby sending
things as one stream.

the big reason _I_ would support this (especially if i were writing a client
or server using your protocol) is that a process can be set up to receive
a signal when OOB data arrives from a socket ... so you'd only have to deal
with these 'special' messages when they arrive ... in a separate signal
handling routine.  if someone wanted to use this 'error' channel for
curses/windows based messaging, graphics messages, etc... it would be ideal
since it wouldn't get bogged down behind reams of text that may be clogging
up the 'main' socket channel.

-traumahound

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri May 21 15:36:47 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "21" "May" "1993" "14:06:57" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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References: <9305212023.AA02306@sunlight.Stanford.EDU>
	<93May21.094427pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Fri, 21 May 1993 14:06:57 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ideas for the next big release of MOO server

> Date:	Fri, 21 May 1993 13:23:00 -0700
> From:	snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu
> 
> maybe i'm being a potatoehaed, but why can't you use the socket to just send
> out-of-band (OOB) data using the internet protocol ...

The best reason is that this would let out a lot of clients that don't
understand OOB data, including GNU Emacs.  Yes, as you point out, these clients
could be changed to do the setsockopt() call to put the OOB data inline, but
that's a hassle.  The main advantage you cite, keeping OOB data from being
stuck behind a lot of random textual data, does not appear to be an issue for
us in our tests so far.

	Pavel

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Tue May 25 08:44:06 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "25" "May" "1993" "08:31:53" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "26" "Other MOOs?" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 08:31:53 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Other MOOs?


Well with the temporary death of DragonsFire for a few weeks, I've been 
meandering around the net looking at other MOOs.  I'm surprised at how
few there really are.  Consulting the MUDlist, there are only 9 listed,
2 of which are apparently not open? (InterMOO, and Playshouse), two that 
are not reachable (Dimensions and GodNet), and one which might as well 
not be a MOO (ZenMOO - whose sick idea is this?) :)  Ok, yes I'm a code 
hack and would rather write code than meditate. ;)

So, fess up, are there any more MOOs out there that arent listed?  I 
understand many might not be open to the general public, but I was just
curious as to what the total count may be.

(from mudlist.v5n8)
Name             Address                 Numeric Address  Port  Status   Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dimensions MOO   **                      128.2.112.111    4208  up          87
DragonsFire      netman.widener.edu      147.31.1.51      4444  up          88
GodNet           morticia.cnns.unt.edu   129.120.4.5      7777  R           89
InterMOO         **                      **               **    TO
JaysHouseMOO     **                      **               **    up
LambdaMOO        lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36      8888  up          90
OpalMOO          cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1      7777  up
PlaysHouseMOO    **                      **               **    R
ZenMOO           cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253     7777  up       91,92
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue May 25 11:38:58 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "25" "May" "1993" "10:55:12" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "17" "Memory allocation failed" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 10:55:12 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Memory allocation failed


We've crashed a number of times recently with an error of memory allocation
(size 3412) failed.  We also get:

May 25 04:56:49: *** Renaming temporary dump file: No such file or directory

Here's teh entry from ps -aux.  We're using up 36.7% of the memory.

USER       PID %CPU %MEM   SZ  RSS TT STAT START  TIME COMMAND
MediaMOO  9800  0.0 36.71602412572 p2 S    11:46  12:50 ./moo MediaMOO.db MediaM

Not knowing much about memory allocation, my only guess is that we're crashing
when someone else starts doing something memory intensive on this machine.  Is
that a good hunch?  How can I prevent this?  We already boosted our swap space
quite a bit.  Boost it more?

-- Amy

From phx.cam.ac.uk!ajb1011 Tue May 25 12:11:20 1993
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Message-ID: <A78983D0A7787860@UK.AC.CAMBRIDGE.PHOENIX>
Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 11:07:36 -0700
From:	Blart Wendo <ajb1011@phx.cam.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: [Other MOOs?]

We're working on a MOO. At the moment we're running from the lambda core, but
we've got plans to switch over to minimal.db and start from scratch. At the
moment we have No Fixed Abode, and only allowing developers (about 6 of us)
to connect. We hope to get permission to run it on the internet some time, and
start proper work on it after the Xams, when we'll be running on
something.cl.cam.ac.uk.

Some ideas we have so far are:
  The MOO is going to be set in the average MUD timeless Before Electricity
period, with loads of magick and stuff.
  We've got a few plans for computer generated landscape to fit between
towns and villages, so we can have a huge collosal map and movement outside
towns will be handled seperately.
  Instead of the guilds system found on other MUDs, we're designing a
University Courses system, so you have to have passed Architecture to
become a builder, for example.

If anyone is interested in knowing when we open for good, or just has some
helpful ideas, mail me (ajb1011@phx.cam.ac.uk), and I'll try to get back to
you.

Andrew/Borogove

From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Tue May 25 13:04:03 1993
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Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 12:21:57 -0700
From:	MATIS stephane <kgnome@cs.concordia.ca>
Sender: <@concour.cs.concordia.ca:kgnome@cs.concordia.CA>
To:	Blart Wendo <ajb1011@phx.cam.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, kgnome@cs.concordia.ca
Subject: Re: [Other MOOs?]


	Neat ideas for MOO. I wonder, have you written-up formal specs
	on them, or are you just working with "ideas" as of yet.

	If you have specs, would you be willing to share them for purelly
	instructional (read curiosity) reasons. Thanks,

	I'm also planning a MOO based of the Minimal, but first, I need
	to get familiar with the whole.

	Steph/Kgnome


+---------------------------------+   ___     ___       ___
| Stephane I. Matis               |  /   \_BATLLETECH  /\__\ Viva NeXT! 
| E-Mail : kgnome@cs.concordia.ca |  \___/   \___/     \/__/ NeXTSTEP 3.0!
| "It Just Works..." - Steve Jobs |      \___/   
+---------------------------------+       Wolfnet Operative & NeXThead 

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Tue May 25 13:39:16 1993
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	Admission time.  Ok, I work at an RPG company, and I also have internet
access.  As things went they decided thay a MUD which was supported by the game
company would be a good idea.  Suddenly fingers start pointing my way (I run a
Netrek server also) (disclaimer: no commercial connections, totally 'git :)
	I have used muds a little, off and on, and I had heard that the
MOO-ness was a good base, so I snagged it, agree'd and have slowly gathered
together a small team to recreate Darkurthe in a MOO.  If you are interested in
learning the plan on layout, codify'ing, etc, reply.  It is a medieval fantasy,
based off the game Darkurthe LEGENDS (released next week world wide).  Fun
game, cool world, foo, bar, etc.

	-Brandon (aka Lynx (Netrek), Renkin (lambdaMOO)) Gillespie


Oh yeah, we are using the lambdaMOO core, with a bit of rearranging, etc.  And,
there are currently 9 people on the team, but 4 will be leaving for summer.

From u.washington.edu!kruegek Tue May 25 17:28:46 1993
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Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 15:25:15 -0700
From:	kruegek@u.washington.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: MOO Manuals

Okay, I'm trying to start to learn MOO.  I've gotten the MOO Manual, and while
it is an excellent reference guide, it is about as useful for learning as the
DOS manual is for learning dos; as in, not very.  It would be very useful to
have a tuturial, something similar to Amberyl's MushManual, for MOO.  It would
be moderately difficult, as the different MOO are highly customized, but I'm 
sure that something to at least get one a basic competence with the programming
language could be done.  I would be very appreciative if someone would want to
undertake this project, and I'd be willing to help 'test' its usefulness, to
make sure things are clear and such.  Anyone with some spare time want to take
this on? Please?


From aero.org!obrien Tue May 25 18:26:31 1993
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             <199305251531.AA03346@feenix.metronet.com> develroxo"
Message-ID: <199305252252.AA15510@aerospace.aero.org>
Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 15:52:05 -0700
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Other MOOs?

	My understanding about the GodNet, at least, is that it took over
the life of the guy who was running it, so he decided to get a real life,
instead.  From what I hear the code for the GodNet (and there's a LOT of it!)
is on tape an available to anyone who wants it.

Mike

From judy.indstate.edu!ajax Tue May 25 18:57:53 1993
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Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 17:29:11 -0700
From:	ajax@judy.indstate.edu (Yesod Aia)
To:	kruegek@u.washington.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  MOO Manuals

Re: Moo Manuals

Do you know how to make a wind-up duck?



--
ajax@judy.indstate.edu	             Benjamin Kite, Indiana State University
flkite@indsvax1.indstate.edu                     Foreign Language Department

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue May 25 19:34:56 1993
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References: <9305252225.AA24515@stein.u.washington.edu>
Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 17:51:52 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kruegek@u.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO Manuals

> It would be very useful to have a tuturial, something similar to Amberyl's
> MushManual, for MOO.

See yduJ's tutorial, FTP from parcftp.xerox.com in pub/MOO/contrib/Tutorial.

> It would be moderately difficult, as the different MOO are highly customized,

Actually, the vast majority of what any MOO programmer uses is portable across
most MOOs; the customizations are often major, but a great commonality with
LambdaCore remains in most cases.

	Pavel

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue May 25 20:09:49 1993
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Date:	Tue, 25 May 1993 19:29:15 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	kruegek@u.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: MOO Manuals

You might check out my tutorial, it's in the library on LambdaMOO, or
available by FTP from parcftp:/pub/MOO/contrib/tutorial (or is that
Tutorial?  well, check for both capitalizations).

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed May 26 19:36:17 1993
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From:	MATIS stephane <kgnome@cs.concordia.ca>
Sender: <@concour.cs.concordia.ca:kgnome@cs.concordia.CA>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: MOO V1.7 on NeXT


	Has anyone succeeded to compile 1.7 under NeXTSTEP 3.0 ?

	If so, how did you convice 'configure' that the compiler is
	ANSI ?

	- Steph

From misty.anasazi.com!john Thu May 27 08:44:45 1993
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From:	john@misty.anasazi.com
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	rayn@misty.anasazi.com (Ray Niemeir)
Subject: OOPS.... and a few questions
Reply-to: john@anasazi.com
Content-Type: text


Hi! I'm a new MOO programmer and have a question or two...

It would appear my first message somehow sent out a shell script
rather than this text. Sorry about that...

I am using LambdaMOO (latest version from parcftp). I have it up and
running on a Pyramid MIS machine.

I would like to create a character that has some associated things. 
I don't want those things to show up in the normal "look" at the room. 
However, if you say "look <a thing he is carrying>" I want it to be described. 

In other words, I want it to be invisible to "look none none none" 
but visible to look "this none none". 

An example of this would be to create an elephant in
a room, but allow people to look at the trunk or the legs. Obviously I
don't want the room to say:

"There is an elephant, a leg, and a trunk." 

I just want it to say: "There is an elephant."
But, if you say "look trunk" you would get the description of the trunk.

In a sense the elephant is like a room, but to have to "enter"
is not desirable.

Any ideas? I'm new at this - am I missing something here?

..................................................

Also, I was trying to find the code for "look" and couldn't. Is it a
built-in function? If not, where is it hiding?

..................................................

Another thing.... is there any way from the command line to put a list
into a property other than to use notedit?

..................................................

Is there a way to dump output to a file? For example, if I want to dump
an object, can I do it to a file (without using the capture function
of my front end)?

..................................................

Is there a good way to construct something in one moo, and then
take a copy of it out and stuff it into another moo? I have a local
moo running, but due to company security rules, I cannot make it available
on the net. However, once I have built some stuff, I would like to
be able to "port" it to some other moo.

..................................................

I have the following documents... are there others that would help?
How about for wizards (as opposed to programmers)? Security issues?

Moo Tutorial (with the wind up toy) - an excellent writeup, but not
comprehensive enough to turn me into an expert wizard or programmer.

The Moo quick reference sheet.

The LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual (V1.5 1991 - ancient??). - I wish there
were more examples in this.

The archives of this mailing list.

Any others I should find?

..................................................

Thanks in advance.
-- 
John Moore     HAM:NJ7E    CAP:Thunderbird 381 
john@anasazi.com 
Voice: day or eve:(602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 (by prior arrangement)
USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Thu May 27 10:14:41 1993
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Date:	Thu, 27 May 1993 09:30:09 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Connection question...

I've listed and browsed a lot of code, and there's just something I can't
find/figure out: What exactly is it that specifies to the server that a 
player is "connected"? I mean, typing "connect foo bar" runs $login:connect()
which does the matching and login security (In LambdaCore, I mean). :connect
calls a verb that updates all of the newly connected player's connection
info, but I can't see specifically where something says "Connection #-X is
now connected to Object #Y."  Closest thing I can figure is that
#0:do_login_command() returns the object number of the player object returned
by :connect.  Does returning an object number from :d_l_c() constitute a
defined connection, or is it something else I haven't picked up on?

Just curious..
====Rob.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Thu May 27 10:24:53 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "27" "May" "1993" "10:10:35" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "58" "OOPS.... and a few questions" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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In-Reply-to: "john@misty.anasazi.com's message of Thu, 27 May 1993 07:58:06 PDT <93May27.075836pdt.12155@alpha.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <9305271710.AA06156@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 27 May 1993 10:10:35 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	john@anasazi.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, rayn@misty.anasazi.com
Subject: OOPS.... and a few questions

   Date: 	Thu, 27 May 1993 07:58:06 PDT
   From: john@misty.anasazi.com


   I would like to create a character that has some associated things. 
   I don't want those things to show up in the normal "look" at the room. 
   However, if you say "look <a thing he is carrying>" I want it to be described. 

   In other words, I want it to be invisible to "look none none none" 
   but visible to look "this none none". 

   An example of this would be to create an elephant in
   a room, but allow people to look at the trunk or the legs.

You can do anything in moo code, but this is complex enough I'm not
going to answer it, perhaps some other kind soul will take the time.
The basic verb you want to hack is :look_self to not pass in the
elephant to :tell_contents.  Here are some quick answers to some of
your other questions.

   ..................................................

   Also, I was trying to find the code for "look" and couldn't. Is it a
   built-in function? If not, where is it hiding?

$room:look any any any

   ..................................................

   Another thing.... is there any way from the command line to put a list
   into a property other than to use notedit?

Use eval.  ;#xxxx.foo = {"a", "b", "c"}
See help eval.
You could also write a function that used $command_utils:read_lines
and did the processing yourself.

   ..................................................

   Is there a way to dump output to a file? For example, if I want to dump
   an object, can I do it to a file (without using the capture function
   of my front end)?

Nope.
   ..................................................

   Is there a good way to construct something in one moo, and then
   take a copy of it out and stuff it into another moo? I have a local
   moo running, but due to company security rules, I cannot make it available
   on the net. However, once I have built some stuff, I would like to
   be able to "port" it to some other moo.

@dump should be in most modern cores.  See help @dump.
   ..................................................

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu May 27 10:35:04 1993
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References: <9305271630.AA26993@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Thu, 27 May 1993 10:24:30 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Connection question...

> Date:	Thu, 27 May 1993 09:30:09 -0700
> From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas)
> 
> What exactly is it that specifies to the server that a player is "connected"?
> ...  Closest thing I can figure is that #0:do_login_command() returns the
> object number of the player object returned by :connect.

That's correct; this is described in section 4.2.3 of the LambdaMOO
Programmer's Manual, `Associating Network Connections With Players'.

	Pavel

From media.mit.edu!asb Thu May 27 17:43:45 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "27" "May" "1993" "17:35:03" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "22" "seeking ideas for quota" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Thu, 27 May 1993 17:35:03 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: seeking ideas for quota


In some respects, the current quota system discourages good programming style.
For example, if you want to create an object by making a generic parent and a
child, that uses up two instead of one.  And if you want to have a generic pet
as well as generic dog and rover, then you have used up three.

A friend was recently making a library, and was puzzled by the fact that the
code is much neater if each reference book is its own object, but for quota
reasons he was tempted instead to use a long list of lists stored on a
property.

I think in these examples the quota system is discouraging good style.

The opposite problem applies as well-- just limiting the number of objects a
person can have doesn't stop them from storing _The Guiness Book of World
Records_ on one slot of an object.  Or storing long conversation logs.

On the other hand, I don't have a better idea for how to manage this.
Does anyone else have any inspiring new approaches?

-- Amy


From tamsun.tamu.edu!apj6796 Thu May 27 19:58:35 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "27" "May" "1993" "18:53:45" "-0700" "Albert Paul Jimenez III" "apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu" nil "25" "Re: Inspiring new approaches to Quota" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Thu, 27 May 1993 18:53:45 -0700
From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Inspiring new approaches to Quota


One method thats possible, but takes server support is that of disk useage.  I believe that a 'blank' object takes up something under 100 bytes... so its not 
how many objects you have, but their actual *size* that counts.  OTOH, it could
be argued that using disk-based 'quota' discourages such space wasting niceties
as _comments_ and _documentation_ so this is not a completely satisfactory 
choice either. The only _real_ good way of enforcing good use of system 
resources is to give unlimited _allowable_ quota, but limited _acceptable_ use.
With the god or gods (er... system owners, admins, sysops, whatever) having the
final say on what is and isnt acceptable use and manually checking up on people
every once in a while.
  However, this is extremely time consuming, not to mention boring... hmm..
OTOH, it could be fun... have a 'showoff-day' on the mud where only programmers
and gods are allowed on, and they have to 'show-off' their stuff to the god, 
explain why its useful, etc...
  IMHO, no system is satisfactory to guarantee that someone in power can be
trusted... so dont give out that kind of power... when/if I run a mud, it will
probably have a set of tools, similar to that of a $builder, but more spec'd 
towards my mud, that will allow me to give the power of creation to people 
without having to give them programmer permissions...
They *will* have an object quota, but it will be in the 'finite, but very large
' category, meaning if they _ever_ reach their quota, something's run amok.

My humble opinion on a topic worth discussion...

 --Zachary

From falryx.com!falryx Fri May 28 07:54:07 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "28" "May" "1993" "07:40:06" "-0700" "\"Edward L. Wallace\"" "falryx@falryx.com" nil "33" "Re: seeking ideas for quota" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Message-ID: <falryx.1088987646A@128.121.50.145>
Date:	Fri, 28 May 1993 07:40:06 -0700
From:	"Edward L. Wallace" <falryx@falryx.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: seeking ideas for quota
Reply-to: ted@falryx.com

I certainly wouldn't call our approach inspiring -- but here it is, nonetheless.

On DragonsFire, we have some different breakdowns of players - consistent
with the Pern theme we recreate.  For example, each major 'area' has it's
own builder character - to make a change of authority, and cooperative work
much easier.  Each Hold, Hall or Weyr, therefore has a 'builder' who owns
the rooms of these places, as well as any necessary 'craftwide', 'weyrwide'
or 'holdwide' objects.

The quota for each of these builders depends upon their nature.  Crafters
are encouraged to have smaller Halls and more room for objects (we are
considering making a *second* builder character for objects to support
Craft-owned objects -- i.e. 'purchasing a flute' rather than @creating it
yourself).  Holders are mid-sized, and Weyrs are the largest.

When you reach *players* we have a set 'beginning' quota and are working on
methods of quota "raising".  At one point we decided (but never implemented
-- we've been busy) to create some automatic quota-raising commands.  When
someone has used up their first installment, they do: @morequota, and get a
second installment - and perhaps later on, a third.  After this we assume
that any building/programming is getting from more of a personal nature to a
'public' nature and involve the administration in assigning an adequate
level of quota.

We felt that initial lower quotas would help encourage people to consider
proper use of their objects - and avoid wasted ones.  The automatic ability
to raise quota allows for some self-governance and room for expansion. 
Lastly the administration only REALLY gets involved when the quota requested
is relatively significant. 

Just some ideas from us Pernies gone MOO.

Ted

From phx.cam.ac.uk!ajb1011 Fri May 28 09:40:00 1993
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Date:	Fri, 28 May 1993 09:31:37 -0700
From:	Blart Wendo <ajb1011@phx.cam.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Inspiring new approaches to quota

One problem with the quota system is exits - they take up too much quota for
what they do. Ideally exits should be entirely free. We're considering
defining exits purely in a list defined on the room. One problem is allowing
aliases for exits, which we are thinking of getting round by defining default
exit names and aliases.

Andrew/Borogove

From falryx.com!falryx Fri May 28 10:12:45 1993
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Date:	Fri, 28 May 1993 10:11:48 -0700
From:	"Edward L. Wallace" <falryx@falryx.com>
To:	"Blart Wendo" <ajb1011@phx.cam.ac.uk>, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Inspiring new approaches to quota
Reply-to: ted@falryx.com


>One problem with the quota system is exits - they take up too much quota for
>what they do. Ideally exits should be entirely free. We're considering
>defining exits purely in a list defined on the room. One problem is allowing
>aliases for exits, which we are thinking of getting round by defining default
>exit names and aliases.
>
>Andrew/Borogove
>

DragonsFire MOO has implemented something along these lines.  I'll leave it
up to our implementor to give you the full details.  However we've managed
to work aliases, etc. etc.  Even Multiple Word exits work (I believe).

F'lyr/Ted @ DragonsFire
Falryx @ Lamba

From microsoft.com!davidsan Fri May 28 10:36:37 1993
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Date:	Fri, 28 May 1993 10:27:23 -0700
From:	David Sanderman <davidsan@microsoft.com>
To:	ajb1011@phx.cam.ac.uk, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com,
	netmail!falryx@falryx.com
Subject: Re: Inspiring new approaches to quota

-> >what they do. Ideally exits should be entirely free. We're considering
-> >defining exits purely in a list defined on the room. One problem is 
allowing
-> >aliases for exits, which we are thinking of getting round by 
defining default
-> >exit names and aliases.
Some other benefits of object-exits that you lose when going
to verb exits (unless you hack in a lot of stuff):
1) ability to describe exits
2) exit locking
3) specialized exit:invoke code for more complex locking/actions
4) the ability to subclass exits in the case where you have lots of
   exits that should all behave in some special way
And so on.  It seems to make more sense to just have all the
exits on your MOO owned by a central exit-quota character, or
something along those lines, rather than going to verb exits.
  Dave/Zippy

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri May 28 11:33:33 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "28" "May" "1993" "11:25:13" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "60" "Quota, and the exitless MOO." "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Fri, 28 May 1993 11:25:13 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Quota, and the exitless MOO.


> 
> >what they do. Ideally exits should be entirely free. We're considering
> >defining exits purely in a list defined on the room. One problem is allowing
> >aliases for exits, which we are thinking of getting round by 
> >defining default exit names and aliases.
> Some other benefits of object-exits that you lose when going
> to verb exits (unless you hack in a lot of stuff):
> 1) ability to describe exits
> 2) exit locking
> 3) specialized exit:invoke code for more complex locking/actions
> 4) the ability to subclass exits in the case where you have lots of
>    exits that should all behave in some special way
> And so on.  It seems to make more sense to just have all the
> exits on your MOO owned by a central exit-quota character, or
> something along those lines, rather than going to verb exits.
>   Dave/Zippy

Just for those who might be interested, here's the specs on the "exitless
MOO" as implemented on Dragonsfire.

New room class #213 (this way the generic room #3 is preserved, and one
can still use it and create exits if you really want).

Added the following properties to #213:
  .links => stores a list in the form of {{room#,{exit-name,alias,alias}}.
            room# is where the exit goes to.
  .link_descs => exit descriptions
  .link_flags => Since DF is from a MUSE, we use flags for things like
                 "dark" and "transparent" exits.
  .link_keys => locks for exits.
  .link_msgs => a list containing standard exit messages for each exit -
                oleave, oarrive, leave, arrive, nogo, onogo.

There's a slew of new verbs added on #213 to handle all this, and several
core changes were made, most notably to @lock and @desc.  Among the primary
verbs on #213 are :match_link (similar to match_exit), a verb called 
:invoke (similar to $exit:invoke), and @onogo @nogo all that stuff defined
as a verb on the room.  Also :look was changed so you can look at exits,
and a new :here_huh to handle links instead of exit-objects.  There's 
various others that I dont recall off the top of my head.  #213 is pretty
well packed with stuff.

There's certainly pros and cons to such a system.   It's a real pain to 
dig from a "real" room, like the metarooms, to a linked room.  Links
sorta defeat the object-orientedness of MOO, but then so do metarooms. :)
But, I'd guess that close to 95% if not more of our users would never
want to do something strange with exits that'd require real objects with
inherited characteristics.

Meanwhile, we save considerable space doing it this way - as far as the MOO
goes, I believe we cut the size of our db from some 16-17 meg in memory to
around 12 meg.  It means a 20-quota goes a LONG way - 20 rooms, for instance,
is a large area, and you dont have to worry a whit how many exits you have.
And it sure as heck makes @audit less spammy. :)

If anyone cares to look at the code, #213 is readable, come to DF and ask
for a progbit.  DragonsFire is at netman.widener.edu 4444.

-j. (Jina@DF)

From harlequin.com!kmp Sat May 29 08:40:32 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "29" "May" "1993" "08:35:35" "-0700" "Kent Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "59" "$object_utils:isa" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Sat, 29 May 1993 08:35:35 -0700
From:	Kent Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	kmp@harlequin.com
Subject: $object_utils:isa

I ran into some troubles with isa that I wanted to log.  Please do NOT
waste time sending code examples of how to work around this.  I know
how to do that trivially.  My only purpose in reporting this is to log
the conceptual problem to help in future design.

It seems to me that $object_utils:isa(#-1,#-1) should return 1, not 0.
I have an object that has a list of places it is permitted to move,
and I put #-1 in the list.  I then wrote an is_unlocked_for verb that
contained the following, which returns 0 even though #-1 is in x:

 for x in (this.lock_keys)
   if ($object_utils:isa(args[1], x))
     return 1;
   endif
 endfor
 return 0;

To put my claim another way, I think the self-consistent definition of
isa for the moo world as currently portrayed should not be
  :isa(x,y) == valid(x) && (y==x || y in :ancestors(x))
but should instead be:
   :isa(x,y) == (x==y || ( valid(x) && y in :ancestors(x) ))
I think it's reasonable to validity check x before you try to walk it,
but I think everything (even nothing) isa whatever it is.

For what it's worth, I also think that it's a design error that isa
does the x==y check.  If it didn't, I wouldn't be sending the above
report, but I don't think the class of foo is necessarily of class
foo.  This is necessary in the weird case where you instantiate my
wristwatch, but it's not necessary in the case where I go to the
trouble to first make a Generic Wristwatch that both you and I
instantiate in order to wear.  It is enough for our two wristwatches
to be of type Generic Wristwatches; it is not necessary that a Generic
Wristwatch be of that type.  And, in fact, it screws up lots of my
programs that try to manipulate things of that type specially when
they get a generic that isn't all filled in with proper values and try
to frob it randomly.

I think the service that isa provides should be called is_or_isa, and
that really isa should just check parentage (and checking validity at
the same time then would be fine).  I don't think there should be a
separate verb is, since == works fine.  Then I would write:

 for x in (this.lock_keys)
   if (x == args[1] || $object_utils:isa(args[1], x))
     return 1;
   endif
 endfor
 return 0;

In fact, I -can- write this now, and it will work although it will do
some yucky and unwanted (though harmless) tests in the isa.  But even
though I can write it, the current definition of isa would make it
look like I didn't need to, so I might not think to unless I thought
about this fringe case.  The fact that I'm writing this bug report
suggests that people won't always do this.  I originally didn't have
#-1 in this.lock_keys; and I later added it because I thought the
program was data-driven and that I shouldn't have to look at the
program itself just because I was adding data.

From tamsun.tamu.edu!apj6796 Sat May 29 12:32:45 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "29" "May" "1993" "12:27:10" "-0700" "Albert Paul Jimenez III" "apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu" nil "12" "Re: isa" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Date:	Sat, 29 May 1993 12:27:10 -0700
From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: isa


If you dont want eh == chec, just check valid() & ( in ancestors())....

if you dont check valid first, then that makes all !valid stuff ==,
and since (I think) errors & negative objnums are !valid, all errors are equal..
which is prolly not the right way to go.

Just my Humble Opinion, Of course..
[3~

--Paul
  Zachary@LambdaMOO

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Sun May 30 19:23:05 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "30" "May" "1993" "19:13:30" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "14" "RE: Other MOOs?" "^Date:" nil nil "5"])
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Message-ID: <930530191330.21601ab1@CANTH.HACKS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 30 May 1993 19:13:30 -0700
From:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	kira@feenix.metronet.com, MOO-COWS.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Other MOOs?

> few there really are.  Consulting the MUDlist, there are only 9 listed,
> 2 of which are apparently not open? (InterMOO, and Playshouse), two that 
> are not reachable (Dimensions and GodNet), and one which might as well 
> not be a MOO (ZenMOO - whose sick idea is this?) :)  Ok, yes I'm a code 

I am not sure exactly how this ended up on the MUD list as no one was told
to post it but "InterMOO" is apparently "InterstellarMOO" (That was the common
abbreviation we used.) which has been unreachable since December and, to my
knowledge, no longer exists. I know the Arch/sysmgr personaly and am pretty
sure that the database has been deleted. As a side note, the reason it times
out is that the host has a new IP address. Anyhow, just FYI.

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Tue Jun  1 07:22:25 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "07:07:01" "-0700" "Tim Sailer" "sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov " nil "12" "Gulp!" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 07:07:01 -0700
From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Gulp!
Content-Type: text

Well.... I dumped the database on JanusMOO last night, shut the server down, 
and rebooted the machine. We now have lost the last 7 days of work...
Any ideas of what heppened? There is nothing strange in the log......
We are running the previous Core (not the new one.... missed it by about 2 
weeks).

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Tue Jun  1 09:46:05 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "09:31:24" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu" nil "10" "unowned exits" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:31:24 -0700
From:	Chad Wilson <CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu>
To:	MOO-COWS.parc@xerox.com
Subject: unowned exits
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I agree that exits should be free, but I think they should exist as $exits.

The generic exit can be changed so that hacker will own it, but allow only a
certain player (non-wizard if not owned by a wiz) to change the desc, et al.

Change the perms, add a .other_owner property.  Is this so difficult that it
couldn't be done?

- Wilson@Lambda.....


From whyanext.com!eric Tue Jun  1 09:58:46 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "09:46:29" "-0700" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " nil "35" "Backslashes in #0.welcome_message?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306011646.AA01857@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>
Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:46:29 -0700
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Backslashes in #0.welcome_message?
Reply-to: eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)


Someone on The TechMOOseum just did a great job on a new welcome screen, but
it seems that the double backslashes embedded in the strings of
#0.welcome_message are not showing up.

Is there a reason for this?  Is there a cure?  I'd really like to use this
for the message:
  ____________                   ______________
 |              |               |              |
 |____      ____|               |____      ____|
      |    |  ___    ___   ________  |    |  ________   ________   ___    ___
      |    | |   |  |   | |    ____| |    | |    ____| |    ____| |   |  |   |
      |    | |   |__|   | |   |___   |    | |   |___   |   |      |   |__|   |
      |    | |    __    | |    ___|  |    | |    ___|  |   |      |    __    |
      |    | |   |  |   | |   |____  |    | |   |____  |   |____  |   |  |   |
      |____| |___|  |___| |________| |____| |________| |________| |___|  |___|
 ___        ___    _____      _____
|    \    /    | /   _   \  /   _   \  _________  ________  __    __  __    __
|      \/      ||   | |   ||   | |   ||    _____||    ____||  |  |  ||   \/   |
|   |\    /|   ||   | |   ||   | |   ||   |_____ |   |___  |  |  |  ||        |
|   |  \/  |   ||   | |   ||   | |   ||_____    ||    ___| |  |  |  ||  |\/|  |
|   |      |   ||   |_|   ||   |_|   | _____|   ||   |____ |  |__|  ||  |  |  |
|___|      |___| \_______/  \_______/ |_________||________||________||__|  |__|
  is a real-time, text-based virtual reality created by staff, volunteers, and
  visitors of The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, U.S.A.

  Type `connect <Character-name> <password' to connect to your character,
       `connect Visitor'                    to connect as a guest, or
       `@quit'                              to disconnect, either now or later.


Thanks,

Eric / Ahtraddis
whyanext.com 8888

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Jun  1 09:59:26 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "09:53:01" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "13" "unsubscribe" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "bleichls@lldmpc.dnet.dupont.com's message of Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:32:17 PDT <9306011632.AA06520@esds01.es.dupont.com>"
Message-ID: <9306011653.AA14585@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:53:01 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bleichls@lldmpc.dnet.dupont.com
cc:	MOO-COWS.parc@xerox.com
Subject: unsubscribe

I don't usually send this to the entire list, but we've had a spate of
them and it's time to remind everyone of this bit of netiquette.

Recall that on the internet there is a convention whereby you may
simply append "-request" to any mailing list name and, instead of
bothering everyone else on the list, get your message directly to the
maintainer of the list, who, of course, is the only one who can
actually do anything about the problem in the first place.  Please
remember this tidbit for future mailing lists with which you may
interact.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ  yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Jun  1 10:10:57 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "10:03:53" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "5" "Backslashes in #0.welcome_message?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Eric Schwartz's message of Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:46:29 PDT <9306011646.AA01857@WhyaNeXT.com.whyanext.com>"
Message-ID: <9306011703.AA15345@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 10:03:53 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	eric@whyanext.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Backslashes in #0.welcome_message?

If you want one backslash to appear in your output text, you must
include *two* in your text string.  It's the nature of quoting.
Similarly, if you want a double quote, you must include backslash
doublequote in your string.  Same idea, only it's more confusing when
the character to be quoted is backslash itself.

From misty.anasazi.com!john Tue Jun  1 10:43:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "10:33:49" "-0700" "john@misty.anasazi.com" "john@misty.anasazi.com" nil "14" "How to restrict home and moveto in a room" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 10:33:49 -0700
From:	john@misty.anasazi.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: How to restrict home and moveto in a room
Reply-to: chad@anasazi.com
Content-Type: text

X-Operating System: SMP DC/OSx 1.0-92b011 dcosx
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

I want to create a room from which one cannot "home" or "moveto" oneself.
I want another verb to move one to a standard place.

How do I do that?
-- 
John Moore     HAM:NJ7E    CAP:Thunderbird 381 
john@anasazi.com 
Voice: day or eve:(602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 (by prior arrangement)
USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 
Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment!
Bad Advice: Long palladium, short petroleum ;-)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jun  1 11:11:53 1993
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References: <9306011407.AA01209@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>
Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 11:01:13 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Gulp!

> Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 07:07:01 -0700
> From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
> 
> Well.... I dumped the database on JanusMOO last night, shut the server down, 
> and rebooted the machine. We now have lost the last 7 days of work...
> Any ideas of what heppened? There is nothing strange in the log......

You don't really give enough information to tell.  How did you dump the
database?  How did you shut the server down?  How did you restart the server?
Please give the precise details.

It may well be that the later DB file is still sitting on your machine,
especially if you don't always use the `restart' shell script that comes with
the distribution.

	Pavel

From troi.cc.rochester.edu!dsew Tue Jun  1 21:20:46 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "1" "June" "1993" "21:08:08" "-0700" "David Sewell" "dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu" nil "11" "Hypertext Object?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 1 Jun 1993 21:08:08 -0700
From:	David Sewell <dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-Cows list)
Subject: Hypertext Object?

Has anyone made a good Generic Hypertext object?  I've started toying
with ideas for one that would allow linking not only between properties
on a single object but between objects as well.  

It doesn't seem like it should be too hard to implement a simple
system, but I don't want to waste time if it has been done well already.
--
David Sewell, English Dept, U of Rochester*  |  "Grammarians without any
  dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu                 |  character at all lecture
  dsewell@violet.ccit.arizona.edu            |  us upon that of Homer."
(*thru 6/30/93; use AZ address after that)   |     --Diogenes the Cynic

From theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu!nop Wed Jun  2 02:51:38 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "02:41:02" "-0700" "Jay A. Carlson" "nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu " nil "25" "Hypertext Object?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306020941.AA07522@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 02:41:02 -0700
From:	nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
To:	dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Hypertext Object?

> Has anyone made a good Generic Hypertext object?  I've started toying
> with ideas for one that would allow linking not only between properties
> on a single object but between objects as well.  

You should probably stop by JaysHouseMOO (jh.ccs.neu.edu 1709) and
look at the jtext system.  For instance, the entire LambdaCore help
system has been converted to hypertext, and work proceeds apace (yeah,
yeah) on further integrating gopher into the document system.

> It doesn't seem like it should be too hard to implement a simple
> system, but I don't want to waste time if it has been done well already.

jtext is hardly simple, and it's still being developed.  On the other
hand, it's very good for what it does, considering---one intriguing
thing it does is allow output drivers for various forms of hypertext,
including HTML.  You can thus find the LambdaCore help system
available to the World Wide Web as hypertext at 
http://jh.ccs.neu.edu:7043/ :-)

[This should teach me not to post while overly wired on caffeine....]

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Jun  2 03:57:04 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "03:56:17" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" "<9306021056.AA09356@palnu.research.microsoft.com>" "21" "LambdaMOO help system dumped" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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             <9306020941.AA07522@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>"
Message-ID: <9306021056.AA09356@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 03:56:17 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LambdaMOO help system dumped

>   You can thus find the LambdaCore help system
>   available to the World Wide Web as hypertext at 
>   http://jh.ccs.neu.edu:7043/ :-)

And if you don't know how to get to World Wide Web or you want to see
LambdaMOO-specific topics, I've dumped out the current state of the 
LambdaMOO help system (figured it might be good to do this before the one
currently on parcftp gets to be an entire year out of date...)

Anyway, it's now sitting in

    parcftp.xerox.com:/pub/MOO/contrib/HelpSystem-02Jun93.txt

but with any luck, Pavel or somebody will read this soon and bump it
up a level :)

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From misty.anasazi.com!john Wed Jun  2 10:32:57 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "10:21:30" "-0700" "john@misty.anasazi.com" "john@misty.anasazi.com" nil "11" "a room that disallows teleporting out?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 10:21:30 -0700
From:	john@misty.anasazi.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: a room that disallows teleporting out?
Reply-to: chad@anasazi.com
Content-Type: text

X-Operating System: SMP DC/OSx 1.0-92b011 dcosx
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

How can I create a room which cannot be teleported from with @move me?
-- 
John Moore     HAM:NJ7E    CAP:Thunderbird 381 
john@anasazi.com 
Voice: day or eve:(602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 (by prior arrangement)
USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 
Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment!
Bad Advice: Long palladium, short petroleum ;-)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jun  2 11:06:53 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "10:57:23" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Re: LambdaMOO help system dumped" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <9306020941.AA07522@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
	<9306021056.AA09356@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 10:57:23 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	rfc@research.microsoft.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: LambdaMOO help system dumped

> Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 03:56:17 -0700
> From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
> 
> I've dumped out the current state of the LambdaMOO help system ...
> 
> Anyway, it's now sitting in
> 
>     parcftp.xerox.com:/pub/MOO/contrib/HelpSystem-02Jun93.txt
> 
> but with any luck, Pavel or somebody will read this soon and bump it
> up a level :)

Done.  It's now in

	parcftp.xerox.com:/pub/MOO/HelpSystem-02Jun93.txt

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Wed Jun  2 11:22:04 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "11:12:33" "-0700" "Lynx" "BRANDON@cc.usu.edu" nil "7" "Re:  a room that disallows teleporting out?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 11:12:33 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  a room that disallows teleporting out?
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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> How can I create a room which cannot be teleported from with @move me?

 	Actually, I was wondering about this same thing, except for that I want
to limit movement, teleporting, etc *out* but not in.  As in, anybody who wants
to should be able to port in, yet not out...

		-Brandon (aka Lynx, aka Renkin)

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Jun  2 11:57:37 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "11:27:58" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "18" "a room that disallows teleporting out?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Lynx's message of Wed, 2 Jun 1993 11:12:33 PDT <01GYWHT6RUC29R81FF@CC.USU.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9306021827.AA00946@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 11:27:58 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: a room that disallows teleporting out?

   Date: 	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 11:12:33 PDT
   From: Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>

   > How can I create a room which cannot be teleported from with @move me?

	   Actually, I was wondering about this same thing, except for
   that I want to limit movement, teleporting, etc *out* but not in.
   As in, anybody who wants to should be able to port in, yet not out...

You know this is terribly anti social and pretty evil to newbies,
right?  I think if it's hard to get out of it should be hard to get
in to!  Definitely I'm TIRED of getting paged by newbies trapped in
jars and other things.  So if you don't know how to do this, JUST
DON'T TRY.  There, I've gotten that bit of flaming off my chest.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Wed Jun  2 12:17:19 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "2" "June" "1993" "11:29:30" "-0700" "\"J.Watson\"" "cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "11" "Rooms that cannot be teleported out" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306021829.AA18292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Date:	Wed, 2 Jun 1993 11:29:30 -0700
From:	"J.Watson" <cm8224@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Rooms that cannot be teleported out

On LambdaMOO itself there is a challenge called Program you way out of a paper
bag. In this teleport, move, etc will not work, even using
;me:moveto(here.location) doesn't work. You would have to look at the code used
there to try and find
out exactly how it worked.

I hope this may lead to the solution.

Yours
James Watson
Dudley@MagicMOO, Dudley@LambdaMOO.

From uranus.cs.waikato.ac.nz!ard Thu Jun  3 22:12:02 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "3" "June" "1993" "21:54:21" "-0700" "Andrew Donkin" "ard@uranus.cs.waikato.ac.nz" nil "14" "Robots and visible exits" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306040454.AA03176@uranus.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
Date:	Thu, 3 Jun 1993 21:54:21 -0700
From:	Andrew Donkin <ard@uranus.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Robots and visible exits


	Hi.  I have a few people in my MOO who want to write robotty
thingummies that cruise around the world and interact with players.  Real
players, that is.  To move about, they need to see which exits are
available in a given room.  I figure there are two ways to do this - make
wizard own all the robots (no way forget it bud) or to make the rooms'
exits world readable.

	Currently I'm doing the latter, but I'd prefer something suggested
by someone more experienced.  Ideas please people?  Thanks in advance.

,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
|               Andrew Donkin - ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz             |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Jun  4 05:22:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "4" "June" "1993" "05:12:34" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "15" "Re: Robots and visible exits" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 4 Jun 1993 05:12:34 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	ard@uranus.cs.waikato.ac.nz
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Robots and visible exits


> 	Hi.  I have a few people in my MOO who want to write robotty
> thingummies that cruise around the world and interact with players.  Real
> players, that is.  To move about, they need to see which exits are
> available in a given room.  I figure there are two ways to do this - make
> wizard own all the robots (no way forget it bud) or to make the rooms'
> exits world readable.
> 
> 	Currently I'm doing the latter, but I'd prefer something suggested
> by someone more experienced.  Ideas please people?  Thanks in advance.

Yes, tell them to use room:obvious_exits(). :)  Returns a list of exits
in the room that have .obvious=1  (most should be, its the default). 

-j.

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Fri Jun  4 05:32:40 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "4" "June" "1993" "04:47:36" "-0700" "\"S.Casey\"" "cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "25" "Re: Robots and visible exits" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 4 Jun 1993 04:47:36 -0700
From:	"S.Casey" <cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: <@ccub.wlv.ac.uk:cm5292@scitsc.wolverhampton.ac.UK>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Robots and visible exits


> 	Hi.  I have a few people in my MOO who want to write robotty
> thingummies that cruise around the world and interact with players.  Real
> players, that is.  To move about, they need to see which exits are
> available in a given room.  I figure there are two ways to do this - make
> wizard own all the robots (no way forget it bud) or to make the rooms'
> exits world readable.
>
> 	Currently I'm doing the latter, but I'd prefer something suggested
> by someone more experienced.  Ideas please people?  Thanks in advance.
>
> ,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
> |               Andrew Donkin - ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz             |
> `------------------------------------------------------------------------'
>
	Okey - Just (although I am not a more experienced programmer!) like to
say how I did the mobiles.  I had the Generic parent with a verb running all
the time.  It went through each of the children(mobiles) and moved them
accordingly.
	These things can be great fun BTW - Had a friend (honest a friend)
talking to one on Lambda for ages! - Took him a long time to work out and he
was a tad embarresed when he did!
	Anyway that means that there is one wizard owned verb running
everything and the builders can create the mobiles with the normal @create.
Also is a hell of a lot more Processor friendly (I presume).

From matt.ksu.ksu.edu!danodom Fri Jun  4 15:01:48 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "4" "June" "1993" "14:50:55" "-0700" "Dan Odom" "danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu " nil "14" "Re: Robots and visible exits" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9306041147.AA07373@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>; from \"S.Casey\" at Jun 4, 93 4:47 am ope"
Message-ID: <9306042150.AA08110@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date:	Fri, 4 Jun 1993 14:50:55 -0700
From:	danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Dan Odom)
To:	cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk (S.Casey)
cc:	moo-cows@xerox.com (Moo Cows)
Subject: Re: Robots and visible exits

S.Casey Said:

> 	These things can be great fun BTW - Had a friend (honest a friend)
> talking to one on Lambda for ages! - Took him a long time to work out and he
> was a tad embarresed when he did!

Hmm... Anybody implemented Eliza or (that other, better doctor
thinggie) in MOO? :-)

-- 
Dan Odom
danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu -- Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

Support the League for Programming Freedom.  Mail lpf@uunet.uu.net

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Jun  4 15:13:59 1993
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Date:	Fri, 4 Jun 1993 15:05:48 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu
cc:	cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Robots and visible exits

   Date: 	Fri, 4 Jun 1993 14:50:55 PDT
   From: danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Dan Odom)

   Hmm... Anybody implemented Eliza or (that other, better doctor
   thinggie) in MOO? :-)

Yep, on LambdaMOO, in the Dept of Applied Psychology in the University
(n, e, e, u, e, e, n, e, n, <I forget at this point but you're close>
from the Living Room.  waffle's work.



From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Jun  7 10:14:18 1993
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Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: PANICKING!!!!!


OK - Myself and a friend run two different MOOs. They both worked fine until
recently when I downloaded the source again. Now they both keep panicking
daily.. It's annoying loadsa people, and I was just wondering... Is there a
known bug??? It happens with both the Sun4 binary and LambdaMOO-1.7.0.tar.Z,
with ONC enabled or disabled....

Baffled !?!?! MagicDragon@MagicMOO

From media.mit.edu!asb Mon Jun  7 11:14:44 1993
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Date:	Mon, 7 Jun 1993 10:55:40 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, lin@media.mit.edu
Subject: MOO on a Sun4


MagicDragon: what is the error in the log file when your MOO
crashes.

We are also having trouble with MOO on a Sun4.  I don't know if this is a
system management problem (I'm rotten at it) or a MOO problem; probably the
former.  We get "memory allocation" failed all the time, even though by my
calculations we should have plenty of memory available: I believe 36 Mb RAM
plus 100 Mb swap space.  The MOO process takes up about 17Mb memory (twice
that when it forks.)

> pstat -s
28984k allocated + 3824k reserved = 32808k used, 66568k available

> ps -aux
USER       PID %CPU %MEM   SZ  RSS TT STAT START  TIME COMMAND
MediaMOO  3793  7.8 40.81843613980 ?  R    00:26  60:08 ./moo MediaMOO.db MediaM

> top
last pid:  4457;  load averages:  0.60,  0.33,  0.04                   14:00:02
51 processes:  49 sleeping, 2 running
Cpu states: 23.0% user,  0.0% nice, 45.5% system, 31.5% idle
Memory: 32260K available, 32016K in use, 244K free, 1988K locked

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE   TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
 4301 lin        1    0  2644K 1496K sleep   0:48 25.03% 25.00% Xsun
 4315 lin        1    0   464K  368K sleep   0:16 15.55% 14.06% twm
 3793 MediaMOO   1    0 18620K 13928K sleep  60:30  0.78%  0.78% moo
 4457 MediaMOO  26    0   512K  804K run     0:00  0.00%  0.00% top

-- Amy


From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Mon Jun  7 11:38:46 1993
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Sender: PARC.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO on a Sun4


I'm sure it said "SERVER PANIC" originally, but now I think it's to do with
open_network_connection(); as the last log entries but two said

Jun  7 15:59:28: ACCEPT: #-75 on 14 from open_network_connection()
Jun  7 15:59:29: DISCONNECTED: #-75 on 14 from open_network_connection()

and then the log ends.

stats:

dougal% /usr/etc/pstat -s
10520k allocated + 1172k reserved = 11692k used, 71104k available

dougal% ps -aux
USER       PID %CPU %MEM   SZ  RSS TT STAT START  TIME COMMAND
whiteve    955  0.0 24.1 7264 6812 ?  S    17:19   3:50 ./c c.db c.db.new

dougal% ls -l
total 8550
-rwxr-xr-x  1 whiteve    647168 Jun  7 17:18 c
-rw-r--r--  1 whiteve   4010019 Jun  7 15:43 c.db
-rw-r--r--  1 whiteve   4010543 Jun  7 19:02 c.db.new
-rw-r--r--  1 whiteve      6211 Jun  7 19:06 c.log
-rw-r--r--  1 whiteve     45818 Jun  7 17:19 c.log.old
-rwx------  1 whiteve      1793 Jun  3 20:18 restart

Everytime I come back to log in someone tells me 'the MOO is down again', it's
most infuriating...
Could it be a bug, or something to do with ONC, or what??? Or is the DB just
too big???

Help - MagicDragon@MagicMOO

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jun  7 11:54:48 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "7" "June" "1993" "11:48:47" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "30" "Re: MOO on a Sun4" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <3229.9306071821@cs.aston.ac.uk>
Date:	Mon, 7 Jun 1993 11:48:47 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO on a Sun4

> Date:	Mon, 7 Jun 1993 11:21:16 -0700
> From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@cs.aston.ac.uk>
> 
> I'm sure it said "SERVER PANIC" originally, but now I think it's to do with
> open_network_connection(); as the last log entries but two said
> 
> Jun  7 15:59:28: ACCEPT: #-75 on 14 from open_network_connection()
> Jun  7 15:59:29: DISCONNECTED: #-75 on 14 from open_network_connection()
> 
> and then the log ends.
> 
> Could it be a bug, or something to do with ONC, or what??? Or is the DB just
> too big???

It doesn't sound like a bug in ONC and it's certainly not that the DB is `just
too big' (since it's pretty tiny by comparison with LambdaMOO).  If you get a
`panic', then there should be a message in the log saying something more and
there should be a core file around.  If the server process is gone but the log
doesn't contain a PANIC entry, then either the server was killed by an
uncatchable signal (e.g., `kill -9' or a page fault to a deleted NFS-mounted
server binary file) or else the operating system crashed without giving the
server a chance to save its state.  In these situations, you've got to figure
out what that external killing force is and fix it.

If, on the other hand, you're getting a PANIC entry in the log, then I'd need
to know some more information to help you.  First, what's the PANIC reason
given in the log?  Second, start up a debugger on the executable and the core
file and let me know what a stack backtrace looks like.

	Pavel

From cool.vortech.com!clay Mon Jun  7 15:42:41 1993
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Date:	Mon, 7 Jun 1993 15:24:30 -0700
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To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (moo)
Subject: House of Wax
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The House of Wax is back online.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310

I dunno.

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Tue Jun  8 00:54:16 1993
Status: RO
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Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 00:40:10 -0700
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, severy@is.ge.com
Subject: graphical moo client


Hi !

I just uploaded my 2D graphical client to parcftp.xerox.com
(gtt-1.4.tar.Z). It is > 99% bug free (I hope), and I also
added the bitmaps I created up to now (VisionMoo.maps.tar.Z).
If anybody wants to give it a try, my experimental VisionMoo is
often running on working days from 8:30 to 16:00 (GMT+2)
at idefix.risc.uni-linz.ac.at 4201  (193.170.34.110  4201),
except this tuesday and friday.

Regards,  Stefan

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Tue Jun  8 01:07:17 1993
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Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, severy@is.ge.com
Subject: graphical moo client


:
:
except this tuesday and friday.
            ^^^^^^^
Sh**, I meant thursday, not tuesday. Today it is up.

Sorry,  Stefan

From shrug.dur.ac.uk!scott Tue Jun  8 01:47:31 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "8" "June" "1993" "01:30:00" "-0700" "Scott A. McIntyre" "scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk " "<m0o2z4t-000M51C@shrug.dur.ac.uk>" "18" "combining db's" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 01:30:00 -0700
From:	scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (Scott A. McIntyre)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: combining db's
Reply-to: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk


I've started a fair bit of work on my own MOO and have been using the Lambda  
Core as the basic building block...as snapshots are taken of the core of  
lambda, I'd like to stay current with whatever modifications or upgrades or  
whatever takes place...is it feasible to somehow combine or integrate the  
differences between new versions of the core db and my own database?  


Secondly, how could I integrate the HelpSystem?

Ta,

Scott

---
EMAIL: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk   OR   scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (NeXTmail)
SNAIL: Pyschment of Departology, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE
	"Did you know that the computer invented itself?" - SNL

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Jun  8 03:24:58 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "8" "June" "1993" "02:56:30" "-0700" "\"S.Casey\"" "cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "42" "Sorry about non MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 02:56:30 -0700
From:	"S.Casey" <cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Sorry about non MOO

	Sorry about the non-MOOiness of this but I really think (presuming it is serious!) It affects the MOO community a lot.  Really dunno If it is just a load of rubbish but here goes.....
PLEASE FORWARD TO OTHER NETWORKS



Most of you are probably aware of a plan to limit free use of
INTERNET to "scientists" transmitting huge files and to start
charging for e-mail.  Apparently, this is the result of private
telecommunications interests putting pressure on the National
Science Foundation.

If this plan is realized, it will mean that the majority of the
approximately 15 million users of INTERNET will be cut off.
Sadly, this is occurring just when the potential of this network
was starting to be realized.

Something must be DONE.  We can not let private interests deprive
us of access to INTERNET.

I suggest that all concerned users register their protest/concern
directly with Clinton and Gore via e-mail.  Their e-mail address
have recently been posted and they are:

Clinton= PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV
Gore = VICE.PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV

In addition, I also suggest that we identify the office in the
NSF which is responsible for INTERNET and register electronic
protests with them.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated, especially in
locating the e-mail address for the office in the NSF.

**********************************************************************
* Carl H.A. Dassbach            BITNET:  DASSBACH@MTUS5              *
* Dept. of Social Sciences      INTERNET: DASSBACH@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU *
* Michigan Technological Univ.  PHONE: (906)487-2115                 *
* Houghton,  MI  49931          FAX: (906)487-2468                   *
* U.S.A.                                                             *
**********************************************************************



From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Jun  8 09:43:49 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "8" "June" "1993" "09:33:59" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "15" "Re: Sorry about non MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306081633.AA02781@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 09:33:59 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	"S.Casey" <cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Sorry about non MOO


Your message dated: Tue, 08 Jun 93 02:56:30 PDT
> 	Sorry about the non-MOOiness of this but I really think (presuming it i
> s serious!) It affects the MOO community a lot.  Really dunno If it is just a
>  load of rubbish but here goes.....
> PLEASE FORWARD TO OTHER NETWORKS

Sorry, indeed.
This is a chain letter filled with misinformation.
Never believe anything in all caps.

Send mail to com-priv-request@psi.com if you want to join a group where the
real (and quite complicated) scoop about these issues is discussed ad nauseum.

-- Amy

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Jun  8 11:08:49 1993
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Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: OK!

	Ok - Enough already - SORRY SORRY SORRY - I however thought that this
particular piece of 'rubbish' Was rather important to the MOOing community. I
thought that all of us/them should know about it if it is true.  I will not do
it again ok?(hmm)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jun  8 15:05:19 1993
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References: <m0o2z4t-000M51C@shrug.dur.ac.uk>
Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 14:55:17 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: combining db's

> Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 01:30:00 -0700
> From:	scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (Scott A. McIntyre)
> 
> ...is it feasible to somehow combine or integrate the differences between new
> versions of the core db and my own database?
> 
> Secondly, how could I integrate the HelpSystem?

Maybe we really do need an FAQ for this mailing list...

Anyhow, no, there is currently no technology for doing this kind of merger.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Jun  9 10:27:10 1993
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Message-ID: <9306091714.AA05901@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Tue, 8 Jun 1993 12:40:53 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: MOO on a Sun4

> 
> 
> MagicDragon: what is the error in the log file when your MOO
> crashes.
> 
> We are also having trouble with MOO on a Sun4.  I don't know if this is a
> system management problem (I'm rotten at it) or a MOO problem; probably the
> former.  We get "memory allocation" failed all the time, even though by my
> calculations we should have plenty of memory available: I believe 36 Mb RAM
> plus 100 Mb swap space.  The MOO process takes up about 17Mb memory (twice
> that when it forks.)

This is a problem NeXT users have been having since I started back at 1.6.x
on a daily basis I will get an 'IOT trap' with 'malloc() failed' showing
in the log. The panic uses malloc() to expand the compressed code and so that
gives a recursive panic and aborts. Pavel informed me this was a 'NeXT' problem
and not his. I don't know enough to determine the exact cause. I have plenty
of swap available. I know 3 other NeXT Moo's with the same problem and now
it seems this also happens on Sun4. I personal idea is that the huge number of
tiny malloc() free() calls fragments too much but I know little of the internal
memory routines of Unix/Mach. My MOO takes 4-5MB of memory. 

This is not a flame. Pavel has created a wonderful platform but I wish we
would see 1.8.0, a disk based DB etc. soon. The delay on disk basing decides
the future of my MOO. A good question would be are you using the GNU malloc
or the system malloc() when compiling? NeXT must use their own system malloc().




From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Wed Jun  9 11:11:25 1993
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Date:	Wed, 9 Jun 1993 11:12:00 -0700
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: vm_deallocate error
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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Alright, not only have i had enuf of the vm_allocate errors causing my MOO
to crash, now i've got a new one!

Is is possible for the creators/maintainers of the MOO server code to make
a nextStep specific version, so it knows how to release memory properly? 
I think that there are enuf MOO's running on NeXT's to warrant this (I
know of 4 at hand).


my new error: vm_deallocate error
 then the MOO just stopped running.  no warnings.  no nothing.

- crwilson@way too many different e-mail addresses.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jun  9 11:31:16 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "9" "June" "1993" "11:21:48" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "22" "Re: vm_deallocate error" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <9306091812.AA14916@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 9 Jun 1993 11:21:48 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: vm_deallocate error

> Date:	Wed, 9 Jun 1993 11:12:00 -0700
> From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
> 
> Is is possible for the creators/maintainers of the MOO server code to make
> a nextStep specific version, so it knows how to release memory properly? 
> I think that there are enuf MOO's running on NeXT's to warrant this (I
> know of 4 at hand).

I'm afraid that I must disagree.  The number of NeXT machines running MOO
servers is almost entirely irrelevant to how I choose to spend my time working
on the server.  The server uses the ANSI standard memory allocation primitives
malloc() and free() in a completely correct fashion, with no leaks of any
significant size (i.e. no more than a few kilobytes of lost memory over the
course of weeks).  If the NeXT implementation of those primitives is buggy or
inferior, that's a shame but not a major concern for me personally.

Now, all that says is that I won't even attempt to make a NeXTStep-specific
version of the server myself.  I will, however, consider incorporating somebody
else's well-written and -documented patches into the general release.  Feel
free to send them along.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Jun  9 11:35:57 1993
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Date:	Wed, 9 Jun 1993 11:26:00 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: vm_deallocate error

> 
> Alright, not only have i had enuf of the vm_allocate errors causing my MOO
> to crash, now i've got a new one!
> 
> Is is possible for the creators/maintainers of the MOO server code to make
> a nextStep specific version, so it knows how to release memory properly? 
> I think that there are enuf MOO's running on NeXT's to warrant this (I
> know of 4 at hand).
> 
> 
> my new error: vm_deallocate error
>  then the MOO just stopped running.  no warnings.  no nothing.
> 
> - crwilson@way too many different e-mail addresses.
> 

I got this once too. Does seem to be a global NeXT memory allocation/dealloc
problem. There are NO core dumps however from it. Just panics. Yeh, I hate
NeXT but I don't see getting any other machine for the MOO. My plan is to
go to 20MB of ram and NeXT Step 3.0. Dunno if this will help or not. Anyone
running NS3? I have found something interesting. If I only run the MOO from
like 7pm - 7am then my likelyhood of a panic is small or none. The longer
the MOO is running the more likely it is to panic. I would say that this
would reflect the increase in malloc()/free() type calls in the period of
time. I have perused the kernel malloc() pages and it seems that a NIL
pointer (which is what malloc() is returning and causes the panic) can
be returned if a significant amount of fragmentation has occoured. Unfortunatly,
I'm not at the host machine (and its locked up) so I can't pull it up (unless
someone has an RTF -> Text program they can send me) or maybe another NeXT
user can send Pavel a copy. 

Maybe disk basing would be a help since then I won't lose an hour or whatever
since the last dump each time it happens. I love the MOO server and have too
much time invested to ever consider switching but I'd love to have my server
running as long as Lambda does with dieing.

In my opinion, the NeXT can't seem to cope with the huge amount of malloc()
free() calls that the MOO makes. Of course, I could be wrong! Since I doubt
there are bugs in the code because Lambda sure hasn't seen them it is likely
to be NeXT based. However, a WORK-AROUND would sure be nice #IFDEF NEXT!!!

-- 
Jonathan Bradshaw | Email Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Prodigy XMSN02B | Ham N9OXE
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
"If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"-Deborah Gibson

From cheetah.math.oxy.edu!t_pascal Wed Jun  9 23:21:21 1993
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Date:	Wed, 9 Jun 1993 23:11:49 -0700
From:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: NeXT-specific server (was Re: vm_deallocate error)


>Is is possible for the creators/maintainers of the MOO server code to make
>a nextStep specific version, so it knows how to release memory properly? 
>
Well, this would be nice, but why not some NeXT programmers work on a server
in NeXT's (GNU's?) Objective C?  I've worked faint-heartedly on such a thing,
Instead of faking object orientedness with C, use actual objects in Objective
C.  Of course, Objective C is faked object orientedness, but why not let the
compiler do it for you?

Ideally, this NeXT server would be written in ObjC, be db and interpreted code
compatible, and of course, be as solid as Lambda on a Sparc.  Might even be
faster if Objective C provided any optimizations.  And here's be a kicker:
It will compile and run on IBM clones running NeXTStep.  Heck, you could even
write a front end for the restart script which would ask for port number, etc.

Don't look to me for code, I've graduated! :) :)  I'll be happy to discuss
ideas, however.

---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal          | "He travels fastest who travels alone,
1600 Campus Road, Box 829          | but not when the frost drops below zero
Los Angeles, CA 90041              | fifty degrees or more."
                                   |         -Old eskimo saying
       t_pascal@{{{cub,cheetah,jaguar}.math},tiger,cheshire}.oxy.edu

From shrug.dur.ac.uk!scott Thu Jun 10 00:26:06 1993
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Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 00:17:00 -0700
From:	scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (Scott A. McIntyre)
To:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: vm_deallocate error (NeXT)
Reply-to: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk


Perhaps I'm just lucky...I've been running a MOO server on my NeXTstation  
Colour with 32 meg of ram with NeXTstep 3.0 for the last three weeks and the  
MOO server has not had any problems that I have seen.  If anything, the only  
crashes that have occured have been NeXT's fault (IE Workspace Manager post  
script errors) and the MOO code has been entirely robust.

It's widely known that NeXT's malloc() is hosed, I say widely known in that  
lots of programs that are perfectly fine on other platforms crunch on the NeXT  
due to malloc problems.  


I don't know what to suggest, I haven't had any problems so far, but as I said  
maybe I'm just lucky.  Mr. Curtis certainly has NO responsibility to either  
correct or even address the problem.  Maybe 3.1 will fix it?  Maybe not...

Scott

---
EMAIL: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk   OR   scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (NeXTmail)
SNAIL: Pyschment of Departology, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE
	"Did you know that the computer invented itself?" - SNL

From athena.com!ghudson Thu Jun 10 08:35:48 1993
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From:	ghudson@athena.com (Greg Hudson)
To:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu
cc:	Moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: NEXT-specific server (was Re: vm_deallocate error)

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To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Built_in

	Ok start from basics - I want a MOO server on My little 'ole amiga and
I found it in pub/MOO/contrib.
	It works - great - however needs a different kinda DB seemingly - Does
anyone know how  I can modify the lambda one for it? - Otherwise Does anyone
have a list of Built_in verbs & properties etc etc etc?
	Hope for the first but the second would be interesting (hmm)
	Thanks for your time..
		Steve (aka DEATH/Kallisti)

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Thu Jun 10 10:12:21 1993
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Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 10:04:07 -0700
From:	ghudson@athena.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: My apologies


Oops!  I sincerely apologize for sending NextMail to a mailing list.
I didn't know what I was doing.  The message wasn't terribly
important, so I won't bother to resend.

--GBH


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Jun 10 10:47:46 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "10" "June" "1993" "10:40:23" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.com " nil "31" "Re: NEXT-specific server (was Re: vm_deallocate error)" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <9306101518.AA11846@hermes.athena.com>
Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 10:40:23 -0700
From:	ghudson@athena.com (Greg Hudson)
Sender: pavel@parc.xerox.com
To:	Moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: NEXT-specific server (was Re: vm_deallocate error)

[Here follows the human-readable text of Greg Hudson's recent message -- Pavel]

> Instead of faking object orientedness with C, use actual objects in Objective
> C.  Of course, Objective C is faked object orientedness, but why not let
> the compiler do it for you?

I think you're confusing the program's behavior with its implementation.
If you want to be database-compatible with MOO, then you're presumably
interpreting MOO code, and not letting people attach their own objects
(which is too dangerous for a multi-programmer environment anyway).
Therefore, using or not using Objective C is an implementation question.

> Might even be faster if Objective C provided any optimizations.

Why?  This is an interpreter.  I've never seen any great advantage to
object-oriented programming for interpreters, and Objective C isn't
known for its blinding speed.  Yes, the interpreter is for an object-oriented 
language (well, so they say; I don't find MOO very object-oriented), but this
doesn't mean an object-oriented implementation is going to do the job any
better.

> And here's be a kicker: It will compile and run on IBM clones running
> NeXTStep.

I'm typing this message on an IBM clone running NEXTSTEP, and I think it's
very nice, but I don't consider your "kicker" a great achievement.  Lambda
already compiles and runs on IBM clones running NEXTSTEP; for that matter,
it presumably compiles and runs on considerably less heavyweight IBM clones
running Linux, and without any silly memory allocation errors.

--GBH

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Thu Jun 10 13:22:33 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "10" "June" "1993" "13:07:10" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "18" "Linux MOOs..." "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 13:07:10 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	Moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Linux MOOs...

Since it came up, I'm wondering if anyone has actually tried (dare I ask, 
succeeded) in compiling and running the server under Linux? I just recently
got the latest Linux release off tsx-11.mit.edu. I installed it and tried to
compile the server. Wierd stuff happened. It was like Linux couldn't find
(or didn't have) basic ANSI C header files. I searched some directories and
*I* couldn't find them. Stuff like stdio.h and string.h were nowhere to be
found. I manually reinstalled each disk in the installation with no luck. If
anyone has managed this (I know it's more of a Linux question at this point),
please let me know. I'm planning to do some core mods to my tiny little MOO, 
running off my tiny little 386, over the summer, if possible.

====Rob.

P.S. ForeMOO (which I just took down for the summer) has been running on a
     Sun4 (4.1.1 to be exact) for well over a month without the slightest
     hitch. Like I said, it's a small MOO, we only used about 2.5MB memory,
     so the hardiness of our server may not be a testament to anything, but
     it's been working fine. (Well, it makes ME happy, anyway.. ;) )

From whyanext.com!eric Thu Jun 10 14:30:59 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "10" "June" "1993" "14:23:03" "-0700" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " nil "12" "Still a chance for MOO coverage on TV" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 14:23:03 -0700
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	TechMOOers@whyanext.com
Subject: Still a chance for MOO coverage on TV
Reply-To: eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)


[from LambdaMOO:]

[ss] Ahtraddis shouts, "Please forgive the interruption, but YOUR ATTENTION
PLEASE!!  There's a possibility that events happening on The TechMOOseum
(whyanext.com 8888) between 5 pm and 8 pm tonight MAY be captured on videotape
for ABC's 'PrimeTime Live'.  Feel free to stop by if you'd like to participate.
Thanks.  -Ahtraddis"


	Eric Schwartz
	eric@whyanext.com

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Jun 10 15:29:43 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "10" "June" "1993" "15:19:27" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "32" "Patch for HP/UX server problem" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <93Jun10.151930pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 15:19:27 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kira@feenix.metronet.com
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Patch for HP/UX server problem

Below is a patch for problems folks have had with the LambdaMOO server on HP
machines.  The patch changes the server to use something that HP/UX recognizes
as a request for BSD-style non-blocking I/O on network connections.

-- If you've hacked the server file net_bsd_tcp.c to change the value assigned
   to `proto->believe_eof', restore that line to its original form:

	proto->believe_eof = 1;

Then make these two changes to net_multi.c:

-- Add this line among the #include's at the top:

	#include "my-ioctl.h"

-- Replace the entire implementation of set_non_blocking() with the following:

	int
	set_non_blocking(int fd)
	{
	    int	yes = 1;

	    if (ioctl(fd, FIONBIO, &yes) < 0)
		return 0;
	    else
		return 1;
	}

That should do it.  I'll add code to the next release that automatically
employs this workaround when required.

	Pavel

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Thu Jun 10 16:25:39 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "10" "June" "1993" "16:12:13" "-0700" "Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu " nil "16" "More on Linux MOOs..." "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Thu, 10 Jun 1993 16:12:13 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville)
To:	Moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: More on Linux MOOs...

Hmmm... Sorry, looks like I wasn't specific enough...
I did, in fact, get the "C" series of the SLS installation, which contains
all the compilers including GCC. Both of the directories HPA indicated 
contained C header files, but nothing as simple and straightforward as 
stdio.h. Lots of slightly more obscure stuff, tho. As I recall now, I did
have some trouble with disk C2 of the latest SLS release (1.01). The install
script didn't recognize the disk. I installed all the files on the disk 
manually, but it's HIGHLY likely I missed a file, like the one containing
the standard header files, which would've been, I suppose, on that disk.
I'm on my way right now to ftp that particular disk again, and hopefully
that'll solve my problem.

Glad to know it compiles and runs neatly, though.. :)

Thanks for all the help!
====Rob.

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Sat Jun 12 19:19:06 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "12" "June" "1993" "19:10:34" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "23" "TAB" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306130211.AA19901@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Sat, 12 Jun 1993 19:10:34 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: TAB

  TREATMENT OF TAB CHARACTERS CHANGES
     The server used to treat any TAB (Ctrl-I) characters you typed as
  if they were spaces.  Be aware that they are now preserved as real TAB
  characters and can be output as such.

AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!  

You had gotten this one right the first time.

The use of TAB characters is a leftover from the typewriter era (much
like the distinction between CR and LF) and IMNSHO is one of the
broken features (interpretations, really) about ASCII that should be
left in the dustbin with SOH, STX, ^Q & ^S for flow control, etc....  

Once TAB becomes available, people will start using it, blithely assuming 
that everyone has the same tab settings on his/her terminal (or any tab 
settings at all for that matter).

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From parc.xerox.com!masinter Sat Jun 12 22:34:10 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "12" "June" "1993" "22:28:53" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "4" "Re: TAB" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Roger Crew's message of Sat, 12 Jun 1993 19:10:34 -0700 <9306130211.AA19901@palnu.research.microsoft.com>"
Message-ID: <93Jun12.222858pdt.2741@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Sat, 12 Jun 1993 22:28:53 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	rfc@research.microsoft.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: TAB

This patch was necessary to get gopher to work. It's the only special
character used by gopher or world-wide-web.

Yes, MOOers shouldn't use tab characters in their descriptions.

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Sat Jun 12 22:37:51 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "12" "June" "1993" "22:40:13" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca" nil "32" "Tabs" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306130540.AA14725@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Sat, 12 Jun 1993 22:40:13 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@docboy.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Tabs

I like tabs for the reason that they formatted programming easier, but the use
of control-i for storing the space info can be improved upon.  I once
implemented an interpreter that had a special token for multiple spaces.  This
was in the days when I was doing stuff on C64's and memory was at a premium.
It let me indent stuff to my hearts content using at most 2 bytes per
indentation and at a known length.  I know tab-characters also save space but
are variable as was mentioned earlier.

________^i________^i for name in (this.things)
______ for name in (this.things)

With tabs, unless you are at a tabstop you have to use extra spaces to format
properly, using a SPACE token the problem doesn't arise. Of course the sheme I
had implemented had a limit of 255 consecutive spaces but since that is larger
than any likely line length it isn't a problem.

The above example becomes: (for both cases)

T#for name in (this.things)

T=space token, #=space character count.

I just thought I would mention it in case anyone was interested in
alternatives.

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Thu Jun 17 07:18:37 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "07:00:36" "-0700" "Tim Sailer" "sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov " nil "10" "Verb editor" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306171400.AA17972@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>
Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 07:00:36 -0700
From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Verb editor
Content-Type: text

Somehow, our verb editor is messed up... we keep on getting range errors
and stuff like that. Has anyone ever seen this, and does anyone know
how to fix it?

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From media.mit.edu!asb Thu Jun 17 07:46:10 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "07:35:05" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "7" "malloc" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306171435.AA01187@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 07:35:05 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: malloc


Hey, we've been up for a whole week without crashing since we 
switched from GNU malloc to the built-in malloc on our Sun 4!
Pretty neat, huh?

-- Amy


From media.mit.edu!adams Thu Jun 17 11:30:48 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "11:18:46" "-0700" "adams@media.mit.edu" "adams@media.mit.edu" nil "24" "Re: unsuccessful subscribe" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306171818.AA16609@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 11:18:46 -0700
From:	adams@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, adams@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: unsuccessful subscribe



Dear MOOers

I am working on a client project at the Media Lab and I am trying to make it
easier for the client to recognize certain unexpected text. I would like to
modify the notify verb so that it could set the PREFIX and SUFFIX. So far I
have been only able to override my tell verb and bracket the pass(@args)
call with pass("prefix") and pass("suffix") to simulate a PREFIX and 
SUFFIX.

like this:

	pass(">>PREFIX Object");
	pass(@args);
	pass(">>SUFFIX Object");

I have two questions: How can I directly change the PREFIX and SUFFIXes
from WITHIN a verb, and how can I do this for NOTIFY rather than TELL?
Using TELL works with most objects, but there are a few objects that
use NOTIFY rather than TELL and they slip through my changes.

Adam Skwersky
adams@media.mit.edu

From hydra.unm.edu!tapia Thu Jun 17 12:20:13 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "12:10:45" "-0700" "Ron Tapia" "tapia@hydra.unm.edu" nil "33" "prefix/suffix question (Was: Re: unsuccessful subscribe)" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 12:10:45 -0700
From:	Ron Tapia <tapia@hydra.unm.edu>
To:	adams@media.mit.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: prefix/suffix question (Was: Re: unsuccessful subscribe)


adams@media.mit.edu writes,

     I Am Working On A Client Project At The Media Lab And I Am Trying To
     Make It Easier For The Client To Recognize Certain Unexpected Text.
     I Would Like To
     Modify The Notify Verb So That It Could Set The PREFIX And SUFFIX.
     So Far I
     have been only able to override my tell verb and bracket the pass(@args)
     Call With Pass("Prefix") And Pass("Suffix") To Simulate A PREFIX And
     SUFFIX.

     like this:

             Pass(">>PREFIX Object");
             pass(@args);
             Pass(">>SUFFIX Object");

     I Have Two Questions: How Can I Directly Change The PREFIX And SUFFIXes
     From WITHIN A Verb, And How Can I Do This For NOTIFY Rather Than TELL?
     Using TELL Works With Most Objects, But There Are A Few Objects That
     Use NOTIFY Rather Than TELL And They Slip Through My Changes.

I don't think that you can change the PREFIX and SUFFIX from within a verb. You
probably don't want to. They are provided so that clients can reasonably
determine the beginning and end of MOO output. The client should have complete
control over these strings.

Note that your simulation is not accurate. The PREFIX and SUFFIX prepended and
appended to the output of each command and have nothing to do with the verbs
tell and notify.

-Ron Tapia

From cygnus.com!ambar Thu Jun 17 15:50:20 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "15:33:27" "-0700" "ambar@cygnus.com" "ambar@cygnus.com" nil "17" "Re: malloc" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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             <9306171435.AA01187@media.mit.edu>        OMEN AND"
Message-ID: <9306172233.AA03614@kyriath.cygnus.com>
Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 15:33:27 -0700
From:	ambar@cygnus.com
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: malloc


This is a well-known bug, I thought, but perhaps this will help
someone....

The libc in SunOS 4.x (verifiably 4.1.1, possibly earlier, possibly
later) is buggy.  In particular, Sun's malloc() always allocates a bit
more memory than it was asked for.... and Sun's ctime() DEPENDS on this
broken behavior.

Ergo, any program which uses ctime() and a non-standard malloc() risks
crashing under this OS.

I just grit my teeth and use Sun's malloc.

FYI.
				AMBAR


From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Jun 17 20:01:38 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "19:53:38" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu " nil "11" "RE: Verb editor" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <930617195338.234007aa@CANTH.HACKS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 19:53:38 -0700
From:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu (A VAX's nightmare)
To:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Verb editor

> Somehow, our verb editor is messed up... we keep on getting range errors
> and stuff like that. Has anyone ever seen this, and does anyone know
> how to fix it?

Without seeing the tracebacks, I couldn't tell you whats wrong. If anyone has
been tampering with the contents of properties refferenced from the verb and
didn't get them set quite right, this could be the problem. Anything else
depends on what the traceback says. Without seeing it, I can't be of much help.

-Wayne/Sadric@L
ambdaMOO

From tntech.edu!JAD7084 Thu Jun 17 21:00:34 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "17" "June" "1993" "20:53:01" "-0700" "Jim Davis" "JAD7084@tntech.edu" nil "44" "JanusMOO Verb Editor" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Thu, 17 Jun 1993 20:53:01 -0700
From:	Jim Davis <JAD7084@tntech.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: JanusMOO Verb Editor
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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Okay, here's a traceback for ya.  The following is a log of what the
problem looks like.  For convenience, the lines I entered are preceded by
">>".

>> @edit #945:map
Verb Editor
 
Do a 'look' to get the list of commands, or 'help' for assistance.
 
#50:init_session, line 5:  Range error
... called from #51:invoke (this == #50), line 42
... called from #59:@edit (this == #550), line 6
(End of traceback)
 
>> @disp #59
generic programmer (#59) [ readable fertile ]
  Owned by Wizard (#2).
  Child of generic builder (#4).
-------------------------------- finished ---------------------------------
 
>> @disp #51
Generic Editor (#51) [ readable fertile ]
  Owned by Hacker (#38).
  Child of generic room (#3).
-------------------------------- finished ---------------------------------
 
>> @list #50:init_session
#50:"init_session"   this none this
 1:  if (this:ok(who = args[1]))
 2:    object = args[2];
 3:    vname = args[3];
 4:    this:load(who, args[4]);
 5:    this.verbnames[who] = vname;
 6:    this.objects[who] = object;
 7:    this.active[who]:tell("Now editing ", this:working_on(who), ".");
 8:    "this.active[who]:tell(\"Now editing \", object, \":\", vname,
\".\");";
 9:  endif
 

Sorry to spam the mailing list, but this bug's been driving me nuts, too...

        -Jim


From foghorn.pass.wayne.edu!dan Fri Jun 18 08:01:59 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Fri" "18" "June" "1993" "07:21:21" "-0700" "Daniel Cwiertniewicz" "dan@foghorn.pass.wayne.edu " nil "19" "Trouble with gopher" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 18 Jun 1993 07:21:21 -0700
From:	dan@foghorn.pass.wayne.edu (Daniel Cwiertniewicz)
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Trouble with gopher

Hi,

This is probably a FAQ, but I'm having trouble making gopher work on my MOO.
I'm running 1.7.0 under SunOS 4.1.2.  Here is the error message:

You jump to gopher.cit.wayne.edu socket 70 on the slate.
The gopher request results in an error: Permission denied

I'm very new to this, and am not sure how to tell if I have o_n_c enabled.
I should also note that I fixed $network.postmaster, .site, .MOO_name, and 
.large_domains.  I'm not really sure how to change .port because I get
the error 'type mismatch' when I try to @notedit it.

Thanks for any help...

Daniel Cwiertniewicz				Phone:	(313)-577-0787
Systems Analyst, Networking Support Group	Fax:	(313)-577-8787
Computing and Information Technology		E-Mail:	DCWIERT@WAYNEST1 or
Wayne State University				dan@foghorn.pass.wayne.edu

From dartmouth.edu!Michael.J.Fromberger Fri Jun 18 12:23:19 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Fri" "18" "June" "1993" "11:57:09" "-0700" "Michael J. Fromberger" "Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu " nil "15" "No echo?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <5210506@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 18 Jun 1993 11:57:09 -0700
From:	Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu (Michael J. Fromberger)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: No echo?
Reply-to: sting@dartmouth.edu

Is it possible (and if so, how) to call read() such that the user's input is
not echoed on the terminal?  Can you send Telnet or ANSI sequences to this
effect from the MOO?

Please reply to me directly, as I am not on this list (yet).

:)

-Caedmon
(developing at aurora.dartmouth.edu, port 7777)

--
Michael J. Fromberger
Consultant, Postmaster
Sting@Dartmouth.EDU / mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu

From u.washington.edu!armitage Fri Jun 18 13:19:54 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Fri" "18" "June" "1993" "13:03:56" "-0700" "Peter" "armitage@u.washington.edu" nil "52" "Re: No echo?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 18 Jun 1993 13:03:56 -0700
From:	Peter <armitage@u.washington.edu>
Sender: armitage@stein2.u.washington.edu
To:	"Michael J. Fromberger" <Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu>
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: No echo?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii


Heh.  I did this with a pretty simple patch to the server, but I warn you
that there are a ton of problems with a non-echoing read.

The first is, if you want to do a prompt (I added a non-<CR>-ing tell as
well), here's what happens:

>Enter something:

Now, if you're just telneting to the MOO, you would then type your text,
and that's what the non-echoing read would get.  But, if you are using the
client, you will get the whole line returned (because the Emacs client
returns everything between the '>' and the linefeed).  Lame.  But it can
be filtered out (sort of) by just scanning through the returned string and
removing '>Enter something: ' from the beginning, if indeed it exists.
Clear?  No?  Hm.

Also, if you want to do an LP-style login:/password: deal, forget it.  If
you try to do a read() of any sort in do_login_command, do_login_command
will NEVER return a value.  I don't really know why, but I do know that
read() is a bit of a hack anyway.

So, if that didn't discourage you, I'd be glad to mail you the server mods
(they're pretty trivial).

                       [gcc]                                     [g++]
/*--------------------------            // ---------------------------
  Peter (Z-man) Zatloukal               //  Peter (Z-man) Zatloukal
  NeXT Lab Administrator                //  ACC Lead Lab Assistant
  armitage@u.washington.edu             //  armitage@u.washington.edu
  --------------------------*/          // ---------------------------


On Fri, 18 Jun 1993, Michael J. Fromberger wrote:

> Is it possible (and if so, how) to call read() such that the user's input is
> not echoed on the terminal?  Can you send Telnet or ANSI sequences to this
> effect from the MOO?
> 
> Please reply to me directly, as I am not on this list (yet).
> 
> :)
> 
> -Caedmon
> (developing at aurora.dartmouth.edu, port 7777)
> 
> --
> Michael J. Fromberger
> Consultant, Postmaster
> Sting@Dartmouth.EDU / mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu



From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Sat Jun 19 17:34:22 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "19" "June" "1993" "17:17:40" "-0700" "Lynx" "BRANDON@cc.usu.edu" nil "12" "checkpoint notification" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Sat, 19 Jun 1993 17:17:40 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: checkpoint notification
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT


	due to the fact that I have the server checkpointing frequently (2
hours, while we are still small, and due to the fact that we are changing a 
lot, and the machine could be shut off by virtually anybody) I was thinking it
would be nice to tell everybody when the server checkpoints, such as printing a
message:   **********SERVER CHECKPOINTING*********   to everybody....but I am
at loss as to where I would put this, or where I would even begin... 
Basically, what is it that keeps track of the dump_interval, or where should I
begin looking?


		-Brandon (Lynx DarkurtheMOO)

From misty.anasazi.com!john Sat Jun 19 23:00:12 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "19" "June" "1993" "22:55:01" "-0700" "john@misty.anasazi.com" "john@misty.anasazi.com" nil "30" "How to make something turn on only once?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Sat, 19 Jun 1993 22:55:01 -0700
From:	john@misty.anasazi.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: How to make something turn on only once?
Reply-to: john@anasazi.com, john@anasazi.com
Content-Type: text

X-Operating System: SMP DC/OSx 1.0-92b011 dcosx
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

I want to make an object in LambdaMOO that one can turn on, after which
it does things for a while and then shuts off. The problem I have is 
keeping it from having more than one task going at once (if more
than one person turns it on).

I could put a gate in the object - test and set it when starting, and
clearing it when finishing. The problem is what if the task terminates
for some other reason (such as someone starts my gadget, then does aan
@kill_all). In that case, the gate will never be cleared.

I thought of putting the task_id of the first task to start it in the
object, but that has the same sort of problem. A subsequent task cannot
check to see if the first task is still running unless the first task
was fired off my the same player (if I'm reading the Programming
Manual right).

Has anyone solved this? Is there a generic I can look at?

[PS, my Reply-To is fixed on this message, unlike some of the ones from
last week which sent replies to chad@anasazi.com - sigh]
-- 
John Moore     HAM:NJ7E    CAP:Thunderbird 381 
john@anasazi.com 
Voice: day or eve:(602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 (by prior arrangement)
USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 
Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment!
Bad Advice: Long palladium, short petroleum ;-)

From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Sun Jun 20 05:40:17 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "20" "June" "1993" "05:35:00" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "15" "Re: How to make something turn on only once?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "<93Jun19.225548pdt.11942@alpha.xerox.com> (john@misty.anasazi.com)"
Message-ID: <9306201235.AA05442@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date:	Sun, 20 Jun 1993 05:35:00 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	john@anasazi.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: How to make something turn on only once?

   I could put a gate in the object - test and set it when starting, and
   clearing it when finishing. The problem is what if the task terminates
   for some other reason (such as someone starts my gadget, then does aan
   @kill_all). In that case, the gate will never be cleared.

   I thought of putting the task_id of the first task to start it in the
   object, but that has the same sort of problem. A subsequent task cannot
   check to see if the first task is still running unless the first task
   was fired off my the same player (if I'm reading the Programming
   Manual right).

Unless the verb is wizardly and does a set_task_perms(), the task will be
owned by you, the owner of the verb that does the suspend() (or fork, or
$command_utils:suspend_if_needed()).  This will prevent other players from
killing the task, and also allows you to check if the first task is running.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Jun 21 09:49:37 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "21" "June" "1993" "09:38:28" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "3" "JanusMOO Verb Editor" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Jim Davis's message of Thu, 17 Jun 1993 20:53:01 PDT <01GZI2JYMRK28Y57B6@tntech.edu>"
Message-ID: <9306211638.AA05228@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 21 Jun 1993 09:38:28 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	JAD7084@tntech.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: JanusMOO Verb Editor

You could try using @flush #xxxx (where #xxxx is your verb editor) and
see if that made the problem go away.


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Jun 21 09:49:47 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "21" "June" "1993" "09:36:34" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "13" "How to make something turn on only once?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "john@misty.anasazi.com's message of Sat, 19 Jun 1993 22:55:01 PDT <93Jun19.225548pdt.11942@alpha.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <9306211636.AA05146@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 21 Jun 1993 09:36:34 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	john@anasazi.com, john@anasazi.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: How to make something turn on only once?

   From: john@misty.anasazi.com

   I thought of putting the task_id of the first task to start it in the
   object, but that has the same sort of problem. A subsequent task cannot
   check to see if the first task is still running unless the first task
   was fired off my the same player (if I'm reading the Programming
   Manual right).

   Has anyone solved this? Is there a generic I can look at?

$code_utils:task_valid(taskid).  It set_task_perms to $no_one and
tries killing the task, to see if it gets E_INVARG or E_PERM.  Pretty
recent; you'll probably have to copy it to your current MOO.

From parc.xerox.com!lamping Mon Jun 21 09:57:18 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "21" "June" "1993" "09:45:39" "-0700" "John Lamping" "lamping@parc.xerox.com" nil "23" "Re: How to make something turn on only once?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "john@misty.anasazi.com's message of Sat, 19 Jun 1993 22:55:01 -0700 <93Jun19.225548pdt.11942@alpha.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <93Jun21.094545pdt.36099@navarro.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 21 Jun 1993 09:45:39 -0700
From:	John Lamping <lamping@parc.xerox.com>
To:	john@anasazi.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: How to make something turn on only once?

   I want to make an object in LambdaMOO that one can turn on, after which
   it does things for a while and then shuts off. The problem I have is 
   keeping it from having more than one task going at once (if more
   than one person turns it on).

   I could put a gate in the object - test and set it when starting, and
   clearing it when finishing. The problem is what if the task terminates
   for some other reason (such as someone starts my gadget, then does aan
   @kill_all). In that case, the gate will never be cleared.


I ran into this problem with Mr. Clean on LambdaMOO.  Specifically, the
gate would be set saying that there was a task running Mr. Clean and then
task running Mr. Clean would invoke a verb on some other object which would
bomb, blowing away Mr. Clean's task and leaving the gate set.

My solution was to put a time-limit on the gate.  At the time you set the
gate, you also record at what time in the future you expect to be finished.
If the task running the object discovers it needs more time, it is free to
increase this estimate.  When someone checks the gate, they also compare
the current time to the time limit, and if the current time is beyond the
limit, the task running the object is presumed dead and the gate is treated
as if it were not set.

From netcom.com!autodesk!autodesk.com!grantb Tue Jun 22 03:45:40 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "22" "June" "1993" "00:47:31" "-0700" "Grant Blaha" "grantb@autodesk.com " nil "35" "Q: How can I add a spammy verb to my player that others can use?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 00:47:31 -0700
From:	grantb@autodesk.com (Grant Blaha)
Sender: autodesk!autodesk.com!grantb@netcom.com
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Q: How can I add a spammy verb to my player that others can use?

I want to add a verb to my player called "pet".  My player's a tiger and likes
that sort of attention.  So far, the verb works great if I use it as a feature.
Its declared as:

   catact:pet any any any rxd

It works like this:

   pet PurpleTiger belly

Which I parse all out to generate suitable messages to all concerned.  Now, to
provide access to the verb to other players so they can pet me back without
adding the feature, I added a verb to my character that looks like this:

   me:pet any any any rxd

In the me:pet verb, I pass the call on to the catact:pet verb.  It works great
if the other player tries:

   pet PurpleTiger

but if she tries:

   pet PurpleTiger belly

She sees an "I don't understand that" message.  She then discovered that

   pet PurpleTiger with <or any preposition>

does work.  Obviously, there is some verb matching not happening.

Does anyone know how I should declare the verb so it can be found on the direct
object and also contain additional arbitrary text?  Is it even possible?

Thanks.

From netman.widener.edu!jrp Tue Jun 22 05:14:06 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "22" "June" "1993" "05:02:20" "-0700" "Joshua R. Poulson" "jrp@netman.widener.edu " nil "18" "Nasty MOO Hang" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 05:02:20 -0700
From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu (Joshua R. Poulson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Nasty MOO Hang

Last night our Moo, which had been running nicely since June 10th, hung up
with the following messages in the logs:

Jun 22 00:03:26: CHECKPOINTING on DF.db.new.#32# ...
Jun 22 00:03:43: *** PANIC (in child): Caught signal 10
Jun 22 00:03:43: *** Child shutting down parent via USR1 signal
Jun 22 00:03:43: SHUTDOWN: shutdown signal received
Jun 22 00:03:43: DUMPING on DF.db.new.#33# ...
Jun 22 00:03:56: *** PANIC: Caught signal 10

The "checkpointed" db seems to be intact by the #33# one was hung halfway 
through the dump and immediately sucked up all available CPU until I stopped
the beastie 8 hours later.

Anyone know where the "USR1" signal is coming from and what could cause such
a thing?

Thanks! --JRP [Shirgall@LambdaMOO, DFMOO, MOOns, and others]

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Tue Jun 22 06:52:03 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "22" "June" "1993" "07:28:44" "-0700" "Glusman Gustavo" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "11" "Property value and inheritance." "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 07:28:44 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo, )
Subject: Property value and inheritance.
Content-Type: text

I have a little problem with property value inheritance.
Suppose I have my room with free_entry=0, while $room.free_entry is 1.
Then, we set $room.free_entry to 0.
Now I want to clear my room's value, so that whenever $room.free_entry is changed, my room's property changes accordingly.
How do I do that?

In other words:
I have an object that inherits a property, but has no defined value in itself for that property.
I give the object's property a value. How do I undo this last step?



From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Jun 22 08:42:41 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "22" "June" "1993" "08:26:42" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "13" "Q: How can I add a spammy verb to my player that others can use?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Grant Blaha's message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 00:47:31 PDT <9306220747.AA23154@ogma.YP.acad>"
Message-ID: <9306221526.AA26391@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:26:42 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	grantb@autodesk.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Q: How can I add a spammy verb to my player that others can use?

It's not possible to get arbitrary text after the direct object; you
must put a preposition in between the direct object and the rest of
the text in order for the builtin parser to find your verb at all.
Verb matching is documented in the programmer's manual.  So you should
say "pet purpletiger ON belly" and have your verb parse things such as
that, as you discovered.

We all hate the built in parser...  Them's the breaks.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Jun 22 08:42:41 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "22" "June" "1993" "08:27:16" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "1" "Property value and inheritance." "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Glusman Gustavo's message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 07:28:44 PDT <9306221428.AA24018@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>"
Message-ID: <9306221527.AA26447@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:27:16 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: Property value and inheritance.

See the new built in functions clear_property() and is_clear_property().

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Jun 22 09:07:03 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Tue, 22 Jun 93 08:26:42 PDT.\"
             <9306221526.AA26391@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9306221552.AA09154@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:52:24 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	grantb@autodesk.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: a new parser


Your message dated: Tue, 22 Jun 93 08:26:42 PDT
> We all hate the built in parser...  Them's the breaks.

We are building a scripting language on top of MOO that will have its own
parser.  Right now the project is in the design phase, so we just have some
pseudocode written and nothing implemented.

One question I've been pondering:
When we get to actually coding this beast, I am leaning towards coding
it in the database.  So we'd use an any any any verb and do the parsing
and interpreting in MOO code.

Another option is to hack the server.
Another option is to do the translation at the client, or in
a companion process on the server machine.

Any opinions?
Any bits of parser code-- C or MOO-- to donate to the effort?

-- Amy




From harlequin.com!kmp Tue Jun 22 11:50:45 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "22" "June" "1993" "11:43:00" "-0700" "kmp@harlequin.com" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "19" "a new parser" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <19930622184354.8.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 11:43:00 -0700
From:	kmp@harlequin.com
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu, grantb@autodesk.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: a new parser

    Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 11:52 EDT
    From: asb@media.mit.edu

    ... we'd use an any any any verb and do the parsing and interpreting in MOO code. ...

I recently ran into a problem with this:

Consider a room containing an object named "Gold Box" 
and another named "Gold Watch", and consider trying to parse:

  make gold from lead

where "gold" unambiguously does not refer to either thing in the room.
The parser does the `helpful' thing of telling you that gold is ambiguous
even though make is an "any any any" verb.  I think you should be able to 
selectively disable the ambiguity check per-verb, or else your strategy
of using "any any any" is going to break down randomly when certain 
configurations of objects are in the room.  Seems to me that that might
require support from the core...

From media.mit.edu!asb Wed Jun 23 10:53:49 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "23" "June" "1993" "10:45:05" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "5" "calling a command line verb from a verb" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:45:05 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: calling a command line verb from a verb


Is there any way to call a command line verb from within a verb?

-- Amy


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Jun 23 11:07:20 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "23" "June" "1993" "11:00:32" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "4" "calling a command line verb from a verb" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "asb@media.mit.edu's message of Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:45:05 PDT <9306231745.AA19491@media.mit.edu>"
Message-ID: <9306231800.AA04925@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 23 Jun 1993 11:00:32 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: calling a command line verb from a verb

Nope.  If it's +x, you can call it, by setting up dobj, iobj, prepstr,
etc etc ad nauseum and then just calling it like a regular verb.  See
#26026's remembered object system for details (#26026:my_huh).  If the
verb is !x you're out of luck.

From media.mit.edu!lin Thu Jun 24 18:07:54 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "24" "June" "1993" "18:00:28" "-0700" "Albert Lin" "lin@media.mit.edu" nil "26" "error handling question" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306250100.AA00594@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 24 Jun 1993 18:00:28 -0700
From:	Albert Lin <lin@media.mit.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: error handling question


Okay, here I am with my spiffy new events code, which (when something
happens) calls the appropriate verbs on interested objects:

for l in (listeners)
  fork (0)
    e = l:(verb_name)(event_info);
    if (typeof(e) == ERR)
       this:event_error(l,verb_name,event_info,e);
    endif
  endfork
endfor

It catches errors such as E_VERBNF, and the fork (0) prevents the
entire verb from bombing if one of the listening objects is bad.
However, if the code on a listening object is bad, the traceback goes
to the player that initiated the verb, which turns out to be the
player that triggered the event by doing something (entering, exiting,
etc).  Short of requiring all programmers to make their verbs !d, is
there any way to suppress or redirect (or at the very least, trap for)
an error on a broken object and notify the owner, instead of the
[innocent, perhaps clueless] player that walks into a room containing
that object?  If the code is bad, you never get to the
(if (typeof(e) == ERR) line.

Albert

From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Thu Jun 24 18:17:35 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "24" "June" "1993" "18:12:14" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "11" "Re: error handling question" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9306250100.AA00594@media.mit.edu> (message from Albert Lin on Thu, 24 Jun 1993 18:00:28 PDT)"
Message-ID: <9306250113.AA29550@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date:	Thu, 24 Jun 1993 18:12:14 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	lin@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: error handling question

   Short of requiring all programmers to make their verbs !d, is
   there any way to suppress or redirect (or at the very least, trap for)
   an error on a broken object and notify the owner, instead of the
   [innocent, perhaps clueless] player that walks into a room containing
   that object?

Yes: convince Pavel to hurry up and release 1.8.0.

   Albert

Erik/JF

From media.mit.edu!adams Fri Jun 25 10:09:15 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "09:57:11" "-0700" "adams@media.mit.edu" "adams@media.mit.edu" nil "19" "@dump question" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 09:57:11 -0700
From:	adams@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: @dump question


Hello again!

Much progress has been made since I last asked you about PREFIX and SUFFIX.

I now have a semi-working client that is able to split important output
such as 'help' on user command.

Now I'm working on a module that will seperate the @dump of an object.

I'm having one problem: The PREFIX and SUFFIX wrap the property listing
but leave out the verb listing. I believe this is due to calling suspend(),
but I'm not sure how to get around it. What I'm doing now is to set the
PREFIX and SUFFIX before calling @dump, and extracting the text within
the prefix and suffix. How can I get the prefix and suffix to wrap the entire
@dump output?


Adam Skwersky

From misty.anasazi.com!john Fri Jun 25 10:45:19 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "10:22:36" "-0700" "john@misty.anasazi.com" "john@misty.anasazi.com" "<93Jun25.102427pdt.11780@alpha.xerox.com>" "27" "can one break out of a for?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Organization: Anasazi, Inc.
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Message-ID: <93Jun25.102427pdt.11780@alpha.xerox.com>
Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:22:36 -0700
From:	john@misty.anasazi.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: can one break out of a for?
Reply-to: john@anasazi.com
Content-Type: text

X-Operating System: SMP DC/OSx 1.0-92b011 dcosx
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

I was going to ask the following:
<<BEGIN
How would one get out of the following loop after the statement 'awake = 1"?
 19:  for frod in (this.location.contents)
 20:     if (is_player(frod))
 21:       if (E_INVARG != connected_seconds(frod))
 22:         awake = 1;
 23:       endif
 24:     endif
 25:   endfor 
END>>

Then I decided to try putting a "break;" after 22 and it compiled ok. 

I don't think this is in the "The MOO Programming Language" manual. 
Perhaps it should be added (or at least added to the index if it is in the 
text somewhere I couldn't find).
-- 
John Moore     HAM:NJ7E    CAP:Thunderbird 381 
john@anasazi.com 
Voice: day or eve:(602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 (by prior arrangement)
USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 
Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment!
Bad Advice: Long palladium, short petroleum ;-)

From athena.com!ghudson Fri Jun 25 11:15:14 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "10:36:02" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.com " nil "40" "Re: @dump question" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:36:02 -0700
From:	ghudson@athena.com (Greg Hudson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: @dump question


> I'm having one problem: The PREFIX and SUFFIX wrap the property
> listing but leave out the verb listing. I believe this is due to
> calling suspend(), but I'm not sure how to get around it.

The problem is indeed with the task being suspended.  Ideally, the  
server would have a more sophisticated way of marking task output.   
One option is an INFIX command which would set an infix string, and  
the server would write the infix string whenever a task loses the  
thread but is not finished, and then again when it regains the  
thread.

What I mean by "the thread" here is a bit complicated because of the  
fork statement.  If I use suspend() to suspend execution, then it's  
pretty clear: I lose the thread right away, and the task is not  
complete.  If I use fork, however, then I lose the thread when my  
current task completess (or does a suspend()), and regain the thread  
when the forked code is executed.  I guess more concisely you would  
say:

	LOSE THREAD: The task does a suspend(), or completes with
		fork statements still pending.

	REGAIN THREAD: Resuming from a suspend(), or executing a fork
		statement body.

	TASK FINISHES: Completes with no pending forks.

I'm actually partial to tagging lines of text by their task ID (and  
perhaps some other information) rather than using prefixes, infixes,  
and suffixes.  This requires a bit more cooperation with the client,  
though.

In the meantime, the only solution I can see is to modify @dump to do  
its own prefixing, infixing, and suffixing. Since MOO doesn't let you  
get at the parser, you have to do this for each individual command,  
although you can be modular about it, of course.

--GBH


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jun 25 11:24:15 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "11:14:15" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "22" "Re: can one break out of a for?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <93Jun25.102427pdt.11780@alpha.xerox.com>
Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 11:14:15 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	john@anasazi.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: can one break out of a for?

> Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:22:36 -0700
> From:	john@misty.anasazi.com
> To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
> Subject: can one break out of a for?
> 
> Then I decided to try putting a "break;" after 22 and it compiled ok. 
> 
> I don't think this is in the "The MOO Programming Language" manual. 
> Perhaps it should be added (or at least added to the index if it is in the 
> text somewhere I couldn't find).

It's not documented because there *is* no `break' statement in the MOO language
at present.  Your statement was interpreted as a variable reference (and it
will generate an error when executed unless there is a statement earlier in
that verb that assigns a value to the variable `break'.

Because there is no `break' statement right now (or any other way than `return'
to prematurely end a FOR loop), I recommend either using a WHILE loop instead
or putting this loop into a separate verb so that `return' can be used to
terminate it.

	Pavel

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Jun 25 11:46:58 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "11:13:52" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "3" "@dump question" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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In-Reply-to: "Greg Hudson's message of Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:36:02 PDT <9306251728.AA06369@hermes.athena.com>"
Message-ID: <9306251813.AA10182@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 11:13:52 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	ghudson@athena.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: @dump question

There's $command_utils:suspend() which tries to cope with
prefix/suffix stuff.  Check help $command_utils:suspend.


From pepvax.pepperdine.edu!kcary Fri Jun 25 15:24:55 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "16:16:06" "-0700" "Kim Cary" "kcary@pepvax.pepperdine.edu " nil "54" "set_task_perms, permission denied" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 16:16:06 -0700
From:	kcary@pepvax.pepperdine.edu (Kim Cary)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: set_task_perms, permission denied

OK, hope this isn't too trivial.

I figgered I couldn't 'objectively' modify this verb on my (now customized)
generic pet to allow me to pick it up, so I copied the t*ake verb from the
grandparent (#5) and added modified code from from the parent (#28280).
This added code should let me pick the 'pet' up, but let others only grab
it momentarily (most of the code is haakon's or eric's).

Now I can pick up the item, but, as beige_guest, I get this error:
#55934:g*et t*ake, line 2:  Permission denied
(End of traceback)

I've looked at help on items called in line 2, and tried to scrutinize the
code for a syntax error, but I'm stuck. Can anyone help?

Here is the verb, modified code in lines 21-30, unmodified code from
grandparent (#5) in 1 -20 (no errors just using line 1-20 without the
additions beginning in 21):

1:  "Copied from generic thing (#5):take by Haakon (#2) Sat Apr 17 13:45:04 199
3 PDT";
 2:  set_task_perms(callers() ? caller_perms() | player);
 3:  if (this.location == player)
 4:    player:tell("You already have that!");
 5:  elseif (this.location != player.location)
 6:    player:tell("I don't see that here.");
 7:  else
 8:    this:moveto(player);
 9:    if (this.location == player)
10:      player:tell(this:take_succeeded_msg() || "Taken.");
11:      if (msg = this:otake_succeeded_msg())
12:        player.location:announce(player.name, " ", msg);
13:      endif
14:    else
15:      player:tell(this:take_failed_msg() || "You can't pick that up.");
16:      if (msg = this:otake_failed_msg())
17:        player.location:announce(player.name, " ", msg);
18:      endif
19:    endif
20:  endif
21:  if (this.location != this.owner)
22:    player:tell(this.name, this:action(), " as it seeks to escape..  Finally,
 it manages to tear free of your grasp.");
23:    if (player.location:accept(this))
24:      this:moveto(player.location);
25:      this.location:announce_all_but({player, @this.ignore}, this.name, " rip
s free of ", player.name, "'s grasp.");
26:    else
27:      this:moveto(valid(this.home) ? this.home | this.owner.home);
28:      this.location:announce_all_but(this.ignore, this.name, " flies homeward
, escaping from the clutches of ", player.name, ".");
29:    endif
30:  endif


From ipac.caltech.edu!dave Fri Jun 25 17:14:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "17:08:40" "-0700" "dave@ipac.caltech.edu" "dave@ipac.caltech.edu" nil "16" "set_task_perms" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 17:08:40 -0700
From:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: set_task_perms

read help set_task_perms: 

Syntax:  set_task_perms (obj <player>)   => none

Changes the permissions with which the currently-executing verb is running to
be those of <player>.  If <player> is not a valid player object, then
`E_INVARG' is returned.  If the programmer is neither <player> nor a
                         ===========================================
wizard, then `E_PERM' is returned.
==================================

Note: This does not change the owner of the currently-running verb, only the
permissions of this particular invocation.  It is used in verbs owned by
wizards to make themselves run with lesser (usually non-wizard) permissions.

Just think of all the trouble you could cause if this weren't so.

From ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu!WOODWARD Fri Jun 25 17:16:59 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "17:07:31" "-0700" "WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu" "WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu" nil "13" "Some MOO background" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 17:07:31 -0700
From:	WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Some MOO background
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Hello there! I have been investigating the different MOOs around, and have 
become fascinated (obsessed?). In any event, my real interest is in a MOO for 
K-12/Educators, and I wonder if someone could point me to some background 
material like:

	What kind of resources does a MOO take?
	What type of computer is typical
	Is there any type of manual on setting one up? Not just the technical 
	stuff, but the sociological/resource issues as well.

I thank you in advance
Mark Woodward
 

From pepvax.pepperdine.edu!kcary Fri Jun 25 18:23:15 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "25" "June" "1993" "19:16:29" "-0700" "Kim Cary" "kcary@pepvax.pepperdine.edu " nil "19" "Re: set_task_perms" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Fri, 25 Jun 1993 19:16:29 -0700
From:	kcary@pepvax.pepperdine.edu (Kim Cary)
To:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: set_task_perms

...
>`E_INVARG' is returned.  If the programmer is neither <player> nor a
>                         ===========================================
>wizard, then `E_PERM' is returned.
>==================================

Well, dave, I was reading it but not thinking...{excuse deleted}

>
>Just think of all the trouble you could cause if this weren't so.

Now that the meaning of this call has sunk in, I certainly can see some
kinds of trouble one could cause by changing task permissions.

Thanks, dave, for your patience (and the rest of the pasture, too) and
assistance.

-Kim [ruminating]


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Mon Jun 28 11:33:30 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "28" "June" "1993" "11:36:39" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "22" "Re: calling a command line verb from a verb" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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             <9306231800.AA04925@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>"
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Date:	Mon, 28 Jun 1993 11:36:39 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: calling a command line verb from a verb

>   Nope.  If it's +x, you can call it, by setting up dobj, iobj, prepstr,

Note that you never really know whether a command verb is relying 
on dobj/prepstr/iobj, argstr or even args.  Granted you can just look 
at the code, but if someone later decides to change the verb's parsing 
portion to do work differently, the other verbs that call it will 
probably lose.

If you're going to be using the functionality of a command verb from a
program, you're best off splitting that functionality into a separate
(this none this +x) verb and calling the latter verb when you need to 
use it from a program.

>   If the verb is !x you're out of luck.

Well, modulo really gross hacks that involve wizardly code bashing the
verb to be temporarily +x, but I guess that goes without saying.
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jun 28 15:20:52 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "28" "June" "1993" "15:12:13" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: checkpoint notification" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <01GZKLGE4XXU9RH7H5@CC.USU.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 28 Jun 1993 15:12:13 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: checkpoint notification

> Date:	Sat, 19 Jun 1993 17:17:40 -0700
> From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
> 
> 	due to the fact that I have the server checkpointing frequently (2
> hours, while we are still small, and due to the fact that we are changing a
> lot, and the machine could be shut off by virtually anybody) I was thinking
> it would be nice to tell everybody when the server checkpoints, such as
> printing a message: **********SERVER CHECKPOINTING********* to
> everybody....but I am at loss as to where I would put this, or where I would
> even begin...  Basically, what is it that keeps track of the dump_interval,
> or where should I begin looking?

Sorry, but there's no way to do this from inside the MOO database.  You could
do it as a server mod, but that's more work...

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jun 28 15:30:53 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "28" "June" "1993" "15:17:31" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "27" "Re: Nasty MOO Hang" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <9306221202.AA12566@netman.widener.edu>
Date:	Mon, 28 Jun 1993 15:17:31 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Nasty MOO Hang

> Date:	Tue, 22 Jun 1993 05:02:20 -0700
> From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu (Joshua R. Poulson)
> 
> Last night our Moo, which had been running nicely since June 10th, hung up
> with the following messages in the logs:
> 
> Jun 22 00:03:26: CHECKPOINTING on DF.db.new.#32# ...
> Jun 22 00:03:43: *** PANIC (in child): Caught signal 10
> Jun 22 00:03:43: *** Child shutting down parent via USR1 signal
> Jun 22 00:03:43: SHUTDOWN: shutdown signal received
> Jun 22 00:03:43: DUMPING on DF.db.new.#33# ...
> Jun 22 00:03:56: *** PANIC: Caught signal 10
> 
> The "checkpointed" db seems to be intact by the #33# one was hung halfway 
> through the dump and immediately sucked up all available CPU until I stopped
> the beastie 8 hours later.
> 
> Anyone know where the "USR1" signal is coming from and what could cause such
> a thing?

The USR1 signal is sent by the checkpointing (child) process to the main
(parent) process and is normal.  The nasty thing is the signal 10, indicating
some kind of stray pointer in the server.  If you can use a debugger to send me
a backtrace from the core file, that would help me find and maybe fix the
problem...

	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon

From cs.washington.edu!weber Mon Jun 28 20:51:53 1993
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Date:	Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:42:45 -0700
From:	weber@cs.washington.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: smart error handling


I want to write a MOO verb which will handle errors in much the same
way as a builtin function does.  That is, I want it to return an error
value to the caller if the caller has non-d perms, and force a traceback if
the caller has d perms.  Has anyone done something like this?  If so, how?

-- Eric Weber

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Jun 28 21:18:45 1993
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In-Reply-to: "weber@cs.washington.edu's message of Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:42:45 PDT <9306290342.AA29312@coho.cs.washington.edu>"
Message-ID: <9306290413.AA09189@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 28 Jun 1993 21:13:39 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	weber@cs.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: smart error handling

$error:raise(error) will force a traceback.  I guess you have to do
verb_info on your caller to figure out if they have d perms.

From ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu!WOODWARD Tue Jun 29 04:08:47 1993
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Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 03:58:07 -0700
From:	WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Some basic stuff
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I must once again parade my ignorance, please bear with me. Can anyone tell me 
the proper way to examine the acutal code of an object? What I'd like to be 
able to do is pick an object (one that I somewhat understand) and print out all 
of the code associated with that object.

As I am not a programmer, even the wonderful tutorials have some blind spots 
for me, and if I could see how a couple of items were made, I'd feel more 
confident about making my own. I've tried @dump object, and that shows some of 
the structure, but is there any way to get the whole enchillada?? Thanks,
Mark Woodward (oblio)


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Jun 29 09:06:25 1993
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In-Reply-to: "WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu's message of Tue, 29 Jun 1993 03:58:07 PDT <01GZXUK1CAPE8WW9C3@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>"
Message-ID: <9306291557.AA22700@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 08:57:22 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Some basic stuff

@dump *is* the whole enchilada, assuming the object is readable.  Or
do you want parent functions too?  You should try @parents object and
then @dump them separately.  An object *inherits* from its parents,
but it does not *include* things defined on its parents.

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Jun 29 09:27:57 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 28 Jun 93 11:36:39 PDT.\"
             <9306281836.AA05285@palnu.research.microsoft.com>F"
Message-ID: <9306291619.AA10241@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 09:19:54 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: calling a command line verb from a verb


Your message dated: Mon, 28 Jun 93 11:36:39 PDT
> Well, modulo really gross hacks that involve wizardly code bashing the
> verb to be temporarily +x, but I guess that goes without saying.

Out of curiosity...
Is there documentation anywhere on how +x and !x verbs are handled
differently internally?

Does the x bit exist just so you can prevent people from executing
verbs if you want to, or is there some other purpose?

Actually, I don't mind too much not being able to call !x verbs.
Here's why I'm poking around at this stuff:

I'd like to write a function that given an arbitrary verb, will check the
current environment looking for either built-in, a command line or non-command
line verb by that name and then call it properly.  Arguments are provided in a
command line style.  So given any of the following, it will do the right
thing:

random 5
say hello
room_announce {me} "hello again"

For inspiration, I've been poking around at code on #26026@LambdaMOO as Judy
suggested, and also looking at generic puppet.  Any other hints?
I'm beginning to think I can actually make this work....  :-)

-- Amy

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Tue Jun 29 10:40:15 1993
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Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 10:29:44 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: spaces in player names
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What are the reasons (specific) that spaces are not allowed in Player Names?  I
would assume that it is because some verbs assume it is a single word, if so,
which verbs, and can they be fixed.  It just seems rather silly that names
would be limited to no spaces because some verbs were not written extensive
enough to handle them with spaces (if that is the case, I have yet to find a
verb which does this though...)

		-Brandon (Lynx aka Shade Pendragon-DarkurtheMOO)

From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Tue Jun 29 10:57:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "29" "June" "1993" "10:51:39" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "30" "Re: spaces in player names" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306291751.AA06266@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 10:51:39 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: spaces in player names

   What are the reasons (specific) that spaces are not allowed in Player
   Names?  I would assume that it is because some verbs assume it is a single
   word, if so, which verbs, and can they be fixed.  It just seems rather
   silly that names would be limited to no spaces because some verbs were not
   written extensive enough to handle them with spaces (if that is the case, I
   have yet to find a verb which does this though...)

$player:@who, $player:@send, $login:connect, I'm sure you could find others if
you looked.  But yes, these could be fixed.  One solution would be to have
@who continue to assume player names are single words, but require that any
player with a multi-word name also have its components as aliases; so, for
example, I could have the name "Joe Feedback" if and only if I also had the
aliases "Joe" and "Feedback".  This way the command "@send Joe Feedback" would
still do what's expected; it'd just match both of those names to me.  What I'd
try to avoid is the confusing situation where someone is named "Bob Jones" and
two other people have the aliases "Bob" and "Jones", so commands from players
expecting multi-word names to work do odd things.

One disadvantage here is that, given a simple-minded check on this stuff, only
one player could have "the" in eir name.  You could probably set up a list of
`trivial' words which (a) can't be aliases on their own, and (b) don't get
matched in commands.  (Maybe that one's obvious, since they can't be aliases,
I'm not sure).  So then "Puff the Magic Dragon" would only match on "Puff",
"Magic", and "Dragon".

Of course, you could also make your list-of-player-names parsing more
complicated.

		   -Brandon (Lynx aka Shade Pendragon-DarkurtheMOO)


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jun 29 11:00:27 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "29" "June" "1993" "10:37:28" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "9" "Re: calling a command line verb from a verb" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <9306281836.AA05285@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
	<9306291619.AA10241@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 10:37:28 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, rfc@research.microsoft.com
Subject: Re: calling a command line verb from a verb

> Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 09:19:54 -0700
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> Does the x bit exist just so you can prevent people from executing
> verbs if you want to, or is there some other purpose?

It was installed to make it possible to prevent certain verbs from being called
from other verbs, usually because the !x verb made certain security checks that
assumed it was being called as a command.

From cool.vortech.com!clay Tue Jun 29 12:05:14 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "29" "June" "1993" "11:57:41" "-0700" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "31" "Re: spaces in player names" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <199306291857.AA21117@cool.vortech.com>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:57:41 -0700
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
cc:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: spaces in player names
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> 
>    What are the reasons (specific) that spaces are not allowed in Player
>    Names?  I would assume that it is because some verbs assume it is a single
>    word, if so, which verbs, and can they be fixed.  It just seems rather
>    silly that names would be limited to no spaces because some verbs were not
>    written extensive enough to handle them with spaces (if that is the case, I
>    have yet to find a verb which does this though...)
> 
> One disadvantage here is that, given a simple-minded check on this stuff, only
> one player could have "the" in eir name.  You could probably set up a list of
> `trivial' words which (a) can't be aliases on their own, and (b) don't get
> matched in commands.  (Maybe that one's obvious, since they can't be aliases,
> I'm not sure).  So then "Puff the Magic Dragon" would only match on "Puff",
> "Magic", and "Dragon".

The House of Wax and the GodNet both implement "fullnames" (though somewhat
differently), but fairly similar to the way you have outlined.  Since the
player.fullname is required to contain player.name, fullnames are guaranteed
to be unique.  Trivial and connecting words (a, an, the, et al) are not 
stored as aliases. 

Both HoW and GN use a :name() method on all objects rather than ever
referencing the .name property.  This caused some problems with the mail_agent
at first, but was easily fixed (The mail agent did a map_prop with name.  We
changed this to a map_verb with name and everything worked fine.)

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Vortech Data, Inc.
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310
"They're not dead.  They're just metaphysically challenged." - Crow T. Robot

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jun 29 14:49:35 1993
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References: <9306290342.AA29312@coho.cs.washington.edu>
	<9306290413.AA09189@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 14:36:30 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, weber@cs.washington.edu
Subject: Re: smart error handling

> Date:	Mon, 28 Jun 1993 21:13:39 -0700
> From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
> 
> $error:raise(error) will force a traceback.  I guess you have to do
> verb_info on your caller to figure out if they have d perms.

Also, be aware that the next release of the server contains far more convenient
language-level support for error signalling and handling, so it may well not be
worth your time to put very much effort into this hacked emulation of that
facility.

	Pavel

From tamsun.tamu.edu!apj6796 Tue Jun 29 14:57:45 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "29" "June" "1993" "14:51:21" "-0700" "Albert Paul Jimenez III" "apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu" "<9306292151.AA08981@tamsun.tamu.edu>" "11" "Re: Next Version of the MOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Message-ID: <9306292151.AA08981@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 14:51:21 -0700
From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Next Version of the MOO server


Well, Pavel, in another post you mention somehting about 'the next release of the server containing far more convenient language-level support for error 
signalling and halding, so it may well not be worth [the] time to put very much
effort into this hacked emulation of that facility.'

Which brings up the most obvious Question:

*** When is the next release of the server going to be RELEASED?


--Zachary @ LambdaMOO

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jun 29 15:18:17 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "29" "June" "1993" "15:09:50" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "10" "Re: Next Version of the MOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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References: <9306292151.AA08981@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:09:50 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Next Version of the MOO server

> Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 14:51:21 -0700
> From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
> 
> *** When is the next release of the server going to be RELEASED?

We will release no server before its time...  :-)

With luck, maybe this summer.

	Pavel

From groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu!esit Tue Jun 29 19:42:01 1993
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Date:	Tue, 29 Jun 1993 19:38:07 -0700
From:	esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	gitelson@voyager.bxscience.edu
Subject: Compiling on AIX


I've gotten a copy of LambdaCore and have been trying to compile it on
AIX. We don't have gcc here so that's a problem. I was wondering if any
of you might have successfully compiled on AIX. The problem has something
to do with the struct fd_set, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.
It does compile fine with gcc on a Sun4 though.

Please direct replies to <esit@voyager.bxscience.edu> and cc them to
<gitelson@voyager.bxscience.edu>

Thanks. (if you DO have it compiled, we'd like some of the RS/6000 binaries)

Emil Sit
(Nagilum on LambdaMOO)

From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Wed Jun 30 05:15:56 1993
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Content-Type: text

Hi,


I  was wondering if any one knows how to use fractions in MOO  or
at least how to work out a percentage?

Thanx

From hydra.unm.edu!tapia Wed Jun 30 06:56:44 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "30" "June" "1993" "06:31:00" "-0700" "Ron Tapia" "tapia@hydra.unm.edu" nil "3" "Re:  Fractions?" "^Date:" nil nil "6"])
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Date:	Wed, 30 Jun 1993 06:31:00 -0700
From:	Ron Tapia <tapia@hydra.unm.edu>
To:	cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  Fractions?

Help $trig_utils.

-Ron

From u.washington.edu!armitage Wed Jun 30 08:36:34 1993
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Date:	Wed, 30 Jun 1993 08:21:32 -0700
From:	Peter <armitage@u.washington.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Fractions?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii


I remember seeing once a tutorial for how to build a wind-up duck.  Does
anyone know where I can find this?  How about other tutorial-type things?

Thanks in advance?

                       [gcc]                                     [g++]
/*--------------------------            // ---------------------------
  Peter (Z-man) Zatloukal               //  Peter (Z-man) Zatloukal
  NeXT Lab Administrator                //  ACC Lead Lab Assistant
  armitage@u.washington.edu             //  armitage@u.washington.edu
  --------------------------*/          // ---------------------------


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Jun 30 09:03:27 1993
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Date:	Wed, 30 Jun 1993 08:40:41 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	armitage@u.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Fractions?

The tutorial, along with a vast quantity of other documentation, is
available on /pub/MOO/ and /pub/MOO/contrib/ on parcftp.xerox.com.

From ipac.caltech.edu!dave Wed Jun 30 09:20:50 1993
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Date:	Wed, 30 Jun 1993 09:08:08 -0700
From:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
To:	cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk (R.Mehta)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Fractions?

> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I  was wondering if any one knows how to use fractions in MOO  or
> at least how to work out a percentage?
> 
> Thanx
> 

The problem is that MOO only handles integer arithmetic, although I am given
to believe that may one day change.  In the meantime you have 2 choices:

1) Code a division method using only integer arithmetic.

   This is the tack taken in $math_utils, where a number of functions exist.
   They tend to scale the result by some large number, say 10000: 

     help $math_utils:sin
     Information about Math Utilities(#3635):sin
     ----
     sin(x) -- given x in degrees, sin(x) will return the value of the sine
     function at x times 10000

   I don't think there is a similar :ratio function, but it would be trivial
   to install:

     "ratio(numerator,denominator) -- returns ratio times 10000, beware of
     using numbers with absolute values greater than $maxint/10000!";
     numerator = args[1]*10000;
     denominator = args[2];
     return $math_utils:div(numerator,denominator);

   Then all you have to do is remember that it returns 10000 times the ratio,
   so a return value of 5000 should be interpreted as 1/2.  Another way
   to code this would be to use string representations of numbers and
   just code up the old long division algorithm you learned in grade school.
   That would be significantly harder (but more fun), and would allow
   arbitrary precision.

2) Install a floating point math server

   This is what we did on AstroVR to do floating point arithmetic.  In this
   method, numbers are represented by their string values, ie "3.14159" etc.
   We installed a bc server that we can telnet into using the built-in
   open_network_connection and then send a list of strings representing the
   bc program.  Reading off the same connection we get the output.

     look bc
     This is the bc calculator object. It connects to a bc server to do 
     floating point and other heavy-duty arithmetic calculations.  See 
     'man bc' for the unix man page on the bc language, which resembles c.  
     To use bc in a program, include the line

        bc_output=$bc:eval(bc_code);

     where bc_code is a list of strings containing the bc program, most 
     conveniently created by editing a property on some object.  The return 
     value is a list of strings containing the output.  Note that there is 
     about a second of overhead for each call to $bc:eval, so do calculations 
     in as big chunks as you can.

     Example:

       ;player:tell_lines($bc:eval({"{","scale=3","a=1.0",
                                   "b=sqrt(2)","a+b","}"}));
       2.414
       => 0
       [used 14999 ticks, 11 seconds.]

  Note: This actually only took about 1 second of real time, so I don't
  know why it thinks it took 11 seconds!

  If you go this route remember that all numbers are now represented by
  strings, but now you can handle any number that bc can handle, which means
  that you can do just about anything.  Of course now you can't just do
  ratios, but you have access to all the other bc functions too.

This was probably more detail than you wanted, but it is probably useful to
others on the list as well.

Cheers!

 -- Dave Van Buren


    

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Mon Jul  5 10:28:58 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "5" "July" "1993" "10:31:01" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " nil "23" "Breaking the silence" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Breaking the silence
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Just thought I'd break the e-mail silence with a posting of stuff.

Question #1:
  Will the netork stuff be dumped with the next core release?

Question #2:
  someone previously wrote on *server on LambdaMOO, that the memory the
MOO allocates to run processes in is never deallocated, but is resued by
the MOO over and over again.  It also stated that it's only vm being
allocated.  Well, that's the error I'm getting with my MOO.  those
scrabble boards have a lot of code behind them.  Is this a possible cause
of my problems along with NextStep being a sucky platform to run a MOO from?

Question #3:
  When will the next release of the MOO server be out?  And when is
disk-basing going to be an option?

done.

I have broken the silence.  Au revoir mes amis.

- wilson@lambda/opal/tech/vamp/scrabble/media...


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Jul  6 11:07:32 1993
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Date:	Tue, 6 Jul 1993 10:52:29 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Breaking the silence

> Date:	Mon, 5 Jul 1993 10:31:01 -0700
> From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
> 
>   Will the network stuff be dumped with the next core release?

Yes, or at least the great majority of it.  I think that this includes the
Gopher support.

>   someone previously wrote on *server on LambdaMOO, that the memory the
> MOO allocates to run processes in is never deallocated, but is resued by
> the MOO over and over again.  It also stated that it's only vm being
> allocated.  Well, that's the error I'm getting with my MOO.  those
> scrabble boards have a lot of code behind them.  Is this a possible cause
> of my problems along with NextStep being a sucky platform to run a MOO from?

The problem is that there are bugs in the NeXT memory allocator such that
(apparently) it fragments memory to such a degree that you can `run out' well
before there's none left.  I recommend trying to get NeXT to fix their bugs or
(probably better) moving to a more reliable operating system.

>   When will the next release of the MOO server be out?  And when is
> disk-basing going to be an option?

Version 1.8.0 of the server, including error signalling and handling,
significantly improved network support (probably including support for running
network *servers* from MOO code), many bug fixes and substantial cleanup of
some key internal interfaces (including the one to the DB storage method), will
be probably be released sometime this fall.

Version 1.9.0, including support for disk-based DB storage, will probably come
out sometime in the early winter.

Please note the word `probably' in the above time estimates.  I have way too
many demands on my time right now and can't commit to anything more than vague
estimates; in particular, it's possible that there won't be any new server
releases anytime this year.  The above estimates, though, are my current best
guesses.

	Pavel

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Tue Jul  6 12:07:17 1993
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Date:	Tue, 6 Jul 1993 11:24:33 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Merging DB's
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

>>   Will the network stuff be dumped with the next core release?
>
> Yes, or at least the great majority of it.  I think that this includes the
> Gopher support.
 
	I am basing what I am going to say off the tenative knowlege that
nobody has done this yet:

	is anybody interested in writing a program (out of the server) which
takes two databases, and essentially mergest them.  This is not really that
hard of a project, and I would do it myself if my C coding experience was
greater.  All it would take is a program which recognizes objects, and starts
from the beginning, comparing the Default DB #1 with the merging DB #1, if it
see's any differences it creates a new object (using the next available object
in the new DB) called (#1.name + " (diff)") where it writes the differences
between the merged #1 and the default #1, writing it to a new db called
merged.db or something.  It would ONLY create diff objects if the two objects
are generally the same, such as core objects etc.  Perhaps we could create a
new flag called .merger where the default core name is stored, for merging
purposes (for people who like to rearrange names, etc, such as me :)  Then the
merger would first search for that property.  
	Anyhow, I realize that this would be a memory intensive program for 
large databases (such as lamda's (how big is that anyhow?)), but I feel it
would be worth it.
	Another thought: We could use the .merger property as a date, where all
of the current 'core' objects would be a certain date, and the next 'core' dump
will include objects from the older core, but if they have not been changed the
date will be the same, and the merger will not pay attention to it (this will
mean that somebody would have to go through and touch everything that has been
changed...not hard, just tedious)...


	-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon - DarkurtheMOO)


> Please note the word `probably' in the above time estimates.  I have way too
> many demands on my time right now and can't commit to anything more than vague
> estimates; in particular, it's possible that there won't be any new server
> releases anytime this year.  The above estimates, though, are my current best
> guess.

	wheee, sounds like another team I'm on, we said we would release a
Netrek server code in january, and have *finally* gotten around to releasing it
last week :)

From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Thu Jul  8 10:17:18 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "8" "July" "1993" "07:21:08" "-0700" "Tim Sailer" "sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov " "<9307081421.AA02971@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>" "34" "Compiling" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:21:08 -0700
From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Compiling
Content-Type: text


OK... I'm trying to compile the server on a sparc 10 with gcc... I get the 
following errors: (SunOS 4.1.3)



make
[ config.h : config.status ]
./config.status
creating Makefile
creating config.h
gcc -O -traditional -Wall -Wwrite-strings -g -DMOO  -c  db.c
In file included from db.c:26:
exceptions.h:71: syntax error before `struct'
exceptions.h:79: parse error before `ES_CtxBlock'
exceptions.h:79: warning: no semicolon at end of struct or union
exceptions.h:83: parse error before `*'
db.c: In function `create_object':
db.c:337: warning: suggest parentheses around assignment used as truth value
exceptions.h: At top level:
exceptions.h:71: storage size of `ES_CtxBlock' isn't known
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `db.o'




Any ideas before I scream?

Tim (all this for o_n_c....)
-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Jul  8 12:21:04 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "8" "July" "1993" "11:59:01" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "30" "Re: Compiling" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <9307081421.AA02971@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>
Date:	Thu, 8 Jul 1993 11:59:01 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Compiling

> Date:	Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:21:08 -0700
> From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
> 
> OK... I'm trying to compile the server on a sparc 10 with gcc... I get the 
> following errors: (SunOS 4.1.3)
> 
> gcc -O -traditional -Wall -Wwrite-strings -g -DMOO  -c  db.c
> In file included from db.c:26:
> exceptions.h:71: syntax error before `struct'
> exceptions.h:79: parse error before `ES_CtxBlock'
> exceptions.h:79: warning: no semicolon at end of struct or union
> exceptions.h:83: parse error before `*'

Add this line to the end of config.h:

	#define volatile __volatile__

The problem is that the -traditional flag to gcc (necessary because of the way
it was installed at your site) turns off its recognition of the `volatile'
keyword, so we have to make it use the `hidden' version.  This configuration
bug will be fixed in the next release.

> db.c: In function `create_object':
> db.c:337: warning: suggest parentheses around assignment used as truth value

Ignore all of the warnings you get from GCC; they added more after I released
the server so that code that was fine before generates warnings now.  All of
the warnings are innocuous and will be eliminated in the next release.

	Pavel

From virtual-city.virtual.net!strata Thu Jul  8 17:58:28 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "8" "July" "1993" "17:47:28" "-0700" "\"M. Strata Rose\"" "strata@virtual-city.virtual.net" nil "45" "Watch that first step..." "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <CMM.0.90.2.742178848.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Date:	Thu, 8 Jul 1993 17:47:28 -0700
From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	strata@virtual-city.virtual.net
Subject: Watch that first step...
Reply-to: strata@hybrid.com



Okay, I have made my DNS behave and am building my resolver library in the
background.  I compiled gcc today and then compiled the moo code, no
problems.   

I have the Minimal.db and I have the LambdaCore-April-something.  Now it's
question time:  

1) is there a newer version of the LambdaCore that I can start from?  Nothing
newer than the April one could I find on parcftp.

2) Amy, would you be willing to let me take a copy of the MediaMOO core
instead?  How much difference is there from LambdaMOO?  What interesting
utilities, functions, etc have been added, and how do I go about getting
permission from their author(s) to use them? 

3) Has anyone taken some of the cooler packages or features or whatever you
want to call them and actually gently pried them free of all but the core or
core+some_stuff so that I can easily graft things like the gopher client or
the MediaMOO taxi service or what have you into Virtual City?   I can provide
FTP space and serve as a clearinghouse for such things, it's part of my
charter.  :-)

4) I would love useful suggestions on things to do, things to avoid, and how
to make the transition from a few initial builders to opening the floodgates.
 I have tenatively scheduled August 15th as "opening day" and there's a
helluva lot of work to be done before then!  Those of you who have opened
MOOs, how long did it take you to create a reasonably rich environment?  Or
did you just set a minimal structure and open the gates?

5) BTW, I haven't ever logged into JaysHouse or Cardiff or other MOOs, so
pardon me if I seem to be slighting any of you folks; MediaMOO is the only
one I'm familiar with, not even having spent more than an hour or so on
Lambda itself.  Please tell me what exciting things you're developing, and if
you'd be interested in integrating them into VC.

Cheers,
_Strata


M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City Project
strata@virtual-city.virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@apple.com | strata@eddie.mit.edu

From media.mit.edu!asb Thu Jul  8 19:29:46 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "8" "July" "1993" "19:21:26" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "19" "Re: Watch that first step..." "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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             <CMM.0.90.2.742178848.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>ment"
Message-ID: <9307090221.AA29502@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 8 Jul 1993 19:21:26 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	strata@hybrid.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, strata@virtual-city.virtual.net,
	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Watch that first step...




Most of what you want really is in LambdaCore.  On MediaMOO we just added the
stuff about real names and changed "wizard" to "janitor."  Albert has done
some pretty spiffy events code which is almost ready for prime time.  We also
made new players by default programmers.

All the gopher stuff is from JaysHouseMOO.  It requires a small server patch
for this version of the server.

If you want MOOnet, you need to speak to Networker@(most MOOs).

My advice: start small.  Examine every object number in the core and see what
it does (there aren't many.)  Port things one at a time as you need them.

-- Amy



From virtual-city.virtual.net!strata Thu Jul  8 21:59:21 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "8" "July" "1993" "21:49:23" "-0700" "\"M. Strata Rose\"" "strata@virtual-city.virtual.net" nil "19" "Smitten from Heaven" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <CMM.0.90.2.742193363.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Date:	Thu, 8 Jul 1993 21:49:23 -0700
From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	strata@virtual-city.virtual.net, moo-cows-request@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Smitten from Heaven
Reply-to: strata@hybrid.com


(or whatever passes for it these days)

So I move my email off of virtual-city so that I won't get flamed for AUP and
of course the reliable machine at MIT that I move it to goes thump.  In fact,
I can't reach anything on 18.62.0 at all now.  So if you were replying to my
message of earlier in the day, please resend the reply to me at virtual-city.

Also, could my moo-cows address be changed to
strata@virtual-city.virtual.net please?

Thanks,
_Strata


M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City Project
strata@virtual-city.virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@apple.com | strata@eddie.mit.edu

From pooh.parc.xerox.com!masinter Sun Jul 11 16:43:36 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "11" "July" "1993" "16:43:02" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "37" "dump/reload messes verb named 0* 1* 2* 3*" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 16:43:02 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	pavel@parc.xerox.com
CC:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: dump/reload messes verb named 0* 1* 2* 3*

Hi --

I added a feature to the gopher slate, to allow a shorthand '10 on
slate' to mean 'pick 10 on slate'. I was gone for a week -- when I
came back, I found out that the object wasn't working.

It seems that verbs after one named 1* 2* 3* 4* 5* etc. don't get restored
properly. I tested this with a small database:

Before checkpoint & restart:
================================================================
>; verbs(#75)
=> {"verb1", "verb2 1* 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 9*", "verb3"}
>@list #75:verb1
#75:"verb1"   none none none
 1:  return "This is verb1";
>@list #75:verb2
#75:"verb2 1* 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 9*"   none none none
 1:  return "this is verb2";
>@list #75:verb3
#75:"verb3"   none none none
 1:  return "this is verb3";

================================================================
after checkpoint & restart:
================================================================
>; verbs(#75)
=> {"verb1", "verb2 1* 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 9*", "verb3"}
>@list #75:verb1
#75:"verb1"   none none none
 1:  return "This is verb1";
>@list #75:verb2
#75:"verb2 1* 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 9*"   none none none
 1:  return "this is verb3";
>@list #75:verb3
That verb has not been programmed.


From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Sun Jul 11 17:21:50 1993
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Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 17:13:21 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: expanded ctime()
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT


has anybody ever hacked up ctime a little so that it has more options as to
what its output looks like?  (in the direction of having more of the options
found in unix's 'date'...)  I was just wondering about this, I figure I could
either program in a time utility, or hack the server code, but I thought I
would check up first...

		-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon - DarkurtheMOO)

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Sun Jul 11 18:52:20 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "11" "July" "1993" "18:56:36" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "44" "Re: dump/reload messes verb named 0* 1* 2* 3* " "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 11 Jul 1993 16:43:02 PDT."
             <93Jul11.164307pdt.2790@golden.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 18:56:36 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	pavel@parc.xerox.com, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: dump/reload messes verb named 0* 1* 2* 3* 

The problem is that giving a numeric name to a verb thoroughly confuse
the verbname matcher.

Currently, a name string that also happens to be a decimal number n is
taken to refer to the (n+1)th verb in the object's verblist.  Note
that there needs to be *some* method of referring to a verb
independently of its given (command-name) name; without this you would
lose completely if, say, you named a verb "*" and it wasn't the last
verb on an object's verb list --- there would be NO WAY to refer to
any of the following verbs.

What seems to be happening is that in the case of numeric names, it
STILL checks for string matches on earlier verbs.  Thus, in your
example, when restoring the db, the code for verb #75:2 (named
"verb3") is read and we find that the second verb on #75 (i.e., #75:1,
named "verb2 1* 2* 3* ...") has a name matching "2".  This causes the 
previous code for #75:"verb2" (#75:1) to get overwritten.
This is indeed broken.

The quick fix is to change db_read to interpret the verb number directly
and not call match_verbdef.  However, to fix the more fundamental problem
here I'll also suggest

1.  changing delete_verb,verb_info, verb_args, verb_code, set_verb_info, 
    set_verb_args, and set_verb_code, to allow a NUMERIC argument in the 
    verbname slot, e.g., set_verb_info(#75,2,{#122,"rxd","verb3"}).
    STRING arguments would continue to work as before.

There are roughly 5-10 lambdacore verbs that need to use
numeric-string verb names (e.g., @program, @rmverb, @chmod ...);
once these are changed to use numeric names, one can then

2.  change match_verbdef(), used by the delete_verb,etc...
    in the case where the verbname argument is a STRING, to treat
    number strings no differently from any other name.  
    (i.e., put #ifdefs around that strtol call...).  This should probably 
    be done as a compile-time switch so that old dbs can continue to work...

This way delete_verb(#75,2) would delete the 3rd verb (remember we start with 0)
from #75, whereas delete_verb(#75,"2") would delete from #75 the verb whose name 
matches "2".

This would then allow numeric command names to work.


From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Sun Jul 11 19:15:32 1993
Status: RO
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Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 18:29:28 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: expanded ctime()
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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forget it, I forgot about the $time_utils

		-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon)

From sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu!scott Sun Jul 11 21:06:32 1993
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Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 20:57:50 -0700
From:	Jay Scott <scott@sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: o_n_c numeric address

In the 1.7.0 server, the open_network_connection() implementation
provided in net_bsd_tcp.c requires a host name, like "sparc7.cs.uiuc.edu".
It doesn't understand numeric addresses, like "128.174.244.117".
The current LambdaMOO server, though it claims to be 1.7.0 (@version),
also claims to allow numeric addresses (help open_network_connection).

I need this ability. Can anybody send me a patch?

It seems my MOO wants to connect to a service which is running
on a machine that does not have a name. (I'm sure that it's typical
of humans to invent an elaborate domain name system and then put
public services on machines which can't be reached through it.)

If nobody can send me a patch within a few days, I'll have to write
it myself. gethostbyaddr(), bleh.

	Frand
	scott@cs.uiuc.edu

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jul 12 10:04:38 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "12" "July" "1993" "09:44:21" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Re: dump/reload messes verb named 0* 1* 2* 3*" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <93Jul11.164307pdt.2790@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 12 Jul 1993 09:44:21 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	masinter@parc.xerox.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: dump/reload messes verb named 0* 1* 2* 3*

> Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 16:43:02 -0700
> From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
> 
> I added a feature to the gopher slate, to allow a shorthand '10 on
> slate' to mean 'pick 10 on slate'. I was gone for a week -- when I
> came back, I found out that the object wasn't working.
> 
> It seems that verbs after one named 1* 2* 3* 4* 5* etc. don't get restored
> properly.

This is a consequence of some very early design mistakes in MOO, having to do
with the use of numbers as indices into an object's list of verbs.  I will try
hard to put together a workaround for this buggy outcome in 1.8.0.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jul 12 10:56:45 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "12" "July" "1993" "10:43:45" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: o_n_c numeric address" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Mon, 12 Jul 1993 10:43:45 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	scott@sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: o_n_c numeric address

> Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1993 20:57:50 -0700
> From:	Jay Scott <scott@sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu>
> 
> In the 1.7.0 server, the open_network_connection() implementation
> provided in net_bsd_tcp.c requires a host name, like "sparc7.cs.uiuc.edu".
> It doesn't understand numeric addresses, like "128.174.244.117".
> The current LambdaMOO server, though it claims to be 1.7.0 (@version),
> also claims to allow numeric addresses (help open_network_connection).
> 
> I need this ability. Can anybody send me a patch?

Um, this works fine for me.  What behavior are you seeing?

	Pavel

From sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu!scott Mon Jul 12 16:27:17 1993
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Date:	Mon, 12 Jul 1993 16:16:05 -0700
From:	Jay Scott <scott@sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: o_n_c numeric addresses

Holy smoke, it does work! So much for my 'careful testing'.

Sorry to waste everybody's time. It's not true that:

>In the 1.7.0 server, the open_network_connection() implementation
>provided in net_bsd_tcp.c requires a host name, like "sparc7.cs.uiuc.edu".
>It doesn't understand numeric addresses, like "128.174.244.117".

	Frand

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Wed Jul 14 11:52:18 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "July" "1993" "11:25:07" "-0700" "Lynx" "BRANDON@cc.usu.edu" "<01H0J5GJC92Q9VZBP6@CC.USU.EDU>" "8" "new preposition...?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 14 Jul 1993 11:25:07 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: new preposition...?
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

How hard is it to add a new preposition?  I would love to have an 'of'
preposistion, such as:

	press side of box

	Just a quick thought...

			-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon - DarkurtheMOO)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jul 14 15:22:25 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "14" "July" "1993" "14:55:40" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: new preposition...?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 14 Jul 1993 14:55:40 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: new preposition...?

> Date:	Wed, 14 Jul 1993 11:25:07 -0700
> From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
> 
> How hard is it to add a new preposition?  I would love to have an 'of'
> preposistion, such as:
> 
> 	press side of box

Easy to do, but your code (and your database) will not be portable to other
MOOs.  Just add an entry to the initialization of `prep_list' in parse_cmd.c
and recompile.  Add your entry to the *END* of the list, or you'll be screwed
utterly.

	Pavel

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Thu Jul 15 12:00:24 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "11:47:29" "-0700" "Lynx" "BRANDON@cc.usu.edu" nil "10" "Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:47:29 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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I think I may be walking into covered ground, but why the heck is Mr. Spell
(#34) even in the LambdaCore???????  *NONE* of the command verbs work (far as I
could tell) which seems to me like it was never finished programming, and it
takes up over 700K!  Lets just say that the players in DarkurtheMOO can do
without a spell checker...

	-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon --DarkurtheMOO)

OH, BTW, anybody ever get an up to date listing of all MOO servers and their
Addresses?

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Thu Jul 15 12:43:49 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "12:31:40" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "17" "Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Lynx's message of Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:47:29 PDT <01H0KLKEVR729VYYN4@CC.USU.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9307151931.AA09723@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:31:40 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

The problem with Mr. Spell is first he couldn't go in the core due to
some problem with the core-making process.  So we moved all his user
level verbs to #3133 which also doesn't go in the core.  Then, the
problem with the core-making process went away, but we forgot to move
the verbs to $builder.  However, it is possible that we should just
stop having Mr. Spell in the core, since there is rather a lot of
sentiment against him.  (For example, in my private moo, I recycled
him.)  Only problem with this is---it's much harder to add him than to
subtract him!  So if you did want Mr. Spell, you'd be basically out of
luck.

Has anyone with either a public or a private moo *not* recycled Mr.
Spell?

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From netman.widener.edu!jrp Thu Jul 15 12:59:10 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "12:44:58" "-0700" "jrp@netman.widener.edu" "jrp@netman.widener.edu" nil "4" "Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:44:58 -0700
From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

 
I kept Mr. Spell on one of my Moos, but I have not made use of him.

--JRP [Shirgall at various places]

From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Thu Jul 15 12:59:10 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "12:44:57" "-0700" "Tim Sailer" "sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov " nil "13" "Re: Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9307151931.AA09723@Xenon.Stanford.EDU> from \"Judy Anderson\" at Jul 15, 93 12:31:40 pmwill do "
Message-ID: <9307151944.AA03726@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:44:57 -0700
From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
To:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu (Judy Anderson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell
Content-Type: text

> Has anyone with either a public or a private moo *not* recycled Mr.
> Spell?
> 

Yup.... my private MOO (dialup only) and JanusMOO both still have him....
Its hasn't been a problem, but if space ever gets tight....

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Thu Jul 15 13:08:21 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "12:54:00" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "25" "Re: Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <199307151954.AA00412@feenix.metronet.com>
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:54:00 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell


Personally, I would (and I have) delete the $spell thing from the core.

> OH, BTW, anybody ever get an up to date listing of all MOO servers and their
> Addresses?

Yup.  here it is.  Dunno how current it is tho.


Name             Address                 Numeric Address Port
-------------------------------------------------------------
DragonsFire      netman.widener.edu      147.31.1.51     4444
LambdaMOO        lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36     8888
ZenMOO           cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253    7777
ScrabbleMOO      next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   7777
OpalMOO          cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1     7777
MediaMOO         purple-crayon.media.mit.edu  18.85.0.48 8888
VampireMOO       pluto.cs.trinity.edu    131.194.131.20  7777
TechMOOseum      whyanext.com            156.151.253.1   8888
Monohaze         nexus.yorku.ca          130.63.9.66     7777
MagicMOO         dougal.aston.ac.uk      134.151.36.1    7777
JanusMOO         sun10.sep.bnl.gov       130.199.50.6    8888
------------     ---------------------   --------------  ----



From cs.princeton.edu!don Thu Jul 15 13:39:43 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "13:30:56" "-0700" "Don Mitchell" "don@cs.princeton.edu" nil "7" "MOO servers" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 13:30:56 -0700
From:	Don Mitchell <don@cs.princeton.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO servers

There are two more MOOs that I know of:

RoboMOO		ghostwheel.bga.com	198.3.116.4	7777
PMC-MOO		dewey.lib.ncsu.edu	152.1.24.90	7777
JaysHouseMOO	jh.ccs.neu.edu		129.10.10.59	1709

Er, three more.  PMC is PostModernCulture.

From matt.ksu.ksu.edu!danodom Thu Jul 15 14:11:16 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "14:06:22" "-0700" "Dan Odom" "danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu " nil "15" "Clients and Backspace" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 14:06:22 -0700
From:	danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Dan Odom)
To:	moo-cows@xerox.com (Moo Cows)
Subject: Clients and Backspace
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


OK, guys,  this isn't funny.  Would the person who is responsible
please play LPMud for a month as punishment. :-)

I just switched my MOO playing machine from SunOS to SysV, and my
backspace stopped working.  How do I fix it?  Would a client help?

Speaking of clients, where do I get one for SysV?  mud.el won't work,
and tinytalk won't compile.

-- 
Dan Odom
danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu -- Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

Support the League for Programming Freedom.  Mail lpf@uunet.uu.net

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Jul 15 15:03:20 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "15" "July" "1993" "14:51:27" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "39" "Re: Clients and Backspace" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <9307152106.AA14862@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 14:51:27 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Clients and Backspace

> Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1993 14:06:22 -0700
> From:	danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Dan Odom)
> 
> I just switched my MOO playing machine from SunOS to SysV, and my
> backspace stopped working.  How do I fix it?  Would a client help?

This is one of those questions that I personally hear a lot, so here's a
submission for somebody's eventual FAQ for this list:

The MOO server does not, itself, support backspacing at all; it is supposed to
be provided by your local telnet program.  Here's how:

Most telnet programs provide two different modes of operation.  In one of them,
usually the default, each character you type is immediately sent to the remote
machine, exactly as you typed it; in this character-at-a-time mode, the remote
machine is going to have to provide the `backspacing' service since your local
machine can't do it (because, of course, there's no way for it to `unsend' the
previous character to the remote machine).  Your telnet program is currently
using character-at-a-time mode.

The second mode of operation for telnet programs is called `line-at-a-time'; in
this case, telnet doesn't send *any* of the characters you type to the remote
machine until you hit RETURN.  Until then, the local machine lets you do
backspacing and other corrections just like in normal applications.  When you
hit RETURN, only the corrected line is sent to the remote machine, so it never
knows anything about the various backspaces you typed and thus never needs to
provide any support for backspacing.  This is the mode that the MOO server
expects your telnet program to be in.

Thus, you need to make your local telnet program go into line-at-a-time mode
instead of character-at-a-time mode.  The way you do this is, unfortunately,
different for every system, so you'll have to read the documentation.  Some
telnet programs don't even have such an option, and only provide the
character-at-a-time mode; if you're stuck with one like this, then I'm afraid
you're out of luck and you'll just have to try to type very carefully.  :-(

I hope this helps.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Fri Jul 16 03:02:02 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "16" "July" "1993" "02:50:59" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "15" "How to stop NeXT Crashes (Answer - Sortof)" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Fri, 16 Jul 1993 02:50:59 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows List)
Subject: How to stop NeXT Crashes (Answer - Sortof)
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text


Well, my MOO had been running for 3 days with no crash (normally, 20 hours
is it's max) and I just found out why. My drive was full. The drive was full
because the /private/vm/swapfile was 97MB. A combination
of processes had driven the swapfile up from the normal 20MB to 97MB and
since those processes had finished and the NeXT never frees swapfile space
the MOO had more than enough space.

Now, I don't know where the swapfile should be set but it would seem this
DOES have a big impact.

-- 
Jonathan Bradshaw | Email Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Prodigy XMSN02B | Ham N9OXE
  WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
"If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"-Deborah Gibson

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Sat Jul 17 18:39:27 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "17" "July" "1993" "17:37:12" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "15" "Log files" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Sat, 17 Jul 1993 17:37:12 -0700
From:	A VAX's nightmare <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Log files

I was wandering around the other night with nothing much to do when I got
to thinking (don't ask me why) about the moo log files. It occured to me
that with all the traffic large MOOs get, that to find something in the log
file must be next to impossible. So what I thought was this: Why not
seperate it into two files? I mean, one would be dedicated to connections
and perhaps the outbound connections, and the other would be dedicated
to system moo 'system' entries such as checkpointing and security messages.
This would make the first file, say foo.connections.log, the busiest and
leave the other, say foo.system.log, growing at a much slower rate, making
it easier to find whatever it is that you're looking for.

Any oppinions?

-Wayne/Sadric@lambdaMOO


From dartmouth.edu!Michael.J.Fromberger Sun Jul 18 07:48:24 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "18" "July" "1993" "07:31:58" "-0700" "Michael J. Fromberger" "Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu " nil "17" "Parsing Chitchat" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <5491916@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 07:31:58 -0700
From:	Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu (Michael J. Fromberger)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Parsing Chitchat
Reply-to: sting@dartmouth.edu

Hi there,

I suspect this is a terribly frequently asked question, but what's the best
way to write a verb on an object so that it is aware of things players say in
the room?

If there's no direct way, I guess I could hack the verbs that drive 'say',
but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible...

-Sting
(aka Caedmon; AngloSaxony)

--
Michael J. Fromberger
Consultant, Postmaster, HD Clinic tech
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
Sting@Dartmouth.EDU / mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Jul 18 12:53:54 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "18" "July" "1993" "12:46:38" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "18" "Re: Log files" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 12:46:38 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Log files

> Date:	Sat, 17 Jul 1993 17:37:12 -0700
> From:	A VAX's nightmare <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
> 
> So what I thought was this: Why not seperate it into two files? I mean, one
> would be dedicated to connections and perhaps the outbound connections, and
> the other would be dedicated to system moo 'system' entries such as
> checkpointing and security messages.  This would make the first file, say
> foo.connections.log, the busiest and leave the other, say foo.system.log,
> growing at a much slower rate, making it easier to find whatever it is that
> you're looking for.

I don't know about you, but almost all of my searches through the log are for
connection information, not for checkpoint notices.  Also, since `restart'
script has the server use a new log file each time it starts up (concatenating
the old log file onto the end of a sort of `historical' log), the current log
isn't all that long and doesn't cause me any problems to search.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Jul 18 13:03:05 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "18" "July" "1993" "12:54:33" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "26" "Re: Parsing Chitchat" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <5491916@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 12:54:33 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	sting@dartmouth.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parsing Chitchat

> Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 07:31:58 -0700
> From:	Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu (Michael J. Fromberger)
> 
> I suspect this is a terribly frequently asked question, but what's the best
> way to write a verb on an object so that it is aware of things players say in
> the room?
> 
> If there's no direct way, I guess I could hack the verbs that drive 'say',
> but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible...

All of the verbs like `say' use the room's :announce verb, which in turn calls
the :tell verb on every object in the room, player or not.  Thus, in order to
have your object `hear' everything `said' in the room, you just have to give it
a :tell verb that does whatever processing you want.  You might start by
looking for lines like
		<player-name> says, "..."
and processing the stuff between the quotes, for example.

Note that :tell is called with multiple arguments which are, in the case of
players, concatenated together before being printed on their network
connections.  For your purposes, you might want to start your :tell verb with a
line like this:
		line = tostr(@args);
This will give you a single string in `line'.

	Pavel

From tamsun.tamu.edu!apj6796 Mon Jul 19 06:43:11 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "19" "July" "1993" "06:31:23" "-0700" "Albert Paul Jimenez III" "apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu" nil "10" "Re: Parsing Chitchat" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Mon, 19 Jul 1993 06:31:23 -0700
From:	Albert Paul Jimenez III <apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parsing Chitchat


on a related note, Pavel, why doesnt the room itself hear what is said inside of it?
I was going to implement an 'arena' that broadcasted everything it heard inside
of itself to another room, the Arena Stands, so folks could see what was going
on, but upon hacking the Arena's :tell, I found that it never broadcasted, and
when I looked at :announce_* I found that it didnt announce it to itself. Is
there a particular reason for this, or is it just something that whoever it was
forgot to think about?

--Zachary@LambdaMOO, Multiverse, and other places...

From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Mon Jul 19 08:16:29 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "19" "July" "1993" "08:09:34" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "29" "Re: Parsing Chitchat" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9307191331.AA20557@tamsun.tamu.edu> (message from Albert Paul Jimenez III on Mon, 19 Jul 1993 06:31:23 PDT)"
Message-ID: <9307191509.AA12744@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date:	Mon, 19 Jul 1993 08:09:34 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	apj6796@tamsun.tamu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parsing Chitchat

>on a related note, Pavel, why doesnt the room itself hear what is said inside
>of it?

I'm not Pavel, but I'm sure he has other things to do, like HACK DISKBASING,
so I'll answer.

>I was going to implement an 'arena' that broadcasted everything it heard
>inside of itself to another room, the Arena Stands, so folks could see what
>was going on, but upon hacking the Arena's :tell, I found that it never
>broadcasted, and when I looked at :announce_* I found that it didnt announce
>it to itself. Is there a particular reason for this, or is it just something
>that whoever it was forgot to think about?

It would make :tell even more ambiguous than it already is.  This is
especially the case in portable (or interior) rooms.  :tell has to be used to
transmit sound from outside to inside.  If it were also used as a kind of
generic dumpster for stuff that happens inside, :tell would always have to be
checking callers() (or maybe just caller) to figure out whether to transmit or
not.

Put it another way: Is there a reason :announce* _should_ call this:tell?

WRT your room, the simple and correct way to do this would be to hack
:announce*.  This makes more sense than hacking :tell--after all, you're
trying to trap things that get announced.

   --Zachary@LambdaMOO, Multiverse, and other places...

--Erik/JF

From softy.softwords.bc.ca!michael Tue Jul 20 20:49:14 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "20" "July" "1993" "20:41:07" "-0700" "Michael McAleese" "michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca " "<9307210341.AA19448@softy.softwords.bc.ca>" "14" "Verb preposition oddity" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Tue, 20 Jul 1993 20:41:07 -0700
From:	michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca (Michael McAleese)
To:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@sol.uvic.ca
Subject: Verb preposition oddity



   I have MOO just compiled and working on my 486/Linux box and everything
seemed to be working fine, until I tried to start some programming.  It 
seems that MOO can't find the list of valid prepositions for verbs, it 
rejects all of the list of defined prepositions except for "any".  Thus
while "@verb $player:tester this to any" fails with a message that "to" is
not a valid preposition, "@verb $player:tester this any any" does work.
There were no amazing warning messages when compiling (I compiled it again
from the LambdaMOO.1.7.0 source just to be sure), just some warnings from
gcc that I assumed were the usual overly pedantic gcc warnings.  Has this
ever happened before?  Anybody have any ideas what I have done wrong or 
might need to do to get it working normally?


From judy.indstate.edu!ajax Wed Jul 21 06:07:24 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "06:00:57" "-0700" "Benjamin C. Kite" "ajax@judy.indstate.edu " nil "15" "Re: Verb preposition oddity" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <9307211300.AA03594@judy.indstate.edu>
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 06:00:57 -0700
From:	ajax@judy.indstate.edu (Benjamin C. Kite)
To:	michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca (Michael McAleese),
	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@sol.uvic.ca
Subject: Re: Verb preposition oddity

In order to accurately determine whether or not your gcc warnings were,
in actuality `overly pedantic gcc warnings', you will probably need to
send them to the list.

Pavel mentioned that it was an easy job to add more prepositions to the
MOO, but it was very important to add them at the END of the list. I
don't assume that this is your problem, but included it for thoroughness.

Perhaps you are missing the file/section of the file that contains the
prepositiongs. A simple grep/egrep/fgrep session should tell you that.


-- 
 | ajax@judy.indstate.edu                      flkite@indsvax1.indstate.edu |
 |  Benjamin C. Kite, Indiana State University Foreign Language Department  | 

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Jul 21 06:16:05 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "06:03:17" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "9" "Verb Oddity" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 06:03:17 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows List)
Subject: Verb Oddity
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text


There is a problem with Linux and the MOO -- you are not going crazy. The
bad news is I don't remember the fix HOWEVER, I think Jay Carlson may know.
(If not, sorry, Jay!)

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"- D. Gibson

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Wed Jul 21 07:23:30 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "07:15:05" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "12" "Property ownership" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 07:15:05 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Property ownership



I have several "builders" on my MOO that I'd like to have own
the player's residences inside a building.  I'd thought to just
@chown the room to the builder, then @chown the .description
property to the player, so they could desc it themselves... but
even if the player owns the .description, they cannot write to 
it unless they own the room.  Is there a reason for this?  Is
there a way around it, other than writing a descer verb for
them?

-j.

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Wed Jul 21 07:28:01 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "07:19:31" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "8" "property ownership II" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 07:19:31 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: property ownership II


Grf.  Well, sorry for the spam.  Seems that I can chown the props
to the residents, they just can't use @describe on it.  @notedit and
;here.description="whatever" seems to work fine tho.  Guess I'll hack
@desc to allow it too.

-j.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jul 21 09:33:41 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "09:23:58" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "28" "Re: Verb preposition oddity" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <93Jul21.092412pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
References: <9307210341.AA19448@softy.softwords.bc.ca>
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 09:23:58 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca
cc:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@sol.uvic.ca
Subject: Re: Verb preposition oddity

> Date:	Tue, 20 Jul 1993 20:41:07 -0700
> From:	michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca (Michael McAleese)
> 
>    I have MOO just compiled and working on my 486/Linux box and everything
> seemed to be working fine, until I tried to start some programming.  It 
> seems that MOO can't find the list of valid prepositions for verbs, it 
> rejects all of the list of defined prepositions except for "any".

I thought I had posted a patch for this before, but I couldn't find it in the
archives, so here it is (again?):

In parse_cmd.c, near the end of the function match_prep(), change the code like
this:

      parse_into_words(s, &argc, argv);
      free_str(s);
      return prep_find(argc, argv, 0, 0);

into this:

      parse_into_words(s, &argc, argv);
      prep = prep_find(argc, argv, 0, 0);
      free_str(s);
      return prep;

This should fix the problem you're having.

	Pavel

From cs.washington.edu!tyrie Wed Jul 21 10:32:16 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "10:19:18" "-0700" "\"Tyrie J. Grubic\"" "tyrie@cs.washington.edu" nil "16" "Graphics in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:19:18 -0700
From:	"Tyrie J. Grubic" <tyrie@cs.washington.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Graphics in MOO?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I was wondering if anyone had, or was in the stages of doing or
considering beginning, adding graphics to MOO?

I'm imagining something where it has "important points" for each object
and tracks where those are, then the client program knows how to expand it
to the entire picture.  As you wal karound you would slowly move between
rooms, and looking at an object might display an enlarged close-up of it
before you at the angle you are looking at it (into it, at its bottom,
way up at it, etc.) 

I look forward to hearing what might or is being done in this area.

Tyrie J. Grubic
tyrie@cs.washington.edu



From leland.stanford.edu!snarflrd Wed Jul 21 10:48:58 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "10:40:55" "-0700" "David Engberg" "snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu" nil "38" "Re: Graphics in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:40:55 -0700
From:	David Engberg <snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu>
To:	tyrie@cs.washington.edu (Tyrie J. Grubic)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO?

> 
> I was wondering if anyone had, or was in the stages of doing or
> considering beginning, adding graphics to MOO?

curiously enough, adding graphics support to a server (like Moo) is fairly
easy ... it's just another type of data that you have to deal with manipulating

the problem comes in the clients ... to do something like what you envision,
someone will have to sit down and write _AT_LEAST_ two clients (x-windows and
msdos with modem) plus a decent editing environment to make the images in
the first place.
they will have to deal with calibrating colors and resolutions between
platforms, plus deal with the different communications and graphics mechanisms
underlying the client.

even assuming you find someone who has both the time and talent to write these,
you have to deal with serious issues of transmission and storage:
you undoubtedly want something cool enough looking to be worthwhile, but
you don't want to eliminate use by people on 2400bps modems.  if your server
has to send out five or ten 1k graphical objects per second, it's swiftly
going to consume all of its bandwidth, so you're going to want to force
the clients to cache some of the images, at least in memory, hopefully on
disk... now the client writer needs to be proficient in DB tools.

etc...

i'd give someone else's left arm if some large, high-level MU* group could
get together to hammer out a decent graphics standard and protocol so that
different people could get to work on writing clients, editors, servers
etc... without wasting/duplicating effort.

but we all know that if you get more than 5 people together on a MU*, they're
lucky if they can even decide what their names are, let alone anything
controversial and _useful_.

oh well ... a hound can dream.

dave

From ahab.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Wed Jul 21 12:28:29 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "13:16:50" "-0700" "H. Peter Anvin N9ITP" "hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "45" "Re: Graphics in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 13:16:50 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-Cows mailing list)
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO?
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Content-Type: text

I am hacking slightly on a high-level graphic BBS/MUD client, but I am
not giving any guarantees on ever completing it.  I am at least trying
to keep it simple, based on the assumption that if it is too complex,
noone will use it.

I think it is crucial to keep the protocol high-level and brief, in
order to conserve bandwidth... considering the type of machines most
people use today, it is not that big of a deal to use a high-level
protocol that puts the bulk of the rendering burden on the client.

My current thinking is that at least the original version will only
support 640x480 resolution in 16 colours... that way the problem on
client screen size becomes less.  The screen resolution 640x480 is
nice because both PC's (VGA) and Macs (except the compact ones which
mostly are B/W and the small 512x384 LC screen) can handle it, and it
makes a nice-sized X-window on most X screens.

	/hpa

> 
> > 
> > I was wondering if anyone had, or was in the stages of doing or
> > considering beginning, adding graphics to MOO?
> 
> curiously enough, adding graphics support to a server (like Moo) is fairly
> easy ... it's just another type of data that you have to deal with
> manipulating 
> 
> the problem comes in the clients ... to do something like what you envision,
> someone will have to sit down and write _AT_LEAST_ two clients (x-windows and
> msdos with modem) plus a decent editing environment to make the images in
> the first place.
> they will have to deal with calibrating colors and resolutions between
> platforms, plus deal with the different communications and graphics
> mechanisms 
> underlying the client.
> 


-- 
INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu       FINGER/TALK: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
IBM MAIL: 36073 at IBMX400  NeXTMAIL:    hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
ANMDRKNING: Heja Sverige friskt humvr!  EG vdntar utanfvr!
#include <sigvirus.h>


From virtual.net!strata Wed Jul 21 14:13:27 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "14:02:50" "-0700" "\"M. Strata Rose\"" "strata@virtual-city.virtual.net" "<CMM.0.90.2.743288570.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>" "18" "graphics et al" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <CMM.0.90.2.743288570.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 14:02:50 -0700
From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Sender: strata@virtual.net
To:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@apple.com
Subject: graphics et al
Reply-to: strata@hybrid.com


I am in the throes of designing a set of extensions to the moo server code
that will allow SGML documents with hyperlinks to be MOO objects.  This
solves the problem of inline graphics and even sound to some extent.  It's a
bit hairy, since I'm just digging through the server code.

One thing I'd like is the ability to treat the db as a true database and do
some object-level granularity locking for updates.  How feasible is this
given the internal structure of the db and server?  I am still digging....

_Strata



M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City Project
strata@virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@apple.com | strata@eddie.mit.edu

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Wed Jul 21 14:58:51 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "14:57:18" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " "<9307212157.AA15417@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>" "8" "won't compile on AIX" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: won't compile on AIX
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I am trying to compile the MOO server on our RS/6000...

It is giving me a syntax error in string.h and time.h.

I don't know C.

Help.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Jul 21 14:59:30 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "14:48:24" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: graphics et al" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <CMM.0.90.2.743288570.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 14:48:24 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	strata@hybrid.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: graphics et al

> Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 14:02:50 -0700
> From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
> 
> One thing I'd like is the ability to treat the db as a true database and do
> some object-level granularity locking for updates.  How feasible is this
> given the internal structure of the db and server?  I am still digging....

Um, since the MOO server is single-threaded and all tasks run atomically,
you've got all you might need for long- or short-term advisory locks.  If what
you want is not covered by this, let me know the details of the desired
behavior and I'll tell you how hard I think it would be.

	Pavel

From netcom.com!autodesk!autodesk.com!grantb Wed Jul 21 16:36:20 1993
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Sender: autodesk!autodesk.com!grantb@netcom.com
To:	tyrie@cs.washington.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO?


> I was wondering if anyone had, or was in the stages of doing or
> considering beginning, adding graphics to MOO?

This, of course, would be the obvious next thing to do to add another dimension
to
the MOO experience.  However, as Pavel Curtis has stated before, adding
graphics would
make the experience inaccessible to a lot of people.  In particular, anyone who
can't
use a paint system effectively or model in 3D space.  Text based virtual
realities are
at least accessible to anyone who can write and read effectively which is
almost as
large as the number of people that have access to the internet or a computer.

Have you read "Snow Crash" yet?  In there its like a graphically based mud with
individual sites existing as buildings on a street.  Individuals either
appeared as a generic Dick or Jane, or they would be customized.  The higher
the level of detail in the customization, the greater the level of status
accorded the individual.  After all, would you rather deal with a fuzzy Joe, or
a complex, highly featured goddess?  Anyway, fuzzy Joes were kinda locked out
of the experience while the elite got the enjoy the experience.

Another thing to think about is even if you have a society of accomplished,
artistic modeling mudders, the time from idea to implementation would be
extended radically.  I am a highly accomplished modeler, but it would be
extremely difficult for me to model a golden crown adorned with jewels.  It's
much easier just to write it.  And then, I would have to create all the
behaviours for it.  Ick.  MOO behaviour programming is much easier when you
don't have to worry about mass properties getting in the way.

I think it would be better to concentrate on improved host interfaces and maybe
audio (bandwidth considerations not withstanding.)

*------------------------------*---------------------------------------------*
| Grant Blaha aka Purple Tiger |  Will there be another race to follow after |
| ptiger@netcom.com            |  us?  Maybe Martians will do better than    |
| grantb@autodesk.com          |  we've done.  We'll make great pets.        |
|                              |                           - Porno For Pyros |
*------------------------------*---------------------------------------------*

From coos.dartmouth.edu!mozart Wed Jul 21 17:19:45 1993
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 17:11:22 -0700
From:	mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu (Sting)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: won't compile on AIX
Content-Type: text

quoth Chad Wilson:
>
>I am trying to compile the MOO server on our RS/6000...
>
>It is giving me a syntax error in string.h and time.h.
>
>I don't know C.
>
>Help.

Unfortunately, the trouble may be with AIX.  I tried unsuccessfully on several
occasions with different versions of AIX to compile the MOO to no avail.
Similar errors in all cases to what you're experiencing.

Pavel's written excellent code--it compiles with little or no effort on almost
every other platform and OS I've tried--but AIX has defeated me.

-Caedmon, of AngloSaxony
(Alas, moved back to DEC from SGI)

--
Michael J. Fromberger
Consultant, Postmaster, HD Clinic tech
Sting@Dartmouth.EDU / mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu


From softy.softwords.bc.ca!michael Wed Jul 21 18:50:12 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "18:40:24" "-0700" "Michael McAleese" "michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca " nil "3" "Verb Oddity Revealed: Linux" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 18:40:24 -0700
From:	michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca (Michael McAleese)
To:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@sol.uvic.ca
Subject: Verb Oddity Revealed: Linux


   Indeed the patch that Pavel posted cleared up the problem.  Thanks
to all who replied!

From softy.softwords.bc.ca!michael Wed Jul 21 20:28:23 1993
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 20:22:39 -0700
From:	michael@softy.softwords.bc.ca (Michael McAleese)
To:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@sol.uvic.ca
Subject: Best of the best


   I'm puttering away on a newborn MOO and am right at the code stealing 
phase :-).  I found the generic scheduler, generic climbable and sittable
objects on parc.xerox.com, and am pleased to add them to the db.  What other
interesting objects and code might be out there?  Tools that people use
every day and could not do without, and chrome that everyone finds fun and
exciting... anyone care to offer their list of the ten best MOO code hacks?



From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Wed Jul 21 20:47:06 1993
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Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 20:33:50 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Best of the Best
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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>    I'm puttering away on a newborn MOO and am right at the code stealing 
> phase :-).  I found the generic scheduler, generic climbable and sittable
> objects on parc.xerox.com, and am pleased to add them to the db.  What other
> interesting objects and code might be out there?  Tools that people use
> every day and could not do without, and chrome that everyone finds fun and
> exciting... anyone care to offer their list of the ten best MOO code hacks?

	Well, not to step on anybodies toes, but what I've found is that most
code from established servers is good only for reference, and that due to the
chaotic setup of how MOO ends up being, you have 20 different copies of the
same idea.  The best thing to do is to hit each heigharchy, and sift through
all other heigharchies, writing all your own from scratch.  This is what we are
doing on DarkurtheMOO, and it seems to be working fine so far (Richeileu nearly
has all the rooms programmed, including an new and improved polished shiny
generic sittable room :).  Anyhow

	-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon - DarkurtheMOO)


(BTW, I know of 1 exception -> AHaB, i'd vote him to the list)

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Wed Jul 21 23:34:48 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "23:25:20" "-0700" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" nil "21" "Re: Graphics in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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X-NS-Transport-ID: 08002008D0FD004E5710
Message-ID: <199307220625.AA19791@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 23:25:20 -0700
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO?

> I was wondering if anyone had, or was in the stages of doing or
> considering beginning, adding graphics to MOO?

I wrote a generic client for 2D bitmap graphics half a year ago.
Since that we are developing a moo database that uses the graphical
abilities.

The client is rather simple. All bitmaps are stored local, but they
can be downloaded from the server if required.

I think that 2D is a good compromise. I think that the internet
is yet too slow to handle 3D.
It is also possible to have a client that does the 2D graphics
on a text term (my first client worked this way).

The client is lying at parcftp, if somebody is interested.
I also made the alpha version of my moo public available
-- it was a long time not but now it is accessible again
on idefix.risc.uni-linz.ac.at 4201.

-- Stefan

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Thu Jul 22 00:01:10 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "21" "July" "1993" "23:57:27" "-0700" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" nil "43" "MOO now on RS/6000" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 10 Jun 93 15:19:27 PDT.\"
             <93Jun10.151930pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <199307220657.AA20069@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1993 23:57:27 -0700
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO now on RS/6000


As the title says, I just successfully compiled Moo-1.7.0
for RS/6000 !

Inspired by the HP/UX patch Pavel suggested, I once again
tried to install the Moo, this time with this patch, and
it worked. I used gcc to compile, btw. 
Here is Pavel's patch:

---------- include patch

-- If you've hacked the server file net_bsd_tcp.c to change the value assigned
   to `proto->believe_eof', restore that line to its original form:

	proto->believe_eof = 1;

Then make these two changes to net_multi.c:

-- Add this line among the #include's at the top:

	#include "my-ioctl.h"

-- Replace the entire implementation of set_non_blocking() with the following:

	int
	set_non_blocking(int fd)
	{
	    int	yes = 1;

	    if (ioctl(fd, FIONBIO, &yes) < 0)
		return 0;
	    else
		return 1;
	}

---------- end of include

If anybody wants to have the binaries, just contact me.

Ah, yes: my configuration was NET_BSD/MP_SELECT.
I had to change the NDECL_SELECT to 0 in config.h 

-- Stefan

From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Thu Jul 22 06:03:02 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "July" "1993" "05:56:08" "-0700" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "<199307221256.AA29236@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>" "10" "Problems with prepositions" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <199307221256.AA29236@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>
Date:	Thu, 22 Jul 1993 05:56:08 -0700
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Problems with prepositions


I recently posted that I succeded in compiling Moo for RS/6000.
But now I found out that this is just partially true.
I have this problem with the prepositions. I can't set any
preposition that is different from any and none.

I know this was discussed some days ago. Could anybody please
tell me the fix, I dropped this mails.

Thanks a lot,  Stefan

From unidata.com!james Thu Jul 22 10:37:00 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "10" "July" "1993" "07:08:25" "-0700" "james@unidata.com" "james@unidata.com" nil "31" "Re: Graphics in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 21 Jul 93 23:25:20 PDT.\"
             <199307220625.AA19791@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>a"
Message-ID: <9307221724.AA21726@falcon>
Date:	Sat, 10 Jul 1993 07:08:25 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO?

> I was wondering if anyone had, or was in the stages of doing or
> considering beginning, adding graphics to MOO?

I've had good luck with tektronix graphics and MOO. This is kind of a bizarre
approach, because the server is responsible for generating _all_ of the 
graphics, but it is very LCD. There are free emulators available for most 
platforms, such as Kermit (PC & Mac, I believe) and some-if-not-all "xterm"s.

Tek is an antique, vector-based, fairly comprehensive graphics protocol. You can 
generate color, patterned or dotted lines, curves (composed of line segments :), 
patterned fills, and text. You can get input from a (usually mouse-driven) 
crosshair, and you can still just type to plain ole' MOO. My compatriates and I 
have hooked our tek driver up to a street-grid generator, allowing us to walk, 
ride, or drive around in a little patch of city. Users can design their own 
graphic signs (from tek primitives or with a little "turtle" language), and all 
objects and users can be animated.

Tek is usable at 2400 bd, but the animation is pretty rough, and you don't want 
to give a 2400 bd user much detail.  At 14.4kbd or at network speeds, it looks 
pretty good.  We're still trying to figure out how best to animate things 
(currently, we're wiping the screen and redrawing, which is ugly). 

The most difficult part of getting started with tek is producing an 8 bit stream 
from MOO. I have two ways of doing this: a minimal client which recognizes 
escape sequences and generates the desired ascii codes, and an in-server ascii() 
function.

Hope this is helpful. Feel free to mail with any questions, comments, or 
suggestions.

  -James aka Minstrel -

From netcom.com!frankc Thu Jul 22 12:47:36 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "July" "1993" "12:38:48" "-0700" "Frank Crowell" "frankc@netcom.com " nil "74" "LINUX/MOO Save My Life! (long & linux related)" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 22 Jul 1993 12:38:48 -0700
From:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LINUX/MOO Save My Life! (long & linux related)


Help! Help! 

Since several people  made it sound so easy to build LambdaMOO under Linux,
I said: "sure, lets do it". hahahahahah. *kick Lynx*

Without going through the long explaination heres what i finally got:

ld internal error:
	name:34,256,32; flags:1,288,32;
	verfdefs:44,320,32;\defined in mysterious way
(yes, i am aware that this is also a linux question)

I am compiling unmodified LambdaMOO 1.7.0 under the following setup:
	Linux pl9 from SLS 1.02
	gcc 2.3.3 compiler
	ld (version unknown) Apr 1 5:36 50180 (size)
	i386/20 with math co-processor
	6 M memory
	ST02 scsi controller with 80 M HDU
	(heck i am just building and experimenting; what do
	you expect?)

Naturally I have compiled, linked, and run the same source under 
Sun (god i love Sun *hugs*)

Changes that i made (for linux only):

	1. Makefile: removed -O
		it was driving the gcc compiler crazy
	2. options.h: none
	3. config.h: whatever sh configure did
	4. server.c: hardwared SIGBUS

Build history:
	1. discovered -O problem thru experimentation
	2. found parser errors (huh?); that didnt sound right.
		finally i cleaned everything out again, rebooted,
		& reinstalled the source and went thru the 
		config part, left options.h alone, and ran make.
	3. final run produced identical warnings as on Sun
		(much better)
	4. then went to the loader (see above for funny message)
	5. hard rebooted system and tried make again; same message

So what am i after?

	1. since some people have sucessfully built MOO  under Linux:
		a. did you see the funny message and did you have to
		work around it?  
		b. help! help!

	2. anyone willing to share their binary with me? I need the
		following network options: NS-BSD/NP-TCP

item 2 will allow me to check other things out.
I plan to move the stuff over to a 486 blah blah with blah blah.
Or if its not possible to get the binaries, then tell me what your
setup was that allowed you to build MOO. please. <-- see the magic word?

however item 1 is critical. if i cant build a MOO under SOME linux,
then this activity goes bust.  i already know that emacs in this 
release is broken.  however i am not aware of any problems
in gcc 2.3.3--  and the loader, well what can i say about it?

pleeeez dont tell me to rebuild the kernel with the so-and-so patches.
right now i am having trouble building something that i have compiled
on several machines (all suns of course). yeah, i am sure i would
trust rebuilding the kernel.

-frank (aka maddog at finer muds everywhere)

--
[Maddog's VirtualStuff Emporium          frankc@netcom.COM]

From theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu!nop Thu Jul 22 14:47:11 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "July" "1993" "14:37:07" "-0700" "Jay A. Carlson" "nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu " nil "17" "Problems with prepositions" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at's message of Thu, 22 Jul 1993 05:56:08 PDT <199307221256.AA29236@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>"
Message-ID: <9307222137.AA23123@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
Date:	Thu, 22 Jul 1993 14:37:07 -0700
From:	nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
To:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Problems with prepositions

> I recently posted that I succeded in compiling Moo for RS/6000.
> But now I found out that this is just partially true.
> I have this problem with the prepositions. I can't set any
> preposition that is different from any and none.

> I know this was discussed some days ago. Could anybody please
> tell me the fix, I dropped this mails.

Pavel, this question has come up a lot lately.  Could you place the
patches that everyone should have (recycle() bug, o_n_c() timeout,
use-after-free prep bug) on parcftp and release a 1.7.1 that just
fixes these things?

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Jul 22 16:30:56 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "22" "July" "1993" "16:22:31" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "21" "FAQ?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <930722162231.23201699@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
Date:	Thu, 22 Jul 1993 16:22:31 -0700
From:	A VAX's nightmare <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	Moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: FAQ?

Okay, I've finaly broken down and decided to do it since no one else has.
I want people to send me (not the list) submissions of common questions and
answers. If I get a good enough bulk put together, I'll post it once a month
until someone else takes it over or I lose access (if ever).
(whichever comes first).

So, if you have a question you would like put on this, send me 1) A *WELL*
stated question and 2) A short, precise answer.

When you get this put together, send mail to:

 web@hacks.arizona.edu

or MOOmail to: Sadric@LambdaMOO.

I have no idea how long it'll take to compile a decent list, but you're
help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
-Wayne (aka Sadric)


From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Jul 22 16:33:38 1993
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Date:	Thu, 22 Jul 1993 16:27:08 -0700
From:	A VAX's nightmare <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	Moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: FAQ...

OH! Forget to mention, put something on the order of 'FAQ submission'
in the subject line of your letter so I know what I'm reading. :)

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From risc.uni-linz.ac.at!staferne Fri Jul 23 05:29:37 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "July" "1993" "05:20:12" "-0700" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at" "<199307231220.AA12482@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>" "12" "MOO-1.7.0 for AIX" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 22 Jul 93 11:34:33 PDT.\"
             <93Jul22.113441pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com> I heard especi"
Message-ID: <199307231220.AA12482@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>
Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 05:20:12 -0700
From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Sender: staferne@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO-1.7.0 for AIX


I finally fixed the bug in my AIX version of Moo 
(thanks a lot to Pavel) and uploaded it to parcftp.xerox.com
to /pub/MOO/contrib.

It would better reside in /pub/MOO/binaries, maybe you Pavel
could put it there ?

This version has out-of-band prefix and open-network connections
enabled.

Regards, Stefan

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Fri Jul 23 07:02:44 1993
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Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 07:02:20 -0700
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: $recycler and player creation
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As some of you may or may not know, I am the archwiz of ScrabbleMOO.

Our architecture is rather static.  We have no need for lot's of empty
rooms.  We have had to recycle some stuff, and we will be reaping idle
players soon.  Well, all those objects will just be sitting in the
recycler and will never get used.

I want player creation to use the recycler, to help keep the db free of
holes.  Are there any inherit dangers in doing this?  I don't mind a
newbie will get a number in the 100's.  Most of the ppl who use my MOO
don't even know what a MOO is (Don't worry, I try to lead them to that
state we know as MOOaddict).

To pavel:
  If that one post about MOO server on AIX can be fixed (the problem with
preps),  it will be unnecessary for me to give you my errors, unless you
would like for me to log the whole thing for future generations.

- Wilson


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jul 23 15:42:43 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "July" "1993" "15:19:35" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: MOO-1.7.0 for AIX" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <199307231220.AA12482@melmac.risc.uni-linz.ac.at>
	<93Jul22.113441pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 15:19:35 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-1.7.0 for AIX

> Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 05:20:12 -0700
> From:	Stefan.Taferner@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
> 
> I finally fixed the bug in my AIX version of Moo 
> (thanks a lot to Pavel) and uploaded it to parcftp.xerox.com
> to /pub/MOO/contrib.
> 
> It would better reside in /pub/MOO/binaries, maybe you Pavel
> could put it there ?

Done.

From blaze.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Fri Jul 23 15:42:44 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "July" "1993" "15:30:53" "-0700" "Jonathan Eifrig" "eifrig@blaze.cs.jhu.edu" nil "54" "A Newbie's First MOO Impressions" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Full-Name: Jonathan Eifrig
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Message-ID: <93Jul23.153056pdt.11985@alpha.xerox.com>
Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 15:30:53 -0700
From:	eifrig@blaze.cs.jhu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions

Hello, all!

	I thought I'd share my first impressions of the LambdaMOO server
and the LambdaCore database; hopefully, some of you will take the time to
correct my erroneous first thoughts.  Just so that you know from where I
speak, I come from MUSH-Land, where I got frustrated with the relatively
poor programmability available, and I've built the Lambda server/core
combination and have been playing aroud with it for about a week.

OK, so here's my first thoughts:

	(1) Documentation:  While the documentation of the server and the
LambdaCore database are much more extensive that the typical M* system,
the database's documentation seems woefully out of date.  I think this is
primarily due to the fact that:

	(2) The LambdaCore database provides too much functionality to be
really considered a *core* database.  Now, features are nice, of course,
but the excessive feature-ism makes it (a) hard to understand, (b) hard to
document, and (3) hard to administer.  Should things like Mr. Spell *really*
be considered part of a "core" system?  :-)

	The really "core" part of LambdaCore seems to me to be the way
it implements a subset of the Tiny* model: how "say", "look", and "move"
commands get performed.  All this stuff like the MOO Editors and the mail
system just muddy the core ideas.  Don't get me wrong: I think these are
great!  I just think that they might be best distributed as separate
"modules", if for no other reason than to support independent development.

	(3) I'd love to see some documentation on the file format of the
database.  I suppose I could probably figure out part of it from looking
at the "dump" code, but I'd rather not.  :-)  Primarily, I think this would
be useful for people who were writing their db's from scratch (a la
Minimal.db), and have screwed them up, or are trying to recover a corrupted
db.

And what comment would be complete without some clamoring for new features?
*grin*  Anyways, here's some initial thoughts on what I think could be
profitably added to the server:

	(1) Some way to read and write files on the server machine.  I'm
invisioning "open()", "read()", and "write()" file primitives, usable only
by wizards.  The big advantage would be for things like the Help databases.
On server start-up, they could read a text help file.  It would make main-
taining the help system much easier.  Personally, I'd much rather use Emacs
than the MOO Editor to write documentation. :-)

Well, that's about the extent of my initial comments.  I've got some other
ideas on the back burner, which I'll post about when I've had some more time
to experiment.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jack Eifrig (eifrig@cs.jhu.edu)       The Johns Hopkins University, C.S. Dept.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jul 23 16:25:48 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "July" "1993" "16:18:27" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "84" "Re: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 16:18:27 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eifrig@blaze.cs.jhu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions

> Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 15:30:53 -0700
> From:	eifrig@blaze.cs.jhu.edu
> 
> 	(1) Documentation:  While the documentation of the server and the
> LambdaCore database are much more extensive that the typical M* system,
> the database's documentation seems woefully out of date.

Granted.  Given the distributed, multi-programmer nature of core DB
development, I decided some time ago that the only feasible way to get the core
documented was within the help system in the core itself.  This has worked out
better than before, in that many more things are documented at all, but not
well enough to make for reasonable documentation for newcomers.

What we need is for some volunteers to write more documentation where it's
needed and then to transfer that into the core DB so that further development
can try to keep it up to date...

> 	(2) The LambdaCore database provides too much functionality to be
> really considered a *core* database.  Now, features are nice, of course,
> but the excessive feature-ism makes it (a) hard to understand, (b) hard to
> document, and (3) hard to administer.  Should things like Mr. Spell *really*
> be considered part of a "core" system?  :-)
> 
> 	The really "core" part of LambdaCore seems to me to be the way
> it implements a subset of the Tiny* model: how "say", "look", and "move"
> commands get performed.  All this stuff like the MOO Editors and the mail
> system just muddy the core ideas.  Don't get me wrong: I think these are
> great!  I just think that they might be best distributed as separate
> "modules", if for no other reason than to support independent development.

I would love to be able to do this, but it's harder than you think.  It's
actually quite a production and a fair amount of manual effort just to extract
the current definition of the core.  I shudder indeed to think of the effort
that would be required to regularly extract just a piece of it in some form
that was useful to other people.  Of course, this is mostly a language issue
and should get addressed at that level.

> 	(3) I'd love to see some documentation on the file format of the
> database.  I suppose I could probably figure out part of it from looking
> at the "dump" code, but I'd rather not.  :-)  Primarily, I think this would
> be useful for people who were writing their db's from scratch (a la
> Minimal.db), and have screwed them up, or are trying to recover a corrupted
> db.

I don't think that there's any reason under the sun for anyone to attempt to
hand-generate a MOO database.  There are essentially no decisions made in the
Minimal DB, so there shouldn't be any need to start from less than that.

As for trying to recover a corrupted database, I don't recommend even trying
it; it's a royal bitch even for someone like me who understands the code
deeply.

All that said, though, I certainly have no objection to documenting the current
format while making it clear that I feel no obligation to remain compatible
with it in future releases.  I'll put this on my list for the next release,
though I have to admit that I'm particularly motivated to give it a very high
priority there.

> 	(1) Some way to read and write files on the server machine.  I'm
> invisioning "open()", "read()", and "write()" file primitives, usable only
> by wizards.  The big advantage would be for things like the Help databases.
> On server start-up, they could read a text help file.  It would make main-
> taining the help system much easier.  Personally, I'd much rather use Emacs
> than the MOO Editor to write documentation. :-)

There are, of course, serious security issues related to this, but I won't
belabor that point here.  As for using Emacs instead of the MOO editor, that's
entirely understandable; that's what I do all the time.  However, this is
unrelated to whether or not the text is in the database proper.  The version of
mud.el in parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/clients supports this very nicely.  You
simply type
		@edit-options +local
to the MOO.  After that, any @notedit or @edit command will pop up a local
Emacs editing buffer with the current text of the property or verb.  You edit
locally, use C-c C-s to send the new text back to the server, and C-c C-] to
neatly throw away that local buffer.  I wrote the first version of this support
as one of the very first things I did for LambdaMOO because I couldn't imagine
actually trying to use any in-DB editor for it (though no such thing existed
then).

Keeping everything in the MOO DB means that it's accessible to and modifiable
by *all* of the wizards, not just the one(s) local to the server machine.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Jul 23 16:54:10 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "23" "July" "1993" "16:47:37" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "28" "Re: $recycler and player creation" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <9307231401.AA20142@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 16:47:37 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: $recycler and player creation

> Date:	Fri, 23 Jul 1993 07:02:20 -0700
> From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
> 
> Our architecture is rather static.  We have no need for lot's of empty
> rooms.  We have had to recycle some stuff, and we will be reaping idle
> players soon.  Well, all those objects will just be sitting in the
> recycler and will never get used.
> 
> I want player creation to use the recycler, to help keep the db free of
> holes.  Are there any inherit dangers in doing this?

The only danger is that some property in the MOO will be holding onto an object
number that is believed to refer to some particular player but actually refers
now to some other, newer player.  This could, for example, be in a high-scores
list, a list of the people who've solved some puzzle, etc.  If this isn't an
issue on your MOO, then you don't need to worry about it.  On the other hand,
what's the problem with holes in the DB numbering space?

> To pavel:
>   If that one post about MOO server on AIX can be fixed (the problem with
> preps),  it will be unnecessary for me to give you my errors, unless you
> would like for me to log the whole thing for future generations.

Um, did you mean `can' in that first line, or `cannot'?  The AIX problem was
fixed, so you should still send me the information about the problems you were
having, if you continue to have them.

	Pavel

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Sat Jul 24 08:43:02 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "24" "July" "1993" "08:42:00" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "105" "Re: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions " "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 23 Jul 93 16:18:27 -0700.
             <93Jul23.161836pdt.58377@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Sat, 24 Jul 1993 08:42:00 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions 


I thought I might give some perspectives on these issues, since most
of these problems are solvable:

> Given the distributed, multi-programmer nature of core DB
> development, I decided some time ago that the only feasible way to
> get the core documented was within the help system in the core
> itself.

I think this is a concession to lack of communication.  To me, the
problem doesn't seem inherent to having multiple programmers who don't
talk to each other in real life--the problem seems to be that the
core, like so much other software in this world, has evolved rather
than been designed.

> There are, of course, serious security issues related to [open(),
> read(), write()], but I won't belabor that point here.

This has been an issue for me in Coldmud.  I was originally planning
to provide an admin-only system() primitive that would pass a line to
the shell.  It was pointed out to me that making such dangerous
primitives administrator-only isn't enough.  Although it should be
harder to hack administrator privileges under a well-written Coldmud
database than it is in MOO, it's conceivable, and you don't want
people to have access to your file system if they do this.

I have provided echo_file() and run_script() primitives.  The first
only echoes files from the 'text' subdirectory of the database
directory, while the second only runs scripts from the 'scripts'
directory.  A check for ../ sequences prevents backing up through the
file hierarchy, and I never go through the shell under any
circumstances.

I agree fully, however, that local editing is a much better solution
than storing help text outside the database.

> I don't think that there's any reason under the sun for anyone to
> attempt to hand-generate a MOO database.  There are essentially no
> decisions made in the Minimal DB, so there shouldn't be any need to
> start from less than that.

> As for trying to recover a corrupted database, I don't recommend
> even trying it; it's a royal bitch even for someone like me who
> understands the code deeply.

Coldmud makes this problem considerably easier by having a special
database format intended to be easily read and modified by both
machines and people.  I should elaborate:

Coldmud, being a disk-based mud, has a binary database format.  The
binary database is intended for fast retrieval of objects.  It stores
all the hash tables there, stores references to IDs by number, and
other gritty stuff.  Coldmud can start up using such a binary
database, making startup time very fast.

However, the binary database format is terribly unsatisfactory for
anything but normal operation.  If it becomes corrupted, fixing it is
essentially impossible, especially since the internal structure of an
object depends on the rest of the hierarchy.  You can't mail it around
without uuencoding it.  Binary databases will likely become invalid
whenever there is a new version of the server, because I'm likely to
want to change the internal structure of an object or method
frequently.  At the moment, the format is also byte-order dependent,
although that will change soon (mostly for my personal convenience,
since I'm using a distributed multi-architecture system).

So I also have a function which dumps a text database in terms of the
C-- language and a few simple commands ('object', 'method', and
'eval').  Because this format is completely in ASCII and relies on the
C-- compiler to translate the text representation of objects into
their internal form, you can freely mail it around, modify it by hand,
and use it with any version of the server which can read in the code.
Of course, at the current time I'm making lots of incompatible
language changes, so it doesn't help much, but after I settle down and
stop revamping the language semantics every version, it should be a
big help.  And of course, recovering a corrupt text database is a
matter of excising or repairing the objects which contain damaged
text.

Naturally, any core database shipped with the server will be
written--possibly by humans--in the text database format, perhaps
annotated.

And here's another place where it pays off:

> I would love to be able to do [packages], but it's harder than you
> think.

Because Coldmud object IDs will be names rather than numbers fairly
soon, it should be quite easy to do.  Naturally, packages might have
dependencies on (named) objects in other packages, but this is
inherent to the problem.

Now, how to distribute these packages?  You could do it with client
support, and that might be more convenient, but it's also possible to
simply copy the appropriate object descriptions from the text database
dump and paste them onto the end of another text database dump, and
they will show up in the new database.  This will, naturally,
overwrite any objects with the same names as the new objects, which
may or may not be what you want.

--GBH
(Yes, yes, I know, you're all tired of hearing about the Vapor Server
to End All Vapor Servers.  I'm making progress.)


From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Sat Jul 24 10:51:13 1993
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Date:	Sat, 24 Jul 1993 10:43:56 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: getting players from the recycler
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I just had a thought about this.  The player DB may already do this, (I don't
think so, but I havn't reached it yet).  Anyhow, what I was thinking of was to
have the playerDB save all players and their names, indexed with their object
number.  Now, the way this will come into use is when people can use that
indexing (or whatever) to refer to the player, rather than their object number. 
Then, when they are recycled and the verb/whatever calls up the pdb, the pdb
returns that that player no longer exists, rather than having it return a
chair, or somthing else like that...

	-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon --DarkurtheMOO)

From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Sat Jul 24 11:36:57 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "24" "July" "1993" "11:31:22" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "16" "Re: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9307241542.AA09806@worf.MIT.EDU> (message from Greg Hudson on Sat, 24 Jul 1993 08:42:00 PDT)"
Message-ID: <9307241831.AA00935@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date:	Sat, 24 Jul 1993 11:31:22 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	ghudson@athena.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: A Newbie's First MOO Impressions

							 it should be
   harder to hack administrator privileges under a well-written Coldmud
   database than it is in MOO

I presume you mean "it should be easier to write a Coldmud database in which
it is impossible to hack administrator privileges than it is to write a MOO
one" or something less awkwardly phrased.  Obviously, in a well-written MOO
database, it would be impossible to hack administrator privileges (uh, that
is, without cracking an administrator's password).

			     recovering a corrupt text database is a
   matter of excising or repairing the objects which contain damaged
   text.

This doesn't help you unless you're constantly saving the database in text
format (probably in addition to a binary copy), right?

From ipac.caltech.edu!dave Sat Jul 24 12:38:22 1993
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Date:	Sat, 24 Jul 1993 12:31:44 -0700
From:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: getting players from the recycler

Brandon writes about how to deal with accessing recycled player #s...

There already is the player_db, which gives the player number from the
name, and is_player() returns whether the given object is a player.
I'd imagine a lot of stuff in the core (but maybe not minimal.db)
would break if you didn't do a real careful job with implementing the
idea - take the :tell verb for example.  When you do a room announce
you don't care if the various objects in the room contents are players
that you call tell on.  My guess is the best thing to do if you want to
guarantee that the object you're dealing with is to use is_player() and
let it go at that - otherwise you're introducing needless complexity.
After all, is_player() is obscenely cheap - 1 tick.

It does bring up an interesting thought though.  Over time the db will
start to have more and more properties that refer to non-existent
players (and objects).  For a moo with a lot of recycled or garbage
objects compared to the number of valid non-garbage objects it could
become a serious issue.  I can seen no way to prune the db of this
cruft except by putting special verbs on each object that will patch
its properties properly.  That would probably be a hard thing for the
random moo programmer to get right.

                                               - dave@ipac.caltech.edu


From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Sat Jul 24 16:01:17 1993
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From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC and @exam/exam
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ok, first off, I came across memory_usage() and was trying to figure out the
help on it.  The help says to not use the compiler option USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC, if
one wants memory_usage() to work.  well, USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC wasn't/isn't used to
compile DarkurtheMOO's binary, and memory_usage is still returning nothing. 
Being the curious person I am, I recompiled with that flag.  still
nothing...whats up?  (BTW, the system is a DEC 5000/125 running Ultrix 4.2)


Next, there is a comment in $player:@exam:

"This verb should probably go away once 'examine' is in place.";

Well, the verb 'examine' works fine...does this mean its in place? (eg make
@exam return: try 'examine' )...?  (figured I would ask before I dredged though
yet more code)

		-Brandon (Lynx/Shade --DarkurtheMOO)

From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Sat Jul 24 16:10:47 1993
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Date:	Sat, 24 Jul 1993 16:02:56 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC and @exam/exam

> Next, there is a comment in $player:@exam:

> "This verb should probably go away once 'examine' is in place.";

> Well, the verb 'examine' works fine...does this mean its in place? (eg make
> @exam return: try 'examine' )...?  (figured I would ask before I dredged
> though yet more code)

Well, yes.  A less obvious approach would be

  @rmverb $player:@examine
  (or @rename $player:@examine to @examine(old))
  @addalias @exam*ine to $player:examine

From uunet.uu.net!bsw!tungsten.seattle.geoworks.com!weber Sat Jul 24 18:13:17 1993
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From:	bsw!tungsten.seattle.geoworks.com!weber@uunet.uu.net (Eric Weber)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: $recycler:_recreate and fertility


When the recycler is asked to create a child of a non-fertile object,
it checks to see if the potential new owner owns the parent or is a
wizard, but doesn't check to see if caller_perms() is a wizard.  The
built in create, on the other hand, allows a wizard to create a child
of a non-fertile objectg regardless of who the new owner will be.  Why
the discrepency?

-- Eric

From cs.utexas.edu!wixer!gumby Sun Jul 25 12:51:49 1993
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Sender: wixer!gumby@cs.utexas.edu
To:	don@cs.princeton.edu (Don Mitchell)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO servers


> 
> There are two more MOOs that I know of:
> 
> RoboMOO		ghostwheel.bga.com	198.3.116.4	7777
...

RoboMOO is:

a) Renamed to Multiverse
b) Not intended at present for public use
c) Running on a machine of intemperate habits

Doug/Coffeeman

From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Sun Jul 25 18:50:02 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "25" "July" "1993" "18:42:08" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu " nil "8" "So, what have we learned so far?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Full-Name: Jack Eifrig
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Date:	Sun, 25 Jul 1993 18:42:08 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: So, what have we learned so far?

The Newbie speaks again!  :-)

I've been pokin' through the LambdaCore code for a while, and started
thinking.  It's been about two years or so since core part was created,
like the code for "look", "say", and the code for handling exits.

After two years experience, what would you have done differently?


From netcom.com!frankc Mon Jul 26 01:33:18 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "July" "1993" "01:23:16" "-0700" "Frank Crowell" "frankc@netcom.com " nil "9" "thanks for LINUX/MOO help" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Mon, 26 Jul 1993 01:23:16 -0700
From:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-COWS)
Subject: thanks for LINUX/MOO help

thanks to a couple of people for helping me with my linux/moo
problem. i have downloaded the binary file from parc and it seems to run
fine.   am i also going to upgrade to pl10 kernel and use
a newer loader and gcc compiler.

-frank

-- 
[Maddog's VirtualStuff Emporium          frankc@netcom.COM]

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Jul 26 10:05:25 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "July" "1993" "09:51:16" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Re: USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC and @exam/exam" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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References: <01H0XEIOBI549ZLZNQ@CC.USU.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 26 Jul 1993 09:51:16 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC and @exam/exam

> Date:	Sat, 24 Jul 1993 15:53:43 -0700
> From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
> 
> ok, first off, I came across memory_usage() and was trying to figure out the
> help on it.  The help says to not use the compiler option USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC,
> if one wants memory_usage() to work.  well, USE_SYSTEM_MALLOC wasn't/isn't
> used to compile DarkurtheMOO's binary, and memory_usage is still returning
> nothing.  Being the curious person I am, I recompiled with that flag.  still
> nothing...whats up?  (BTW, the system is a DEC 5000/125 running Ultrix 4.2)

This is a documentation bug that I just fixed.  The correct option is now
called USE_GNU_MALLOC; if it isn't defined in options.h, then memory_usage()
will always return the empty list.

	Pavel

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Mon Jul 26 11:12:22 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "July" "1993" "11:01:09" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "1" "$recycler:_recreate and fertility" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <9307261801.AA17038@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 26 Jul 1993 11:01:09 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bsw!tungsten.seattle.geoworks.com!weber@uunet.uu.net
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: $recycler:_recreate and fertility

It was an oversight.  Fixed.

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Mon Jul 26 16:12:24 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "26" "July" "1993" "15:36:29" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "9" "IRC/onc() programs?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Mon, 26 Jul 1993 15:36:29 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: IRC/onc() programs?



Has anyone written anything for interfacing with IRC from a 
MOO?  I'm wanting to write one and would rather not reinvent
the wheel.

Thanks...

-j.

From paladine.hacks.arizona.edu!web Tue Jul 27 19:45:35 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "27" "July" "1993" "19:38:51" "-0700" "Wayne E. Bouchard" "web@paladine.hacks.arizona.edu " "<9307280239.AA20607@paladine.hacks.arizona.edu>" "132" "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Tue, 27 Jul 1993 19:38:51 -0700
From:	web@paladine.hacks.arizona.edu (Wayne E. Bouchard)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Reply-to: web@hacks.arizona.edu
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

[Last updated July 27, 1993]

Database and Programming:
------------------------
1) Q: I want to start my own MOO. Where do I get the source?

   A: The standard MOO archive is parcftp.xerox.com in the directory pub/MOO.

      The file `LambdaMOO-X.Y.Z.tar.Z' (for a current server version of
      X.Y.Z) is a compressed tar file containing the complete source code,
      installlation instructions, and a copy of the `Minimal' LambdaMOO
      database.

      The file `LambdaCore-DDMMMYY.db' (for some date DDMMMYY) is a
      LambdaMOO database file containing the `core' of the running LambdaMOO
      database as of the specified date.  This is almost certainly the
      easiest place for you to start from in creating your own MOO, since
      this includes such useful things as the various generics (room,
      player, exit, thing, container, note, etc.), the MOO text editors, the
      MOO mail system, etc.

      The `binaries' subdirectory contains already-compiled executables of
      the current release for various machines.

2) Q: What is this programmer's manual everybody talks about and where
      can I get it?

   A: The "LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual" is a complete reference for all
      database-independent aspects of the LambdaMOO system, including the
      programming language, built-in functions, and command parser.

      The Programmer's Manual is availible via anonymous FTP at
      parcftp.xerox.com in the directory /pub/MOO/. It is availible in DVI,
      PostScript, TeXInfo, and plain text formats.

3) Q: Is there a way to incorporate new features of LambdaCore into my
      MOO's DB?

   A: There is no easy way to merge databases. The easiest thing to do is
      just snag the code from LambdaMOO or somewhere and build the objects
      by hand.

4) Q: How do I do execute a verb automatically each time the server starts?

   A: When the server starts, it calls the verb #0:server_started.
      Create/alter that verb to have it call the verb you want to execute.
      
      (NOTE: If you've got a continuous task, you do not need to execute it
      each time you restart the MOO. When the MOO is shut down, the current
      background tasks are saved. Thus that continuous task will still be
      there after the MOO is restarted.)

5) Q: How can I make an object in a room "listen" to everything that's
      being said?

   A: When something is said in a room, each object in that room is sent
      that text via :tell. You can hack this verb to do whatever you want it
      to whenever anything is said or done in a room.

6) Q: My MOO checkpoints every hour. I want to change this but I don't
      know where to look.

   A: Change the value of the property #0.dump_interval to the desired
      number of seconds between dumps; the change will take effect after the
      next checkpoint.

      This is documented in the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, section 4.2.2,
      Database Checkpointing Frequency.


Server Related:
--------------

1) Q: What are the minimum requirements for running a MOO?

   A: The LambdaCore database is approximately 2 megabytes in size. The
      source and executable for MOO will likely occupy another 1-2 Megs. In
      its current state, MOO resides entirely in RAM when running. The
      process size is going to be roughly 2-3 times the size of the
      database file on disk.

2) Q: I'm running a MOO on a NeXT but every once in a while it crashes
      with a 'vm_allocate failed' error. What's wrong?

   A: This is a bug in the NeXT's operating system and not in the MOO
      server.  The current best guess as to the cause is massive
      fragmentation in either the virtual memory system or in the memory
      managed by malloc() and free().

3) Q: I've heard a lot about the next release. When is it due out?

   A: It is unpredictable when each new version of the server will be
      released. Pavel Curtis (The developer of LambdaMOO) has
      estimated that 1.8.0 might well be out sometime in the fall of this
      year (1993), but date can reasonably be set.

Miscellaneous:
-------------

1) Q: What are some good clients to use with MOO?

   A: Most people prefer to use TinyFugue or the emacs client, mud.el.
      mud.el is availible at parcftp.xerox.com in the directory
      pub/MOO/clients/. As for other clients, you might try poking around at
      ftp.math.okstate.edu in the directory pub/mud/clients/.

2) Q: What are all the MOOs currently out there?

   A: Its hard to keep an accurate list of all known MOOs, but here's
      my best info:

	Name             Address                 Numeric Address Port
	-------------------------------------------------------------
	LambdaMOO        lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36     8888
         (The original)
	DragonsFire      netman.widener.edu      147.31.1.51     4444
	ZenMOO           cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253    7777
	ScrabbleMOO      next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   7777
	OpalMOO          cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1     7777
	PMC-MO           dewey.lib.ncsu.edu      152.1.24.90     7777
	VampireMOO       pluto.cs.trinity.edu    131.194.131.20  7777
	TechMOOseum      whyanext.com            156.151.253.1   8888
	MagicMOO         dougal.aston.ac.uk      134.151.36.1    7777
	JanusMOO         sun10.sep.bnl.gov       130.199.50.6    8888
        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "MOO Frequently-Asked Question List" is maintained by
Wayne E. Bouchard (web@HACKS.Arizona.EDU).  Direct all questions or
comments concerning this list to him.  Submissions and questions are
welcome and apprecieated.  This list will be posted again on the first
of next month.

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Wed Jul 28 01:04:02 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "01:52:13" "-0700" "Glusman Gustavo" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "43" "Re: MOO-FAQ" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 01:52:13 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ
Content-Type: text

Two things:
1-"How can I make a room listen to all that is said..."
  You should hack the room's :announce[_all[_but]], not the player's (or
  any room's contents) :tell...

2-This is my best-updated list of MOOs:
VisionMOO                                   idefix.risc.uni-linz.ac.at 4201
Dragonsfire MOO     147.31.1.51 4444        netman.widener.edu 4444
ScrabbleMOO         134.53.14.112 7777      next2.cas.muohio.edu 7777
ZenMOO              134.69.1.253 7777       cheshire.oxy.edu 7777
Jay's House of MOO  129.10.10.59 1709
JanusMOO            130.199.50.6 8888       pmdb.sep.bnl.gov 8888
LambdaMOO           13.2.116.36 8888        lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888
MediaMOO            18.85.0.48 8888         purple-crayon.media.mit.edu 8888
Monohaze            130.63.9.66 7777        ter-soth.nmt.edu 7777
OpalMOO             130.58.85.1 7777        cc.brynmawr.edu 7777
ThinkTankMOO        134.53.1.31 7777        rogue.acs.muohio.edu 7777
MagicMOO            134.151.36.1 7777       dougal.aston.ac.uk 7777
TechMOOseum         156.151.253.1 8888      whyanext.com 8888

...and a list of MOOs I didn't manage to log into for some time (some
nonexistent, I guess):
42-MOO              128.173.19.25 7777
DalMOO                                      ahab.eecs.nwu.edu 17971
InterMOO                                    seagull.sky.tucson.az.us 8888
DistortionMOO
Final FrontierMOO                           nexus.yorku.ca 8888
XMOO                131.243.70.11 8888
Neuromancer                                 cheshire.oxy.edu 2099
MooMOO                                      seagull.sky.tucson.az.us 7777
DreaMOO                                     snake.irf.se 4444
PlayhouseMOO                                eigen.ee.ualberta.ca 5555
VOIDian MOO
GodNet                                      morticia.cnns.unt.edu 7777
KnownSpace                                  goofy.cc.lehigh.edu 9337
VampireMOO          131.194.131.20 7777     pluto.cs.trinity.edu 7777
DimensionsMOO       128.2.112.111 4208
Multiverse          198.3.116.4 7777        ghostwheel.bga.com 7777
PMC-MOO             152.1.24.90 7777        dewey.lib.ncsu.edu 7777

That's all.



From xerox.com!schlake.PARC Wed Jul 28 08:08:38 1993
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In-Reply-to: "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
       \"Re: MOO-FAQ\" (Jul 28,  1:52am)"
Message-ID: <9307281457.AA16647@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 07:57:45 -0700
From:	schlake@anubis (Schlake)
Sender: schlake@parc.xerox.com
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo),
	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ

On Jul 28,  1:52am, Glusman Gustavo wrote:
> Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ

>2-This is my best-updated list of MOOs:
>Monohaze            130.63.9.66 7777        ter-soth.nmt.edu 7777

This MOO isn't open to the public!!!!!!!!!!!!  Go away.  :)

>...and a list of MOOs I didn't manage to log into for some time (some
>nonexistent, I guess):
>GodNet                                      morticia.cnns.unt.edu 7777

It's around, but not running.  MonoHaze is the replacement for it, when
it opens.



-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From ahab.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Wed Jul 28 08:34:11 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 09:20:04 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-Cows mailing list)
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Content-Type: text

> DalMOO                                      ahab.eecs.nwu.edu 17971

DalMOO is currently sitting on a QIC cassette.  Even when it was open,
it was not open to the public.

	/hpa

-- 
INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu       FINGER/TALK: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
IBM MAIL: 36073 at IBMX400  NeXTMAIL:    hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
ANMDRKNING: Heja Sverige friskt humvr!  EG vdntar utanfvr!
#include <sigvirus.h>


From cs.washington.edu!tyrie Wed Jul 28 08:51:35 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "08:44:02" "-0700" "\"Tyrie J. Grubic\"" "tyrie@cs.washington.edu" nil "4" "Re: MOO-FAQ" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 08:44:02 -0700
From:	"Tyrie J. Grubic" <tyrie@cs.washington.edu>
To:	Glusman Gustavo <bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>
cc:	cows <MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com>
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Nix DragonsFire, the site admin decided to pull the plug with about 2
minutes warning yesterday.



From media.mit.edu!asb Wed Jul 28 08:55:35 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 28 Jul 93 01:52:13 PDT.\"
             <9307280852.AA21613@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>arinero"
Message-ID: <9307281544.AA18212@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 08:44:49 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows), asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ


Your message dated: Wed, 28 Jul 93 01:52:13 PDT
> 2-This is my best-updated list of MOOs:

Some MOOs don't want to be publicly announced.

Wayne was nice enough to ask everyone "do you want your MOO announced?"
before writing the FAQ.  The ommissions were not an oversight but a courtesy.

-- Amy


From coos.dartmouth.edu!ewallace Wed Jul 28 09:03:37 1993
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In-Reply-to: "<Pine.3.07.9307280801.B1932-7100000@lynx.cs.washington.edu> from \"Tyrie J. Grubic\" at Jul 28, 93 08:44:02 am50"
Message-ID: <9307281552.AA29698@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 08:52:26 -0700
From:	ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu (Edward L. Wallace)
To:	tyrie@cs.washington.edu (Tyrie J. Grubic)
cc:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ
Content-Type: text

Tyrie - try avoiding making judgement calls on this mailing list, we don't
want, and don't need MOO-Cows to be subject to the drivel on other mailing 
lists.

What Tyrie also neglected to mention is that other sites are possible for DF.
The primary contact should be arien@omnigroup.com for confirmation of a site.

-- 
Ted Wallace '93 - Consultant, Computer Resource Center
Dartmouth College, department of Physics and Astronomy
---
"All science is either physics, or stamp collecting" - Rutherford
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it!" - Schroedinger

From cs.washington.edu!tyrie Wed Jul 28 09:06:07 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "08:57:08" "-0700" "\"Tyrie J. Grubic\"" "tyrie@cs.washington.edu" nil "24" "Re: MOO-FAQ" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9307280807.F1932-b100000@lynx.cs.washington.edu>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 08:57:08 -0700
From:	"Tyrie J. Grubic" <tyrie@cs.washington.edu>
To:	"Edward L. Wallace" <ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu>
cc:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I didn't make a judgement call, TEd.  I merely mentioned it was gone.  I
figured when another site panned out that the list would be updated.  No
sense giving out a site that is incorrect.  I mentioned no names or
anything, just that it was gone.  You however read it as a flame and
judgement call and have sense turned it into some, and sent to the entire
list.  (Thus I'm sending my resposne to the entire list.)  

On Wed, 28 Jul 1993, Edward L. Wallace wrote:

> Tyrie - try avoiding making judgement calls on this mailing list, we don't
> want, and don't need MOO-Cows to be subject to the drivel on other mailing 
> lists.
> 
> What Tyrie also neglected to mention is that other sites are possible for DF.
> The primary contact should be arien@omnigroup.com for confirmation of a site.
> 
> -- 
> Ted Wallace '93 - Consultant, Computer Resource Center
> Dartmouth College, department of Physics and Astronomy
> ---
> "All science is either physics, or stamp collecting" - Rutherford
> "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it!" - Schroedinger



From netman.widener.edu!jrp Wed Jul 28 09:17:40 1993
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From:	jrp@netman.widener.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ


"Tyrie J. Grubic" <tyrie@cs.washington.edu> said:
>Nix DragonsFire, the site admin decided to pull the plug with about 2
>minutes warning yesterday.

If we can ignore the inflammatory around the essential fact, yes, 
Dragonsfire MOO is no longer running on netman.Widener.EDU 4444.

They are looking for a new site. Please send possibilities to
DF@cyber.Widener.EDU.

--JRP [Shirgall@almost everywhere]

From nyx.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Wed Jul 28 09:28:21 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 09:17:38 -0700
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu>
To:	"Tyrie J. Grubic" <tyrie@cs.washington.edu>
cc:	"Edward L. Wallace" <ewallace@coos.dartmouth.edu>,
	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-FAQ
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII



  Please...  It;s bad enough that all this bickering is going on but lets
not drag others into our problems..

					Nick



From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Wed Jul 28 14:22:05 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "15:05:35" "-0700" "Glusman Gustavo" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "10" "***SORRY***" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 15:05:35 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: ***SORRY***
Content-Type: text

I am AWFULLY sorry.
In fact, I *didn't* write all the MOOs I have listed: only those I
*thought* were public. After all, most MOOs don't specifically say "Please
don't give away the address." Some do, and I didn't include them in my list.
I am still stunned by it.
Anyway, I got my punishment: I received TOO MANY complaints, and expect to
receive some more...
Again, sorry. I'll shut up now.



From feenix.metronet.com!kira Wed Jul 28 14:40:06 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "14:29:35" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "16" "Re: ***SORRY***" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 14:29:35 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo Glusman Gustavo)
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ***SORRY***



Hey hey, I thought the list of MOOs in the FAQ is a _great_ idea,
and IMHO if a MOO on the list isnt open, all it takes is one *nice*
letter from someone on the staff to ask to have it removed.  (As
I cant see any reason for anyone to be impolite about it.  Its 
easy enough to disable new-player logins at your site, or require
registration).

I'm glad you're doing the FAQ, please keep the MOOs list on there.

-j.





From umslvma.umsl.edu!S954161 Wed Jul 28 14:53:27 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "14:41:29" "-0700" "Ben Ricker" "S954161@umslvma.umsl.edu" nil "6" "Re: *****Sorry*****" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 14:41:29 -0700
From:	Ben Ricker <S954161@umslvma.umsl.edu>
To:	Moo-Cows Mailing List <moo-cows@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: *****Sorry*****


  I have seen Moos being listed in many places on InterNet...especially in
UseNet forums. I doubt that all the times I have seen a Moo list has
permission from each and every Moo to print it. Maybe they should, but the
ability to filter who logs in is enough fro me. If they then go public, at
least their name is out there already.

From ahab.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Wed Jul 28 15:03:09 1993
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Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 14:51:40 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  ***SORRY***

I meant absolutely no harm with my comment, nor did I intend it to be rude.  I
just wanted to have that point clarified.  Consider it a piece of information
to update your list as to why you could not connect to DalMOO.

	/hpa

-- 
INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu       FINGER/TALK: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
IBM MAIL: 36073 at IBMX400  NeXTMAIL:    hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
ANMDRKNING: Heja Sverige friskt humvr!  EG vdntar utanfvr!
This is a test of the emergency USENET system.  ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G


From media.mit.edu!adams Wed Jul 28 16:20:41 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "16:09:33" "-0700" "adams@media.mit.edu" "adams@media.mit.edu" nil "26" "Re: ***SORRY***" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 28 Jul 93 14:29:35 PDT.\"
             <199307282129.AA14188@feenix.metronet.com>   fi
	e   =>   "
Message-ID: <9307282309.AA00620@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 16:09:33 -0700
From:	adams@media.mit.edu
To:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
cc:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo Glusman Gustavo),
	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com, adams@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: ***SORRY***

-J wrote:
>>>>
Hey hey, I thought the list of MOOs in the FAQ is a _great_ idea,
and IMHO if a MOO on the list isnt open, all it takes is one *nice*
letter from someone on the staff to ask to have it removed.  (As
I cant see any reason for anyone to be impolite about it.  Its
easy enough to disable new-player logins at your site, or require
registration).

I'm glad you're doing the FAQ, please keep the MOOs list on there.

-j.
<<<<

If you are a janitor/wiz with not much _time_ on your hands, you dont want
to have to go through a bunch of requests for accounts for people that
do not qualify for an account. Some MOO's out there try to restrict
their userbase to certain group of people, i.e., Media Researchers on
MediaMOO. Right now, we only have about 2-3 people doing registration
of new users, and all of those people have tons of other projects to get
done and would appreciate keeping the requests down to people who
have legitimate interests. Please do not post MediaMOO on any public
lists, etc...Thank you.

Adam Skwersky


From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Wed Jul 28 16:40:22 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "16:30:28" "-0700" "A VAX's nightmare" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "24" "MOOs list" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <930728163029.234001b6@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 16:30:28 -0700
From:	A VAX's nightmare <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOOs list

Hmm.. The list of MOOs I posted on the FAQ generated quite a bit
more excitement than I had anticipated. I appologize if any MOOs got
posted that shouldn't have. I did try to contact the administrator
of each MOO (via guest login or similar) before listing them to
verify that they did indeed want their MOO listed.

As for additions, it was my plan all along that once the list was
assembled and posted to the MOO-Cows mailing list, that mail would be
sent to me personally saying "I'm the administrator and I want you
to list my MOO" or a post to the mailing list saying something like
"FooMOO is now open to the public" before I added them to the list of
MOOs. I thank you for each of your letters (Yes, I got several) and
will post the next list on the first of September.

Regarding typos, I have fixed the ones I have been sent about and some
minor rewording will take place between now and September 1.

If any of you know of any questions I have missed, please mail me and
I will look it over. My address is web@HACKS.Arizona.EDU (as posted on
the list).

Thanks for all the help,
-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO


From src.dec.com!weber Wed Jul 28 16:52:53 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "16:40:11" "-0700" "weber@src.dec.com" "weber@src.dec.com" nil "18" "Re: *****Sorry*****" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Message of Wed, 28 Jul 1993 14:41:29 PDT
    from Ben Ricker <S954161@umslvma.umsl.edu>
    <93Jul28.144306pdt.11963@alpha.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <9307282340.AA06185@chaucer>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 16:40:11 -0700
From:	weber@src.dec.com
To:	Ben Ricker <S954161@umslvma.umsl.edu>
cc:	Moo-Cows Mailing List <moo-cows@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: *****Sorry*****

Ben Ricker <S954161@umslvma.umsl.edu> writes:
>
>  I have seen Moos being listed in many places on InterNet...especially in
>UseNet forums. I doubt that all the times I have seen a Moo list has
>permission from each and every Moo to print it. 

Almost all lists I've seen on UseNet are made by Scott Goehring, and he is
amazingly careful about not including MUDs who don't want to be listed.

>Maybe they should, but the ability to filter who logs in is enough fro me. 
>If they then go public, at least their name is out there already.

Don't you think that perhaps the people who have to do the filtering might
disagree?

Respectfully,

   -Sam Weber

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Wed Jul 28 17:02:44 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "28" "July" "1993" "16:54:32" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "12" "Re: *****Sorry*****" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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             <9307282340.AA06185@chaucer>"
Message-ID: <9307282354.AA01937@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1993 16:54:32 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	weber@src.dec.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: *****Sorry*****


> Almost all lists I've seen on UseNet are made by Scott Goehring, and
> he is amazingly careful about not including MUDs who don't want to
> be listed.

It is Scott's stated policy, last I checked, that he will list you,
with address, if he finds out about you, unless you explicitly tell
him not to.  I disagree with this policy, and it's possible that he's
changed it, but I haven't heard about it.

--GBH


From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Thu Jul 29 07:32:36 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "07:20:57" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu " nil "7" "MOO on an SGI?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Full-Name: Jack Eifrig
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Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:20:57 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO on an SGI?

Has anyone had any difficulties in compiling LambdaMOO on an SGI?  (I'm a
SunOS geek myself, and would like to know what to look out for.  :-)

My local sysadmin is graciously allowing me to experiment with running a
MOO on a local SGI machine with 64 Meg.  Mostly because it had been crashed
for 3 days and no one noticed.  :-)


From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Thu Jul 29 07:37:17 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "07:30:30" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu " nil "34" "Implementation of Lists?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:30:30 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Implementation of Lists?


How are lists implemented in the LambdaMOO server?  Coming from the
functional language community, I just assumed they would be implemented
as garbage-collected cons cells, but now I'm thinking that they're
actually fixed-length arrays of pointers, judging from the kinds of
built-in functions available on them.

The thing that got me thinking about his was the code for "$root:tell_lines()"
in the LambdaCore database.  This function takes either a single line of
text or a list of such lines, and spews them to the player's connection.
It's implemented as:

                    lines = args[1];
                    if (typeof(lines) != LIST)
                       lines = {lines};
                    endif
                    for line in (lines)
                       this:tell(line);
                    endfor

rather than the more obvious, and seemingly more efficient:

                    lines = args[1];
                    if (typeof(lines) != LIST)
                       this:tell(line);
                    else
                       for line in (lines)
                          this:tell(line);
                       endfor
                    endif

In the actual implementation, why isn't the formation of the list (which is
then immediately destructed) a serious performance penalty?


From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Thu Jul 29 08:02:30 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "07:53:31" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "28" "Re: Implementation of Lists?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "<93Jul29.073035pdt.11611@alpha.xerox.com> (eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu)"
Message-ID: <9307291453.AA15702@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:53:31 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Implementation of Lists?

   In the actual implementation, why isn't the formation of the list (which is
   then immediately destructed) a serious performance penalty?

It probably is.  (Well, "serious performance penalty" in the context of
LambdaCore kind of makes me look at you funny, but yeah.)

I've changed the LambdaMOO implementation:

      lines = args[1];
      if (typeof(lines) == LIST)
	for line in (lines)
	  this:tell(line);
	endfor
      else
	this:tell(lines);
      endif

Probably the right change to the implementation, speeding it up even further,
would be

      for line in (args[1])
        this:tell(line);
      endfor

and if people try to :tell_lines(something that isn't a list), they deserve
what they get.  :tell_lines is probably not the right place for this
particular flexibility.  Before making this change, though, I'd want to grep
around some to see what will be broken.

From netcom.com!frankc Thu Jul 29 08:45:36 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "08:39:24" "-0700" "Frank Crowell" "frankc@netcom.com " nil "24" "Re: *****Sorry*****" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9307282354.AA01937@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>; from \"Greg Hudson\" at Jul 28, 93 4:54 pm"
Message-ID: <9307291539.AA25953@netcom4.netcom.com>
Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 08:39:24 -0700
From:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-COWS)
Subject: Re: *****Sorry*****


first.  about Scotts mudlist.  i think that a lot of us
consider the internet as a public highway.  so anyplaces found along
the highway, might be considered an interesting place to stop.
only when we get to the door, do we find that it is 'for memebers only'.
ok, so we move on.  That doesnt mean you automatically get excluded
from Scotts list. you  gotta tell him.

second. this mailing list is not public broadcast. the newsgroups are
public broadcasts. i think that a least some of us are on the mailing
list are here because we are interest in *technical* MOO issues.
in my case, i will visit MOOs that seem to encourage visitors and 
avoid those that dont (like MediaMOO). but i have no way of knowing
which, what, or anything unless someone says something. As far as 
i can tell, I could have gotten practically every address
that was in the MOOlist from my own mail.

so i appreciated the list. you MOOadministrator could add your
own stuff to it like what you are about.

-frank

-- 
[Maddog's VirtualStuff Emporium          frankc@netcom.COM]

From crl.com!arthurc Thu Jul 29 10:20:37 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "09:40:47" "-0700" "Arthur Chandler" "arthurc@crl.com" nil "8" "Size of MOOs?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9307290944.A29619-8100000@crl.crl.com>
Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 09:40:47 -0700
From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	MOO-COWS <moo-cows@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Size of MOOs?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


  Does anyone have a list of the player size of exitsing MOOs? That is,
how many named accounts plus the number of variable guest accounts (like
the color_guest on some MOOs).
  Thanks.




From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Thu Jul 29 12:29:08 1993
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Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 13:17:37 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: MOO on SGI
Content-Type: text

I tried to compile the MOO core on an SGI.
GCC is available, but the 'configure' says:
*** Sorry, but I can't figure out how to find an ANSI C compiler here.
*** Compiling this program requires such a compiler.

What should I do?
Is there somewhere a compiled core for SGI that I could port, if
everything else fails?
Can it be compiled with Think C for the Mac? (sounds funny, ah?)

Gustavo.



From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Thu Jul 29 12:37:10 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "12:33:21" "-0700" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" nil "22" "Reply to MOO on SGI" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 29 Jul 93 13:17:37 PDT\"
             <9307292017.AA21255@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>"
Message-ID: <9307291933.AA23047@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 12:33:21 -0700
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to MOO on SGI

> I tried to compile the MOO core on an SGI.
> GCC is available, but the 'configure' says:
> *** Sorry, but I can't figure out how to find an ANSI C compiler here.
> *** Compiling this program requires such a compiler.
> 
> What should I do?

Build gcc. It's freely available from the GNU people.

> Is there somewhere a compiled core for SGI that I could port, if
> everything else fails?

I have a friend that might remember how, but she was forced to delete
it some time ago due to space restrictions.

> Can it be compiled with Think C for the Mac? (sounds funny, ah?)

It would be rather difficult, nee impossible, to do so.

> Gustavo.

--JRP

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Thu Jul 29 12:46:11 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "12:36:53" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "14" "Implementation of Lists?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Erik Ostrom's message of Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:53:31 PDT <9307291453.AA15702@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at>"
Message-ID: <9307291936.AA00954@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 12:36:53 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at
cc:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Implementation of Lists?

Since the contract of :description (in the lambdacore) is to return
either a string or a list of strings, and nearly every :look_self
method uses a variant of player:tell_lines(this:description()), I'd
say it's a little late to change the contract of :tell_lines.  Heck,
some people have been passing non-list things to :tell_lines,
expecting the tostr() to be done by :tell_lines, which it is, in
$player:tell_lines.  I've only recently gone through our data
collection of who is doing this improper calling of :tell_lines and
warned said verb owners that they'll start getting tracebacks pretty
soon after we flush the map_builtin("tostr",line) from
$player:tell_lines.

Yeah, code efficiency in lambdacore does make one wanna laugh, sigh.


From unidata.com!james Thu Jul 29 13:15:04 1993
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Message-ID: <9307292007.AA25673@falcon>
Date:	Sat, 17 Jul 1993 09:51:00 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	MOO-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: MOO on SGI

>Can it be compiled with Think C for the Mac? (sounds funny, ah?)

Think 'C' become %100 ANSI compliant with version 5.0, and compiles MOO.
I've been playing with it, and the only thing I have found troublesome is
the regexp code, which seems to not work. I haven't had time to tweak it,
which is why there is no Mac port at parc.xerox.com. Let me know if you have
any luck with it...
  -James/Minstrel-


From ucis.vill.edu!208687576 Thu Jul 29 13:24:26 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "14:14:00" "-0700" "Ryan D. Lackey" "208687576@ucis.vill.edu " nil "7" "DFmoo is dead ?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 14:14:00 -0700
From:	208687576@ucis.vill.edu (Ryan D. Lackey)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: DFmoo is dead ?

What happened to Dragon Fire moo ?  its address was netman.widener.edu 4444,
but whenever I try to connect, it says it can't and tries an alternate machine.

I love DFmoo.  _Please_ bring it back.

Thanks,
Ryan.

From nyx.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Thu Jul 29 16:02:50 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "29" "July" "1993" "15:37:51" "-0700" "Nicholas LaFlamme" "nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu" nil "17" "Re: DFmoo is dead ?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 15:37:51 -0700
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu>
To:	"Ryan D. Lackey" <208687576@ucis.vill.edu>
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: DFmoo is dead ?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Thu, 29 Jul 1993, Ryan D. Lackey wrote:

> What happened to Dragon Fire moo ?  its address was netman.widener.edu 4444,
> but whenever I try to connect, it says it can't and tries an alternate machine.
> 
> I love DFmoo.  _Please_ bring it back.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ryan.

   DF MOO is temporarily without a site.  Our Directors are working
diligently to fix this problem..  Hopefully we'll back with a vengence
soon. :)

				Nick  Officialtype  DFMOO



From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Jul 30 07:40:32 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "30" "July" "1993" "07:28:51" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "7" "editing 'help'" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 07:28:51 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: editing 'help'



I used to know how to do this, but can't seem to figure it
out now - how do you edit the "help" file itself - the one 
you see when you type "help" with no arguments?

-j.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Jul 30 09:25:26 1993
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In-Reply-to: "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"'s message of Fri, 30 Jul 1993 07:28:51 PDT <199307301428.AA01551@feenix.metronet.com>low manyvic.gov."
Message-ID: <9307301612.AA07927@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 09:12:34 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	kira@feenix.metronet.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: editing 'help'

"help" with no arguments gets you the "summary" help item.  This is
$help.summary (or possibly $prog_help.summary,
$your_private_help.summary, etc).

From media.mit.edu!asb Fri Jul 30 10:48:35 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "30" "July" "1993" "10:37:54" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "20" "Re: Size of MOOs?" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 29 Jul 93 09:40:47 PDT.\"
             <Pine.3.05.9307290944.A29619-8100000@crl.crl.com>"
Message-ID: <9307301737.AA13741@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 10:37:54 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
cc:	MOO-COWS <moo-cows@parc.xerox.com>, asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Size of MOOs?


Your message dated: Thu, 29 Jul 93 09:40:47 PDT
> 
>   Does anyone have a list of the player size of exitsing MOOs? That is,
> how many named accounts plus the number of variable guest accounts (like
> the color_guest on some MOOs).
>   Thanks.
> 

Maybe the @players command could be moved from generic wizard to
one of the utility packages and made +x.  It's interesting information.

Are there any reasons to keep this info confidential?
Any security reasons why it is wiz only?

I suppose it is computationally expensive...  that could be fixed by updating
it once per day, and just giving the user the prepared text.  It would be neat
if someone wrote a MOO cron to make it easier to schedule periodic tasks.

-- Amy

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Jul 30 11:01:57 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "30" "July" "1993" "10:52:21" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "12" "Re: editing 'help'" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Fri, 30 Jul 1993 09:12:34 PDT.\"
             <9307301612.AA07927@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9307301752.AA00827@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 10:52:21 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	kira@feenix.metronet.com
cc:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: editing 'help'

Actually, help with no arguments gets you the "" help item 
(yes, you actually can give a property a blank name; 
use $help.("")).

It so happens that the in released LambdaCore DB, 
the "" topic includes (via "*forward*") the "summary" topic.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From media.mit.edu!adams Fri Jul 30 11:10:28 1993
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Message-ID: <9307301802.AA16121@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 11:02:05 -0700
From:	adams@media.mit.edu
To:	james@unidata.com
cc:	MOO-cows@parc.xerox.com, adams@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: MOO on SGI



Did you say you wanted to port LambdaMOO to a MAC?

WOW, that would be excellent, if we could fit enough RAM in it!

Adam Skwersky

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Jul 30 11:43:43 1993
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Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 11:33:04 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO on Macs.



> Did you say you wanted to port LambdaMOO to a MAC?
> 
> WOW, that would be excellent, if we could fit enough RAM in it!
> 
> Adam Skwersky
> 

I dunno about "excellent".  I have 20 meg of RAM in my Mac now,
about to go to 32 and going to run A/UX.  I'm gonna attempt
to compile MOO on it then. 

I'd be curious to know though, what the performance is for such
a beastie.  Pretty slow?  The MOO I wanna run on it is fairly small...
Anyone have any experience with it?

-j.


From unidata.com!james Fri Jul 30 12:01:34 1993
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Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 08:39:10 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: MOO on Macs.


Dunno about performance, but if you've got a Mac with System 7, '030
or better, and some disk you don't have to worry too much about RAM
(virtual memory).
  -James-

From eris.enet.dec.com!callas Fri Jul 30 12:26:56 1993
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Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 12:13:34 -0700
From:	Off-path travel kills plants 30-Jul-1993 1514 <callas@eris.enet.dec.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Apparently-To: moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO on a Mac

I've gotten MOO to run on Tenon's Mach Ten (a 4.3BSD system). I suspect it
wouldn't be that hard getting it to run on MacOS, and as someone said, there's
VM on Macs these days. A decent pagefile can do wonders.

From cheetah.math.oxy.edu!t_pascal Fri Jul 30 12:55:38 1993
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Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 12:40:28 -0700
From:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Cron Tab in moo

Date: 	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 10:37:54 PDT
From: asb@media.mit.edu

>I suppose it is computationally expensive...  that could be fixed by updating
>it once per day, and just giving the user the prepared text.  It would be neat
>if someone wrote a MOO cron to make it easier to schedule periodic tasks.
>
This was my original intent with the $scheduler...  Of couse, it has failings.  I
think I have some spare time to write a better one.  Of course, anyone working
on one or already written one should tell me.

I'll be working on it; anyone with suggestions can mail me directly,
t_pascal@oxy.edu

---

---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal          | "He travels fastest who travels alone,
1600 Campus Road, Box 829          | but not when the frost drops below zero
Los Angeles, CA 90041              | fifty degrees or more."
                                   |         -Old eskimo saying
       t_pascal@{{{cub,cheetah,jaguar}.math},tiger,cheshire}.oxy.edu

From unidata.com!james Fri Jul 30 13:20:51 1993
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Message-ID: <9307302014.AA04386@falcon>
Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 09:58:26 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: MOO on a Mac


>I've gotten MOO to run on Tenon's Mach Ten (a 4.3BSD system). I suspect it
>wouldn't be that hard getting it to run on MacOS, and as someone said, there's
>VM on Macs these days. A decent pagefile can do wonders.

It will compile and run just fine (with the wierd exception of some of the
regular expression code, which I haven't bothered to debug yet) under any
recent (ANSI) version of Think 'C'. On a Mac with VM, it can load up the
core and runs just fine. Without VM, don't bother.
  -James-

From tamaix.tamu.edu!seh9407 Fri Jul 30 14:01:58 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "30" "July" "1993" "13:48:06" "-0700" "Sarah Elizabeth Heacock" "seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu " nil "9" "MOO-backups" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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	.27376 "
Message-ID: <9307302047.AA29697@tamaix.tamu.edu>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 13:48:06 -0700
From:	seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu (Sarah Elizabeth Heacock)
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu, grantb@autodesk.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO-backups
Content-Type: text

Is there anyway to back up a MOO db without fork()ing?
It does not matter if it drags the MOO to a standstill, or
if you have to take the MOO down to do this.

If so, how?

Sarah Elizabeth Heacock
seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Jul 30 14:07:59 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Sarah Elizabeth Heacock's message of Fri, 30 Jul 1993 15:47:58 +22311259 (CDT) <9307302047.AA29697@tamaix.tamu.edu>"
Message-ID: <9307302100.AA26070@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 14:00:16 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	seh9407@tamaix.tamu.edu
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu, grantb@autodesk.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO-backups

I believe that the db checkpoint done by the shutdown() primitive as
part of its shutting down is done without fork().  Obviously there
can't be something in-moo to use this regularly, but in combination
with a shell script driving the moo and #0:server_started you could
use such a method for regular checkpoints.  All players would get
booted, etc. etc.

From unidata.com!james Fri Jul 30 14:20:41 1993
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             <199307302024.AA29479@cool.vortech.com>> w"
Message-ID: <9307302115.AA04890@falcon>
Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 10:59:02 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: MOO on a Mac

>> It will compile and run just fine (with the wierd exception of some of the
>> regular expression code, which I haven't bothered to debug yet) under any
>> recent (ANSI) version of Think 'C'. On a Mac with VM, it can load up the
>> core and runs just fine. Without VM, don't bother.
>>   -James-
>> 

>How are you handling the network?

I'm only running it single-user right now. I've got a socket library it could
probably link with, but haven't tried it yet.
  -James-

From media.mit.edu!asb Fri Jul 30 15:33:16 1993
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Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 15:24:56 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO on an Alpha


Has anyone ever run MOO on an Alpha?

It compiled just fine, and appears to have started up just fine.
The last line of the log file reads:
Jul 30 18:14:19: LOADING: doug.db done, will dump new database on doug.db.new

But when I telnet to the address, I get:
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

By the way... telneting to the host with no port number works just fine,
so the machine is there.  And the process is running. ps shows:

5474 p3  S      0:09.95 ./moo doug.db doug.db.new 8888

Any clues?
Could there be a problem with it being a 64 bit architecture?

-- Amy


From postgres.berkeley.edu!nj Fri Jul 30 15:39:47 1993
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Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 15:36:18 -0700
From:	Narciso Jaramillo <nj@postgres.berkeley.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  MOO on an Alpha

I tried compiling it on the Alpha too, and got similar results.  Not
being a networking guru, I don't know how to debug this sort of thing.
I do note, however, that it seems to work using the NS_BSD/NP_LOCAL
option.  (You might want to put CC = cc -std in the Makefile; this
puts the compiler in ANSI mode and avoids some weird header file
conflicts.)

I'm running OSF/1 v1.2; maybe v1.3 will fix it (v1.2 has lots of
bugs...)

nj

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Fri Jul 30 17:04:44 1993
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Message-ID: <930730165740.23a0012c@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 16:57:40 -0700
From:	"Wayne E. Bouchard" <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO-backups

Probably one of the biggest reasons the MOO DOES fork() to do its backups
is so that the MOO is competely isolated form i/o. What happens, for
example, if an object is recycled while that object is being written
in thecheckpoint? THeres also the task queue to consider. There are also
quirky things going on with the task queue as well. In its present state,
(1.7.0) I prefer fork() to active backups.

-Wayne/Sadric@LambdaMOO
  MOO-Cows FAQ author


From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Fri Jul 30 17:17:25 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "30" "July" "1993" "17:11:58" "-0700" "\"Wayne E. Bouchard\"" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "7" "Re: MOO-backups" "^Date:" nil nil "7"])
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Message-ID: <930730171158.23a00133@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
Date:	Fri, 30 Jul 1993 17:11:58 -0700
From:	"Wayne E. Bouchard" <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-backups

You are correct. The MOO fork()s, then continues in each task via switch() to
determine what to do. The main task proceeds normaly while the forked task
begins writing the checkpoint DB. Since both process are identical at the
instant of fork(), the child process will write an 'exact' copy of the database.

-Wayne


From unidata.com!james Fri Jul 30 17:22:55 1993
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             <9307302224.AA07423@media.mit.edu>        "
Message-ID: <9307310015.AA06841@falcon>
Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 13:59:13 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: MOO on an Alpha


I've got 1.7.0 up and running on an Alpha under OSF/1 1.2. What your 
experiencing is the port number's transformation into network byte order
when the port is assigned. So, if you tell MOO to boot at port 7777, try
reaching it at port 24862.  My fix for this was to edit config.h. Search for
the line which reads:

#define NDECL_HTONL 1

to

#define NDECL_HTONL 0

This did it for me. Hope it's of some help to you.
  -James/Minstrel-

From unidata.com!james Fri Jul 30 17:24:15 1993
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Message-ID: <9307310018.AA06880@falcon>
Date:	Sun, 18 Jul 1993 14:02:02 -0700
From:	james@unidata.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	james@unidata.com
Subject: Re: MOO on an Alpha [Correction]


I've got 1.7.0 up and running on an Alpha under OSF/1 1.2. What you_'re_
experiencing is the port number's transformation into network byte order
when the port is assigned. So, if you tell MOO to boot at port 8888, try
reaching it at port 47138.  My fix for this was to edit config.h. Search for
the line which reads:

#define NDECL_HTONL 1

to

#define NDECL_HTONL 0

Run a make, and try again. This did it for me. Hope it's of some help to you.
  -James the compulsive Minstrel-

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Aug  2 09:23:47 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "2" "August" "1993" "09:13:31" "-0700" "\"R.Mehta\"" "cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "23" "MOO DB Restoration?" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <9308021613.AA15269@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Date:	Mon, 2 Aug 1993 09:13:31 -0700
From:	"R.Mehta" <cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Sender: <@ccub.wlv.ac.uk:cm5297@scitsc.wolverhampton.ac.UK>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: MOO DB Restoration?
Content-Type: text

Due to various server reasons, our mud crashed and, due to lack of space on
our server, the backup databases had been truncated :-(


So, in a massive brain-wave, we decided to edit the database code and try to
restore some of the lost verbs from a corrupted db by block copying the code
and verbs into our only backup which survived (from about a week ago).

Unfortunately, when we started up the server, it displayed several notices
which we could not understand.

Has anyone any ideas or must we re-code our multiply-attacking monsters and
skills and magic routines and other long code again??

ps. If we don't restore it by tomorrow, a very nasty programmer is going to
get *very* angry when she realises her only 4 verbs have been erased!!! :-(

*ANY* help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

Slayer and Snider (wizards)


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Mon Aug  2 14:05:49 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "2" "August" "1993" "13:49:58" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "11" "Re: MOO DB Restoration?" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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             <9308021613.AA15269@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>ken"
Message-ID: <9308022050.AA03851@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Mon, 2 Aug 1993 13:49:58 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	"R.Mehta" <cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO DB Restoration?

If it's only 4 verbs, you're probably much better off simply extracting
the names and code for those verbs from the db listing, restoring the
old db as-is, and then using @verb and @program to enter the extra verbs.

Attempting to edit a saved-db directly, while it might not be as bad as, 
say, patching binaries, is still likely to be a frustrating process...
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Aug  2 19:51:59 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "2" "August" "1993" "19:39:42" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "43" "Re: Implementation of Lists?" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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References: <93Jul29.073035pdt.11611@alpha.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 2 Aug 1993 19:39:42 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Implementation of Lists?

> Date:	Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:30:30 -0700
> From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
> 
> How are lists implemented in the LambdaMOO server?  Coming from the
> functional language community, I just assumed they would be implemented
> as garbage-collected cons cells, but now I'm thinking that they're
> actually fixed-length arrays of pointers, judging from the kinds of
> built-in functions available on them.

They're implemented as fixed-length arrays of MOO values.

> The thing that got me thinking about his was the code for
> "$root:tell_lines()" in the LambdaCore database.  This function takes either
> a single line of text or a list of such lines, and spews them to the player's
> connection.  It's implemented as:
> 
>                     lines = args[1];
>                     if (typeof(lines) != LIST)
>                        lines = {lines};
>                     endif
>                     for line in (lines)
>                        this:tell(line);
>                     endfor
> 
> rather than the more obvious, and seemingly more efficient:
> 
>                     lines = args[1];
>                     if (typeof(lines) != LIST)
>                        this:tell(line);
>                     else
>                        for line in (lines)
>                           this:tell(line);
>                        endfor
>                     endif
> 
> In the actual implementation, why isn't the formation of the list (which is
> then immediately destructed) a serious performance penalty?

It's not a serious performance penalty because, in a interpreter for a language
like MOO, this little tiny allocation (which isn't all that expensive in the
first place) is entirely dwarfed by the general interpreter overhead.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Aug  2 22:16:02 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "2" "August" "1993" "22:02:58" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "New release of the LambdaCore database" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug2.220302pdt.58375@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 2 Aug 1993 22:02:58 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: New release of the LambdaCore database

I have extracted a new release of the LambdaCore database from the running
LambdaMOO system and made it available for FTP from parcftp.xerox.com, in the
files

		pub/MOO/LambdaCore-02Aug93.db
		pub/MOO/LambdaCore-02Aug93.db.Z

One thing that I think is new in this release is all of the support for various
networky things, including auto-registration and Gopher access.

Coming soon: a bug-fix/patch release of the server to tide folks over until
1.8.0 is ready...

	Pavel

From harlequin.com!kmp Tue Aug  3 04:20:46 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "3" "August" "1993" "04:15:00" "-0700" "Kent M Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "41" "Quota" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <19930803111516.4.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 04:15:00 -0700
From:	Kent M Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	kmp@harlequin.com
Subject: Quota

I have a strong hunch that the way to solve LambdaMOO's quota problems
is to do real-time tracking of real quota.

I think it would be an interesting thing to test to have the server
allocate room in every variable-size object (including low-tech objects
likes lists and strings) which maintains its size (including recursively
held copyable parts--i.e., things not type OBJ which are copied every
time you move the object around).

If you assume (and this is just a complete guess) that the average
object is of size 6, then keeping this count would increase the size of
objects by, let's say, 15%.

If most operations that copy objects don't change their size, then the
size doesn't have to be computed much.  And for those that do change size,
the size would be trivial to calculate if already maintained recursively.

Then you could make it so that quota was maintained at object-slot-store
time.  Slot assignment doesn't happen so often that this check would seem
prohibitive.  It would obviously have to be much bigger since the units would
be smaller than quota now.  But it would be fair.

If the savings that fair quota administration achieved was at least the
supposed 15%, it would pay for itself.  If it wasn't, then we'd have the
satisfaction of knowing that probably quota was just hopeless and we
just shouldn't care or should be completely arbitrary.

It would have the nice property that we could figure out how to resolve
the recent scuffle over whether various mailing lists cost the Moo too
much space compared to other space-taking things that people get charged 
serious quota for and have to pester the ARB for approval of.

I think it's an experiment worth trying.  (Especially since I wouldn't
be the one to implement it and it costs me nothing to say so... :-)
Oh well.  Anyway, I figured I'd at least suggest it...  I don't plan to
pester for it if Lambda or somebody adventurous doesn't instantly warm up
to the idea.  But I wanted it to be on the books.

(This is mostly a Lambda-specific problem I'm trying to address, but
maybe it affects other Moos, too.  Anyway, it can't be done without
server support, so this seemed like the mailing list to use.)

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Tue Aug  3 10:26:03 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "3" "August" "1993" "10:14:04" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "6" "Re: Quota" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Kent M Pitman's message of Tue, 3 Aug 1993 04:15:00 -0700 <19930803111516.4.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>"
Message-ID: <93Aug3.101412pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 10:14:04 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kmp@harlequin.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, kmp@harlequin.com
Subject: Re: Quota

I don't like the idea that random assignments could generate errors.
It would make safe MOO programming impossible. (It's difficult enough
to not be able to easily test if something is going to run out of
seconds or ticks...)

 

From harlequin.com!kmp Tue Aug  3 11:30:11 1993
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Message-ID: <19930803182455.7.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:24:00 -0700
From:	Kent M Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	masinter@parc.xerox.com
cc:	kmp@harlequin.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Quota

    Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 13:14 EDT
    From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

    I don't like the idea that random assignments could generate errors.
    It would make safe MOO programming impossible. (It's difficult enough
    to not be able to easily test if something is going to run out of
    seconds or ticks...)

Hmmm. That's an issue.

The right answer there is to become more transaction oriented, perhaps.
I suppose in the face of I/O you might in principle do that by buffering
all the notify's until you were sure the rest of the thing was gonna
succeed... Or by defining that a commit had occurred before the first
I/O happens.  I always try to order my code that way anyway--with the
store into a variable preceding the tell information saying that it's
occurred.  Well, I admit this paragraph suggests things that are way too
large to be practical as a quick hack, though.  Still, I would like to
see the MOO someday have a stronger transaction concept.  Among other
things, it might improve db reliability in face of crashes...

What might work in the quick[er] hack family, though, would be to make
it a verb option (like "x" ... perhaps called "q") which determined
whether this checking was enabled.  Perhaps defaultly no, but @create,
@program, @property, and a few others (e.g., mail delivery subroutines!)
might do it...  (And eval...?)

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Tue Aug  3 16:51:37 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "3" "August" "1993" "16:50:18" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "5" "Re: New release of the LambdaCore database " "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 16:50:18 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
CC:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: New release of the LambdaCore database 

Just for those who look: the core doesn't include any user interface
to gopher, just the raw $gopher support. I thought the user interface
slates etc, were just a bit too in flux to put them in the core at the
time. 


From feenix.metronet.com!kira Tue Aug  3 17:20:00 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "3" "August" "1993" "17:06:27" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "18" "Re: New release of the LambdaCore database" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <199308040006.AA24830@feenix.metronet.com>
Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 17:06:27 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: New release of the LambdaCore database



Just out of curiousity.  Is there a change log anywhere from
core to core, listing the exact changes?  Or... is this too much
work to even think about?  It'd be helpful for us that want to
keep our cores relatively current, tho.

Would also love to see a db converter program - i.e., a hacked up
MOO server that'd only do 2 things  (well 3, really):  read in a new
core db.  read in an older db, objects # (oldcore+1..max_object).
Dump out the "new" db.  On my moo and various others I've worked on,
we've been saving the object numbers say #73 (or whatever max core
is) to 100, or sometimes to 200, for future cores.  And dont put any
props on #0, but on a $ref object.  $ref.player, $ref.room, etc etc.
Ideally for portability and upgradability.... if only such a change
program existed to make the upgrade simpler.

-j.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Aug  3 21:06:09 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "3" "August" "1993" "20:51:43" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "8" "new core: $root_class.object_size" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 20:51:43 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: new core: $root_class.object_size

So the new core has this new property, .object_size.  This is not
actually updated by any code in the core, rather it is updated on
LambdaMOO by the Moo Pig.  I have just @dumped the pig to parcftp
/pub/MOO/contrib/moocode/moo-pig.moo for those interested.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Aug  3 21:06:39 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "3" "August" "1993" "21:00:47" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "80" "Release 1.7.2 of the LambdaMOO server code" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug3.210050pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 3 Aug 1993 21:00:47 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Release 1.7.2 of the LambdaMOO server code

I have just released a new version of the LambdaMOO server code, version 1.7.2.
This release is primarily a bug-fix release.  In particular, I have fixed all
of the reported bugs that looked at all straightforward and I have tried to fix
as many of the reported installation/configuration problems as I could.  In the
latter category, though, there were some for which I just didn't have enough
information at hand to effect a fix.  A few smallish features did slip through,
though, so there is some kind of upward progress.

Here's a warning of an upcoming incompatible change in 1.8.0 that y'all should
start preparing for now:

-- Lines of input received on outbound network connections (those created by
   open_network_connection()) will no longer be treated as commands.  Instead,
   they will just wait until a call to read() picks them up.

   The proper transition strategy is to make sure that there's *always* a
   read()ing task waiting for input on all outbound connections.  This code
   will work now (because there will never be an opportunity for the server to
   try to interpret the input as commands) and later (though it will no longer
   be important to keep a read()ing task always waiting).

As usual, please let me know if you have any problems with this release; I will
try to put out another patch release promptly if any serious bugs are
uncovered.

A new version of the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, with edits to account for
this release, should be out shortly.

Here is the complete list of changes in this release, taken from ChangeLog.txt:

Version 1.7.2, 3 August 1993
-- Made tabs input as themselves, rather than being mapped to spaces.  This is
   necessary in order to communicate with Gopher servers from within the MOO.
-- Reduced the default `seconds-left' limit for task; forground tasks went from
   15 to 5 seconds and background tasks from 5 to 3.
-- Fixed regular-expression matching to respect task seconds limits, aborting
   the match.
-- Fixed bugs whereby both kill_task() and queued_tasks() would miss reading
   tasks that had no ready input (i.e., whose associated task queues were
   empty).
-- Fixed memory leak when a read() call fails with E_INVARG; the copied
   interpreter stack was never being freed.
-- Fixed possible free of the null pointer during object recycling.
-- Fixed a number of places that generated warnings in newer versions of GCC.
-- Fixed inconsistency of the behavior of strcmp() between different server
   machines; now it always returns one of 1, 0, or -1.
-- Added a five-second timeout to outbound connection attempts, aborting them
   if the timer expires.
-- Made the error message to users about network buffers overflowing and lines
   of output being flushed much more understandable.
-- Added log entry for each time the server refuses a connection due to being
   full.
-- Fixed premature-free bug in preposition matching.
-- Bowing to popular pressure, removed warning from `.program' command about
   its (no longer) imminent demise.
-- Added more error checks to options.h to make it easier for installers to
   diagnose problems.
-- Fixed a bunch of auto-configuration problems encountered by installers.
-- Fixed a bug in substitute() where certain successful match() results were
   rejected as invalid.
-- Removed restrictions that only player objects could be used in place of `x'
   in the following:
	object.owner = x
	add_property(object, pname, value, {x, perms})
	set_property_info(object, pname, {x, perms})
	add_verb(object, {x, perms, names}, args)
	set_verb_info(object, vname, {x, perms, names})
	set_task_perms(x)
   That is, non-players may now own objects, verbs, and properties, and running
   tasks may take on the authority of a non-player.
-- Fixed bug where it was possible for a task to run out of seconds during a
   call to set_verb_code() and have a truncated version of the program
   installed as the new verb code.  Now, either all of it gets installed or
   none of it.
-- The log messages produced by successful open_network_connection() calls are
   more useful now, containing the hostname and port of the connection.
-- Outbound network connections are no longer susceptible to connection
   timeouts due to a lack of input.
-- Fixed a bug whereby verbs with numeric names screwed up DB loading, with the
   wrong code getting put into some verbs and others getting no code at all.

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Wed Aug  4 00:38:51 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "00:38:14" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "18" "Re: Release 1.7.2 of the LambdaMOO server code" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-reply-to: Pavel Curtis's message of Tue, 3 Aug 1993 21:00:47 -0700 <93Aug3.210050pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Fake-Sender: masinter@parc.xerox.com
Message-Id: <93Aug4.003823pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 00:38:14 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
CC:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Release 1.7.2 of the LambdaMOO server code

Looks like there's a bug in substitute:

Previously:

;match("chinese", "%(c%)")
=> {1, 1, {{1, 1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}, {0, -1}},
"chinese"}
;substitute("%1", match("chinese", "%(c%)"))
=> "c"

Now, however, you get Invalid Argument on the substitute call.

(thanks to Quinn for pointing this out.)






From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Wed Aug  4 05:53:47 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "06:43:34" "-0700" "Glusman Gustavo" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "33" "$room:announce*_all_but" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 06:43:34 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: $room:announce*_all_but
Content-Type: text

I noticed two things about the room's :announce*_all_but:
1-Why are there three verbs? Why not like there is #1:announce*_all_but,
handling all three possibilities?
2-All three :announces loop telling all objects in the room the message.
What if (as happened already) some object's :tell fails? (in this case, 
fails can be: stops running with a traceback, or takes too much time to end)

Is there anything wrong with the following possibility?
@verb $room:announce*_all_but tnt rdx
@prog $room:announce
dudes=this.contents;
text=args;
if (verb=="announce")
  dudes=setremove(dudes, player);
elseif (verb=="announce_all_but")
  text = listdelete(text, 1);
  for l in (args[1])
    dudes = setremove(dudes, l);
  endfor
endif
for dude in (dudes)
  fork (0)
    dude:tell(@text);
  endfork
endfor
.

Thus, we have only one verb handling it all, and it forks - let the :tell
break down now...

Gustavo@Janus,JHM,TTM,etc (.Gustavo@Lambda)



From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Aug  4 06:34:30 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "06:20:09" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "33" "Re: $room:announce*_all_but" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9308041343.AA27521@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il> from \"Glusman Gustavo\" at Aug 4, 93 06:43:34 ammet"
Message-ID: <9308041320.AA03344@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 06:20:09 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows List)
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: $room:announce*_all_but
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

> Is there anything wrong with the following possibility?
> @verb $room:announce*_all_but tnt rdx
> @prog $room:announce
> dudes=this.contents;
> text=args;
> if (verb=="announce")
>   dudes=setremove(dudes, player);
> elseif (verb=="announce_all_but")
>   text = listdelete(text, 1);
>   for l in (args[1])
>     dudes = setremove(dudes, l);
>   endfor
> endif
> for dude in (dudes)
>   fork (0)
>     dude:tell(@text);
>   endfork
> endfor
> .
> 
> Thus, we have only one verb handling it all, and it forks - let the :tell
> break down now...
> 
> Gustavo@Janus,JHM,TTM,etc (.Gustavo@Lambda)

Would that cause the possibility of spam? Where due to some :tell verbs
taking time, a number of announce verbs are placed in the Que slowing
the system down?

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"- D. Gibson

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Aug  4 10:12:10 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "10:01:19" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "22" "$room:announce*_all_but" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Jonathan Bradshaw's message of Wed, 4 Aug 1993 06:20:09 PDT <9308041320.AA03344@nova.decio.nd.edu>"
Message-ID: <9308041701.AA12025@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 10:01:19 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: $room:announce*_all_but

Pavel probably will disagree with me, but indeed Jonathan is right:
forking inside every announce would drag things down into a horrible
morass of spammage.  Heck, we lose with just a *few* people forking
during their :tells; if *everything* forked it would be a disaster.
Well, on LMOO anyway.  Smaller moos would be able to cope.

Also, if you forked for every tell, things would end up potentially in
different orders for different people, depending on whose task queue
was used to put which forks in and suchlike.  I kind of like it that I
can pretty much count on someone else's screen looking the same as
mine.

The answer is: if someone's :tell is broken, then :announce stops on
those people.  It is considered (well by me anyway) to be highly
antisocial to hack on your :tell in a public place.  Sometimes you
just can't bulletproof yourself against every possible failure mode
and still be able to operate the MOO "reasonably" (for some definition
of "reasonable"; LMOO hasn't been reasonable for years :-)

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Wed Aug  4 10:28:52 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "10:19:50" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: $room:announce*_all_but" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Glusman Gustavo's message of Wed, 4 Aug 1993 06:43:34 -0700 <9308041343.AA27521@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>"
Message-ID: <93Aug4.101958pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 10:19:50 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: $room:announce*_all_but

You can always merge verbs with similar arguments by using the
 if (verb == "case1")

clause.

However, testing for verb  == ... is much less efficient than just
letting the built-in verb discrimination decide which verb you're
really in.

In general, it's a good idea to avoid merging verbs unless the verbs
are very large (these aren't), are infrequently called (these are some
of the most frequently called verbs in the MOO, I think), and the
amount of difference between the verbs you're calling is small (well,
that's true here).

I'll also go along with the comment that using fork(0) to protect from
errors also can cause some very serious lag storms.

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Wed Aug  4 10:33:33 1993
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To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: argh.
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Two things...

1)  Thanks for the patches pavel, but...now it won't compile under gcc on
our NeXT machines.  I was getting an an ungodly number of warnings about
passing pointers from variable to const, or the opposite..something like that.

2) To the ppl who got the MOO server running under AIX. 
open_network_connection() won't work for us.  It keeps giving an error.
Please help.

- Chad Wilson

ps.  Man is that core release big!  Just wait until it reaches 100 objects.


From cory.eecs.berkeley.edu!amits Wed Aug  4 12:21:18 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "12:03:16" "-0700" "Amit Sahai" "amits@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu" nil "18" "Newbie question" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 12:03:16 -0700
From:	Amit Sahai <amits@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Newbie question
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Moo.

Sorry to interrupt, but can someone please tell me the process by
which a player's command gets processed? I figure the server parses
it into the verbname, dobj, prep, and iobj, but then what? Does it
go straight to one of the "_huh" verbs? If not, when do the _huh
verbs get called?

Thanks in advance. Your reply is *greatly* appreciated.

Sincerely,
Amit Sahai

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amit Sahai: amits@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu
   "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" :-)


From fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at!eostrom Wed Aug  4 12:37:01 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "12:28:07" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at " nil "3" "Re: Newbie question" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 12:28:07 -0700
From:	eostrom@fiicmds04.tu-graz.ac.at (Erik Ostrom)
To:	amits@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Newbie question

Please read the "Command Parsing" chapter of the programmer's manual,
available via anonymous ftp from parcftp.xerox.com, in the /pub/MOO directory,
as ProgrammersManual.dvi, .dvi.Z, .ps, .ps.Z, .texinfo, or .txt.

From cool.vortech.com!clay Wed Aug  4 12:44:22 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "12:39:21" "-0700" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "26" "So, I've bit the bullet" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 12:39:21 -0700
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (moo)
Subject: So, I've bit the bullet
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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For the past week, I have been coding a new moo database, oomoo, up from
scratch.  Progress is going quite well, if I may say so :).

I was wondering, however, what "features" people would like to see in a new,
unencumbered data base.  For instance, what improvements in the class hierarchy
(LMoo's class hierarchy, that is) people would like to see.

I'm not trying to enter into any kind of "mine is bigger than yours" contest,
either.  My adventure in db coding is currently for my own edification (which
is why I am refraining from asking people to help at this time).  Of course,
if I can, eventually, produce something usable by the moo community at large,
I'd be more than happy to.

Right now, though, I'd just like to cull some opinions from mooers at large
about what they'd like to see in a db.

(My personal goals are 1) increased oo-ness, 2) slim and trim, 3) thoughtful
design.)

Thanks.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Kodak Health Imaging Systems
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310
for(1..10){print"$_ little ",$_%3?/0/&&"indian boys\n":"indians\n"}

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Aug  4 14:00:39 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "13:45:21" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "20" "Parsing or actually, matching" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 13:45:21 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows List)
Subject: Parsing or actually, matching
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text


I have been running a MOO for a year and the exact parsing matching stuff
is still somewhat of a mystery. Actually, what is wierd is:

$room:match
$room:match_object

Which should be used? Also, there is $match_utils which never gets called!
There are SO many matching and parsing verbs in the core that a manual
on it alone would be possible and VERY useful. A step by step look at
how a command travels from start to end would be highly interesting and
some guidelines on both modifying (to enhance for VR purposes) and properly
using the correct match_* verbs.

Thanks!

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"- D. Gibson

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Aug  4 14:42:55 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "14:35:27" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "41" "Re: Parsing or actually, matching" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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             <9308042045.AA06763@nova.decio.nd.edu>"
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 14:35:27 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parsing or actually, matching

part of your answer lies in `help object-matching' in $core_help, 
which discusses the distinction between

     object:match("foo")
     location:match_object("foo"[,player])
     player:my_match_object("foo"[,location])
     $string_utils:match_object("foo",location,player)

I should also point out that you should probably ignore $match_utils
on your first pass since those verbs and their main clients were
written long before we had gotten this all straight, i.e., if you're
looking at code that uses $match_utils verbs and wondering why it
doesn't seem to do quite what it should according to `help
object-matching', it's not necessarily your imagination.  Part of the
problem with updating $match_utils is doing it without trashing the
LambdaMOO RPG and various other pieces of old code present on
LambdaMOO itself (...actually, now I'm wondering if anything in the
current core actually depends on $match_utils anymore...)

As for how a command travels from start to end, the only really complicated 
part is what happens in the :huh verb once the builtin server stuff gives up
(everything prior to that is described in the Programmers' Manual).

By default, room:huh calls $command_utils:do_huh, which gives the 
basic outline
  (1) try player:my_huh(verb,args)
        Look for various player defined extra commands (e.g., features) 
  (2) try room:here_huh(verb,args)
        Look for various room-defined commands.
  (3) try player:last_huh(verb,args)
        Check for @message foo is "xxx" and other
        miscellaneous last-ditch efforts
  (4) try to figure out what the player might have meant and say something 
        vaguely intellegent
  (5) "I don't understand that."

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Aug  4 17:14:45 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "17:03:20" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: argh." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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References: <9308041740.AA04785@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 17:03:20 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: argh.

> Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 10:40:19 -0700
> From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
> 
> 1) Thanks for the patches pavel, but...now it won't compile under gcc on our
> NeXT machines.  I was getting an an ungodly number of warnings about passing
> pointers from variable to const, or the opposite..something like that.

I'm sorry you're having problems, but there's absolutely nothing I can do to
help you given only this kind of vague information.  If you send me (not the
list) a complete listing of the output of `make', I'll almost certainly be able
to be of *some* assistance in working past the problems and improving the next
release for everyone.

	Pavel

From namesrv.mountain.net!quinn Wed Aug  4 17:56:28 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "17:33:09" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@namesrv.mountain.net" nil "22" "Re: Parsing or actually, matching" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 17:33:09 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@namesrv.mountain.net>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu, rfc@research.microsoft.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Parsing or actually, matching

Actually, $match_utils:match handles a lot of special cases such as ordinal
matching and matching on another object's contents.  I've made some hacks
recently to make the code easier to read, including some documentation.  Some
examples commands are:

look at kobold's dagger
drop my second dagger
dub my third dagger as "stab"

All of them are RPG examples, yeah.  Most of the benefits of this kind of machg
are to be found where there are multiple objects to be referred to.  With the
ordinal matching (ie: 1st, second, 3rd), $ambiguous_match can be avoided.

Check out the matching room (#3789 or #3879, can't remember) on LambdaMOO for
an example of how $match_utils routines are used in the matching process.

And for those wondering why Quinn is hacking a core-object-- it's owned by
Grand_Master.

Sorry if I messed up on who I sent this too.  First time I've mailed to a list.

--Quinn

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Aug  4 18:01:39 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "4" "August" "1993" "17:47:41" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "20" "Release 1.7.3 of the LambdaMOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug4.174952pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 4 Aug 1993 17:47:41 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Release 1.7.3 of the LambdaMOO server

Well, that's what I get for insufficient testing...

I've just released version 1.7.3 of the LambdaMOO server code to

	parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/LambdaMOO-1.7.3.tar.Z

It fixes a couple of fairly serious bugs but also manages to squeeze in one
tiny enhancement as well.

Keep those cards and letters coming if you have any more problems.

	Pavel

Here's the excerpt from ChangeLog.txt:

Version 1.7.3, 4 August 1993
-- Outbound connections no longer get a spurious blank line of input as soon as
   they're created.
-- Fixed stupid bug introduced in fixing bug in substitute().
-- Fixed some bugs in the Makefile and the configuration script.

From visgraph.uucp!root Mon Aug  9 11:32:45 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "9" "August" "1993" "11:17:14" "-0700" "Superuser" "root@visgraph.uucp" nil "6" "Stalk client" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 9 Aug 1993 11:17:14 -0700
From:	Superuser <root@visgraph.uucp>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Stalk client
Reply-to: forrie@decvax.dec.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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I need the email address for the author of the STALK client (available
on parcftp.xerox.com).  The author is listed as "Gerald Weiler" in
the code, however he has not left reference to his email address or
snail-mail address.

Thanks...

From cis.ohio-state.edu!weiler Mon Aug  9 14:23:59 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "9" "August" "1993" "14:14:13" "-0700" "weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu" "weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu" nil "21" "Re: Stalk client" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Superuser's message of Mon, 9 Aug 1993 11:17:14 PDT <199308091817.AA00884@visgraph.UUCP>"
Message-ID: <9308092114.AA28242@deadrock.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date:	Mon, 9 Aug 1993 14:14:13 -0700
From:	weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu
To:	forrie@decvax.dec.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Stalk client

   I need the email address for the author of the STALK client (available
   on parcftp.xerox.com).  The author is listed as "Gerald Weiler" in
   the code, however he has not left reference to his email address or
   snail-mail address.

That's me.

For the people on the list who are wondering what the stalk client is,
it's a MU* client that has a programming language based on
LambdaMOO's.  It's still undergoing development and the documentation
is still very lacking (I'm working on it!).  If you want more info on
it or would like to help alpha test it, send me mail.

Please note that stalk is still in alpha testing.  There are still a
few things I plan to add to it and a few things I plan to change.
When I finish that, I'll make a more full announcement here...
(hopefully in the next month or two)

- Jerry
weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu
Lynx@LambdaMOO

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Tue Aug 10 13:37:09 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "10" "August" "1993" "13:33:54" "-0700" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu" nil "7" "parse error" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 10 Aug 1993 13:33:54 -0700
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: parse error
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I am getting this:
  parse error before `*' in line 38 of my-signal.h

I cannot compile because of this.

- Wilson


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Aug 10 21:12:58 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "10" "August" "1993" "21:05:21" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "10" "Release 1.7.4 of the LambdaMOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug10.210526pdt.58380@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 10 Aug 1993 21:05:21 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Release 1.7.4 of the LambdaMOO server

I've made a new release of the LambdaMOO server, version 1.7.4, to the file

	parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/LambdaMOO-1.7.4.tar.Z

The only changes in this release are bug fixes to the auto-configuration and
installation process.  In particular, I think I've fixed all of the problems
reported to me by NeXT and DEC Alpha users.  Feel free to let me know if that
isn't actually the case...

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Tue Aug 10 22:27:44 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "10" "August" "1993" "22:13:56" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "Re: Guest moderation" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Superuser's message of Tue, 10 Aug 1993 19:46:10 -0700 <199308110246.AA05738@visgraph.UUCP>"
Message-ID: <93Aug10.221358pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 10 Aug 1993 22:13:56 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	forrie@decvax.dec.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Guest moderation

I installed most of the network code on Lambda (although much of it
was developed by others on JaysHouseMOO and OpalMOO and other places
too). I'm afraid there are some Lambda-isms left in the latest core;
e.g., the note that gets sent to guests using the @request command
mentions the tutorial, but the tutorial isn't in the core.

For those who start other MOOs using the current LambdaCore, it would
be useful to get bug-reports if you notice things like that, just so
LambdaCore can be fixed for future users.

I'm not sure what the best way to disable @request might be --
probably just @args $guest:@request this none this (since it is !x).
If you're sure you'll never want it, @rmverb $guest:@request would do
to, as well as @rmprop $help.@request

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Aug 10 23:59:51 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "10" "August" "1993" "23:50:59" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "9" "RErelease of version 1.7.4 of the server" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug10.235103pdt.58384@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 10 Aug 1993 23:50:59 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: RErelease of version 1.7.4 of the server

If you retrieved a copy of release 1.7.4 of the LambdaMOO server before
receiving this message, then you should get another copy.  The first release
had a horrible bug that would prevent you from being able to load some kinds of
databases and could even dump corrupted versions unreadable by anything.  This
bug has been fixed and the fixed version is now in the usual place.

Sorry for any inconvenience,

	Pavel

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Wed Aug 11 06:39:22 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "11" "August" "1993" "06:30:08" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "17" "suspend" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <199308111330.AA00651@feenix.metronet.com>
Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 06:30:08 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: suspend



Does a verb that is suspend()'ed get killed when the server is
shutdown?  If not, isn't this sorta a security hazard?  After
all, what if someone writes a little verb,

  while (1)
    me.prop = 1;   # or some such.  something small that you wouldnt notice.
    suspend(0);
  endwhile

And sets it off, (or something similar)... there's no way to tell it's
running, like you can with forked tasks?  And so you could just go off
and forget you ever wrote it, while meanwhile the thing zooms away 
forever and ever?  Does this sorta thing cause problems?

-j.

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Wed Aug 11 08:05:43 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "11" "August" "1993" "08:56:32" "-0700" "Glusman Gustavo" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "4" "Re: suspend" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <9308111556.AA22124@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>
Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 08:56:32 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: Re: suspend
Content-Type: text

That should also appear in the @forked task list.
A wiz can kill it, if it's recognized as a stupid task.



From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Aug 11 11:13:30 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "11" "August" "1993" "11:01:03" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "27" "Re: suspend" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug11.110110pdt.58387@mu.parc.xerox.com>
References: <199308111330.AA00651@feenix.metronet.com>
Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 11:01:03 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kira@feenix.metronet.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: suspend

> Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 06:30:08 -0700
> From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
> 
> Does a verb that is suspend()'ed get killed when the server is
> shutdown?  If not, isn't this sorta a security hazard?  After
> all, what if someone writes a little verb,
> 
>   while (1)
>     me.prop = 1;   # or some such.  something small that you wouldnt notice.
>     suspend(0);
>   endwhile
> 
> And sets it off, (or something similar)... there's no way to tell it's
> running, like you can with forked tasks?  And so you could just go off
> and forget you ever wrote it, while meanwhile the thing zooms away 
> forever and ever?  Does this sorta thing cause problems?

Suspended (and read()ing) tasks are, indeed, maintained across server restarts,
just like forked tasks.  The only state lost across reboots is the actual
network connections, any unflushable output on those connections, and any
queued up lines of input from those connections.

The queued_tasks() built-in function includes in its returned value all forked,
suspended, and read()ing tasks in the queue, and the (historically-named)
`@forked' command shows that list, including the suspended tasks.

	Pavel

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Wed Aug 11 16:55:06 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "11" "August" "1993" "16:57:02" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " "<9308112357.AA15829@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>" "19" "MOO 1.7.4 on AIX" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 16:57:02 -0700
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO 1.7.4 on AIX
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

        cc  -O -DMOO -c network.c
"./my-sys-time.h", line 34.24: 1506-046 (S) Syntax error.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 28.15: 1506-046 (S) Syntax error.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 34.21: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 42.8: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 50.7: 1506-122 (S) Expecting pointer to struct or
unio.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 64.46: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 77.15: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
"./net_mp_selct.c", line 83.14: 1506-122 (S) Expecting pointer to struct
or uni.
The error code from the last failed command is 1.

Make Quitting.

The only option i change is to enable outbound network.

- Wilson


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Aug 11 18:30:44 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "11" "August" "1993" "18:21:19" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "28" "Re: MOO 1.7.4 on AIX" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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References: <9308112357.AA15829@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 18:21:19 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO 1.7.4 on AIX

> Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 1993 16:57:02 -0700
> From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
> 
>         cc  -O -DMOO -c network.c
> "./my-sys-time.h", line 34.24: 1506-046 (S) Syntax error.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 28.15: 1506-046 (S) Syntax error.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 34.21: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 42.8: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 50.7: 1506-122 (S) Expecting pointer to struct or
> unio.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 64.46: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 77.15: 1506-045 (S) Undeclared identifier input.
> "./net_mp_selct.c", line 83.14: 1506-122 (S) Expecting pointer to struct
> or uni.

Add the line

		#include <sys/select.h>

after the line

		#include <sys/time.h>

in `my-sys-time.h'.  I am adding automatic support for this to the
configuration script in the next release.

	Pavel


From visgraph.uucp!root Thu Aug 12 14:57:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "12" "August" "1993" "14:44:56" "-0700" "Superuser" "root@visgraph.uucp" nil "5" "Custom object numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Thu, 12 Aug 1993 14:44:56 -0700
From:	Superuser <root@visgraph.uucp>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Custom object numbers
Reply-to: forrie@decvax.dec.com
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Could someone send me some example/sample moo-code to obtain special
Object numbers?  This is being done on an independent venture, and
not on an actual MOO.

Thanks...

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Aug 12 15:42:25 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "12" "August" "1993" "15:35:12" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "12" "Yet Another LambdaMOO server release (1.7.5)" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <93Aug12.153514pdt.58400@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 12 Aug 1993 15:35:12 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Yet Another LambdaMOO server release (1.7.5)

You can, of course, ignore these releases if everything is working fine for you
as it is, but...

I have just released version 1.7.5 of the LambdaMOO server to the usual place:

		parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/LambdaMOO-1.7.5.tar.Z

This release contains a fix for one long-standing (but minor) security hole,
some extra logging information during DB loading, and one or two more
auto-configuration fixes.

	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon

From whyanext.com!eric Sat Aug 14 00:53:06 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "14" "August" "1993" "00:42:54" "-0700" "Eric Schwartz" "eric@whyanext.com " nil "14" "MOO crash warnings?" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Sat, 14 Aug 1993 00:42:54 -0700
From:	eric@whyanext.com (Eric Schwartz)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO crash warnings?

Help,

I'm trying to devise a system that would somehow warn me when/if my  
MOO server crashes.  The most effective way would be via pager, but  
an e-mail warning would suffice.

I'm not sure that this is the most appropriate place to ask this  
question, but I figure that I'm likely to find someone here who has  
implemented such a thing.  I'm running my MOO on a NeXT, hence the  
premise.  ;-)

Thanks,

Eric

From wile.portal.com!moooster Mon Aug 16 08:15:55 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "16" "August" "1993" "07:55:04" "-0700" "Sherman Mui" "moooster@thetech.com " nil "10" "MOO Client for DOS?" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Comments: Don't know don't ask...
Organization: The Tech Museum of Innovation
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Message-ID: <HaRD9B6w165w@thetech.com>
Date:	Mon, 16 Aug 1993 07:55:04 -0700
From:	moooster@thetech.com (Sherman Mui)
Sender: moooster@wile.portal.com
To:	MOO-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO Client for DOS?
Reply-to: moooster@thetech.com (Sherman Mui)

Hello,

I'm looking for MOO client programs for DOS based machines. If anyone has 
seen one, used one, killed one, let me know please. Thanks

  Sherman

--
moooster@thetech.com
The Tech Museum of Innovation

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Mon Aug 16 11:24:02 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "16" "August" "1993" "11:42:18" "-0700" "Glusman Gustavo" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "7" "Re: MOO client for DOS" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 16 Aug 1993 11:42:18 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com (cows)
Subject: Re: MOO client for DOS
Content-Type: text

This is all I know:
MUD Caller, available from ferkel.ucsb.edu (128.111.72.60) /pub/mud/clients
Requires Ethernet card, works with Clarkson Packet drivers.

We FTPed it, tried to UNZIP, and failed.



From fox.fcasd.edu!benedict Mon Aug 16 14:50:38 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "16" "August" "1993" "14:35:53" "-0700" "MIKE BENEDICT" "benedict@fox.fcasd.edu " nil "29" "Help on setting up a MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 16 Aug 1993 14:35:53 -0700
From:	benedict@fox.fcasd.edu (MIKE BENEDICT)
To:	MOO-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Help on setting up a MOO

         I would appreciate some help and advice on setting up a MOO. 
         I plan to write a technology grant to develop a virtual
         classroom/writing center. Could you answer some questions
         for me?  

         	*What would be an optimum SUN SparcStation
         configuration: 
           	Hard Drive size?
         	RAM?
         	 *What type of terminal should I use?  Can I connect
         a Mac to the SparcStation and use that as a terminal.  Or
         should I use a SUN terminal?  We use Macs exclusively in
         theDistrict other than DEC VTs.  I will probably down load
         LambdaCore onto a Mac will need to transfer it to the
         SparcStation.
         	*What other hardware might I need to run a MOO?
         	*Do I need a dedicated telephone line/modem for
         outside access?
         	*How do I determine the port (or is that something I
         need to worry about)? .
         	*Do I need software other than the LambdaCore on the
         SparcStation?
         	*What else do I need to know to set up a MOO?

         	Please respond to me privately.

         Mike Benedict

         benedict@chapel.fcasd.edu

From cheetah.math.oxy.edu!t_pascal Mon Aug 16 16:36:13 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "16" "August" "1993" "16:17:20" "-0700" "C. Regis Wilson" "t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu " nil "31" "Re: MOO client for DOS" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 16 Aug 1993 16:17:20 -0700
From:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	MOO-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO client for DOS

>Date: 	Mon, 16 Aug 1993 11:42:18 PDT
>From: bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Glusman Gustavo)
>
>This is all I know:
>MUD Caller, available from ferkel.ucsb.edu (128.111.72.60) /pub/mud/clients
>Requires Ethernet card, works with Clarkson Packet drivers.
>
>We FTPed it, tried to UNZIP, and failed.
>
I grabbed it just now, and it's not terribly exciting.  It's bare-bones.  One would
be better suited to run NCSA Telnet.  The only thing MUD Caller has over
NCSA is separate input and output windows, and a nicer scrollback environment.
You can't even change text colors with MUD caller.

Note:  This doesn't mean you shouldn't get MUD caller.  I'm just saying that it
needs some work, and you can send suggestions to the author for more features 

(I don't have the author's address, I just deleted the package).

Cheers,
---

---------
T. Pascal, King of Pascal          | "He travels fastest who travels alone,
1600 Campus Road, Box 829          | but not when the frost drops below zero
Los Angeles, CA 90041              | fifty degrees or more."
                                   |         -Old eskimo saying
       t_pascal@{{{cub,cheetah,jaguar}.math},tiger,cheshire}.oxy.edu




From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Tue Aug 17 11:02:13 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "16" "August" "1993" "17:02:25" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu" nil "16" "Re: MOO client for DOS" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 16 Aug 1993 17:02:25 -0700
From:	Jonathan Bradshaw <jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu>
To:	"C. Regis Wilson" <t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu>
cc:	MOO-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO client for DOS
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


I have been using Tinyfugue under a slip connection via TELBIN. One thing
I noticed is the lag between the character being sent to the unix host
and back to my screen. I know CSLIP or PPP would improve this but our
switcher has only normal SLIP. I have also noticed programs such as login
and ncftp etc. switch the terminal into local mode for input and then back
to remote mode when needed. Anyone know how hard this would be to code into
Tinyfugue? I tried manually telling telnet to use local mode but then I got
three copies of everything I typed....!


 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"- D. Gibson



From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Tue Aug 17 16:33:41 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "17" "August" "1993" "16:15:24" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu" nil "6" "Something deserved." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 17 Aug 1993 16:15:24 -0700
From:	Chad Wilson <CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu>
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Subject: Something deserved.
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I don't know if anyone else has done this, or thought to, but...

Thank you, pavel.

- Wilson


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Tue Aug 17 19:11:46 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "17" "August" "1993" "16:59:30" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "9" "Re: Something deserved." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 17 Aug 1993 16:59:30 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Something deserved.
Content-Type: text

> 
> I don't know if anyone else has done this, or thought to, but...
> 
> Thank you, pavel.

YEAH! I second that sentiment.
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* =============================================================================

From xerox.com!schlake.PARC Tue Aug 17 20:25:31 1993
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Date:	Tue, 17 Aug 1993 20:12:32 -0700
From:	schlake@anubis (Schlake)
Sender: schlake@parc.xerox.com
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless),
	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Something deserved.

On Aug 17,  4:59pm, Billy Chambless wrote:
>
>> 
>> I don't know if anyone else has done this, or thought to, but...
>> 
>> Thank you, pavel.
>
>YEAH! I second that sentiment.
}-- End of excerpt from Billy Chambless

Someone should thank ghond too!  He wrote MOO after all.



-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From harlequin.com!kmp Wed Aug 18 22:59:44 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "18" "August" "1993" "22:51:00" "-0700" "Kent M Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" "<19930819055120.4.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>" "19" "first, rest, last, any, ..." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <19930819055120.4.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Wed, 18 Aug 1993 22:51:00 -0700
From:	Kent M Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: first, rest, last, any, ...

Hypertalk has primitives "any", "first", and "last" that I think
belong in MOO because they are so often needed and look so much
better than their idiomatic alternatives.  It has "middle" or some
such, which I see little use for.  It is missing "rest" which would
be more useful.

 What you write now...                   What you should write...

 some_foo = foo[random(length(foo))];    some_foo = any foo;
 last_foo = foo[length(foo)];            last_foo = last foo;
 first_foo = foo[1];                     first_foo = first foo;
 rest_of_foos = foo[2..length(foo)];     rest_of_foos = rest foo;

In addition to making code slightly smaller, much more readable, 
and less likely to be buggy, it's also possible that there is a
speed gain to be had from these, no?

If you wanted to make them take parens as in any(foo), last(foo), etc.
I guess I wouldn't really fuss.

From harlequin.com!kmp Thu Aug 19 10:51:44 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "19" "August" "1993" "10:48:00" "-0700" "Kent M Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "27" "Re: first, rest, last, any, ..." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-To: <93Aug19.101758pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Message-Id: <19930819174833.0.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:48:00 -0700
From:	Kent M Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	kmp@harlequin.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

I think rest is useful and you shouldn't just throw it out due to some
symmetry argument.  Rather, you should repair the problem in the other way:
I recommend providing BOTH butfirst and butlast.

I have thought about the syntax x[i...] for the same reason.  (I think the
extra dot would help you confirm that someone hadn't made a c-m-K kind 
of error in Emacs.)  

But note that it's not symmetric without x[...i]. And in any case, that
doesn't generalize well to the other operators without, for example, 
including support for negative subscripts.  You -could- do:
 x[1] = first(x)
 x[2...] = butfirst(x)
 x[...-1] = last(x)
 x[...-2] = butlast(x)
but these would be more prone to programming errors if the arguments were
complex expressions that fell into negative numbers accidentally.  (Right
now, I think such bounds errors are checked, but you'd have to accept them
as "correct values" if you revised it.)  If you don't have negative subscripts,
then really only butfirst (and its friends [3...],...) become easier to write.
And you introduce an expressional asymmetry where last and butlast get written
as function calls but first and butfirst get written with brackets.  I think
that is bad.  Hence even though I think the ... notation is cute, I think it
will work against the symmetry thing you (probably rightly) care about.

So I say just add the named operators (first, butfirst, last, butlast, and any)
and don't do the syntax thing.

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Thu Aug 19 11:10:05 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "19" "August" "1993" "09:31:22" "-0700" "Lynx" "BRANDON@cc.usu.edu" "<01H1XD12TEPEA3I9AM@CC.USU.EDU>" "6" "386BSD" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Subject: 386BSD
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How does the server work on 386BSD?  We may be moving DarkurtheMOO to that
setup soon (and don't say just use linux, I can't because Linux can't run a
BootP server).  Also, how much memory does Lambda moo take up, as well as disk
space...?

		-Brandon (Lynx/Shade Pendragon@DarkurtheMOO)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Aug 19 12:12:01 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "19" "August" "1993" "12:00:14" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "7" "Re: 386BSD" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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References: <01H1XD12TEPEA3I9AM@CC.USU.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 12:00:14 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: 386BSD

> Also, how much memory does Lambda moo take up, as well as disk space...?

I'm assuming that you mean LambdaMOO the site, not the server.  The current
numbers are 80,740,782 bytes on disk and about 110 Mbytes in memory.

	Pavel


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Aug 19 12:51:04 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "19" "August" "1993" "10:17:45" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "40" "Re: first, rest, last, any, ..." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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References: <19930819055120.4.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:17:45 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kmp@harlequin.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

> Date:	Wed, 18 Aug 1993 22:51:00 -0700
> From:	Kent M Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
> 
>  What you write now...                   What you should write...
> 
>  some_foo = foo[random(length(foo))];    some_foo = any foo;
>  last_foo = foo[length(foo)];            last_foo = last foo;
>  first_foo = foo[1];                     first_foo = first foo;
>  rest_of_foos = foo[2..length(foo)];     rest_of_foos = rest foo;

I'm inclined to agree, I think, except that I think I'd follow Hypertalk's lead
and leave out `rest'.  Since MOO lists are end-to-end symmetric, it's not at
all clear to one who hasn't hacked LISP what `rest' you mean; I could even
imagine programmers getting confused into thinking that `rest' referred to all
of the elements other than the last one referenced (or some such).

If I put these things in, I'd only be putting in `first' for symmetry with
`last', which is far more useful.

I have been thinking for a long time that the syntax

	x[i..]

should mean

	x[i..length(x)]

> In addition to making code slightly smaller, much more readable, 
> and less likely to be buggy, it's also possible that there is a
> speed gain to be had from these, no?

The speed gain is negligible.

> If you wanted to make them take parens as in any(foo), last(foo), etc.
> I guess I wouldn't really fuss.

I would probably do this, since that fits in better with the existing language
and doesn't require any new reserved words.

	Pavel

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Thu Aug 19 13:23:46 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "19" "August" "1993" "13:13:39" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "47" "Re: first, rest, last, any, ..." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:48:00 PDT.\"
             <19930819174833.0.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM> and "
Message-ID: <9308192013.AA24096@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 13:13:39 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

About first() and rest():  

  I'll have to admit that this proliferation of synonyms bothers me.
  Why do we need first(a) and rest(a) 
  when we already have a[1] and listdelete(a,1)?

  I've always found the latter two to be clear and unambiguous.

About symmetry and being able to easily grab/omit final elements:

  Granted, symmetry would be really nice, but the only way negative subscripts 
  make sense to me is if we view lists as being circular, e.g.,

   a={#1,#2,#3,#4};

   a[-2]   => #3
   a[-1]   => #4
   a[0]    raise E_RANGE
   a[1]    => #1
   a[2]    => #2
   a[3]    => #3
   a[4]    => #4
   a[5]    raise E_RANGE
   a[6]    => #1
   a[-3..-2] => {#2, #3}
   a[4..6]   raise E_RANGE
   a[7..8]   => {#2, #3}

  Note that because lists are 1-based, we have to paste in an extra
  "forbidden element" to get the negative indices to work out right.
  E_RANGE now means "you tried to include the forbidden element".
  Actually, with the forbidden element in there, we could then say that
  an omitted range boundary means "continue in that direction until you
  get to the forbidden element" and now have a reasonable way of doing 
  list prefixes as well as suffixes.

   a[3..]  => {#3, #4}
   a[..2]  => {#1, #2}
   a[..-2] => {#1, #2, #3}
   a[-3..] => {#2, #3, #4}
   a[8..]  => {#3, #4}

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Thu Aug 19 13:49:18 1993
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Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 13:14:34 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

>   I have been thinking for a long time that the syntax
>   
>   	x[i..]
>   
>   should mean
>   
>   	x[i..length(x)]
>   
note that if you make this change (please-please-please? :-)
a corresonding change should be made for FOR statements, 
e.g.,

FOR i IN [1..]
 ...

for those of us who like to write indefinite-upper-bound loops
(and hate using WHILE because we always forget to put in the `i=i+1').
Of course, this would be a lot more useful with a loop exit 
construct and/or an [e-word deleted]

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From src.dec.com!weber Thu Aug 19 15:32:04 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Message of Thu, 19 Aug 1993 13:13:39 PDT
    from Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
    <9308192013.AA24096@palnu.research.microsoft.com>"
Message-ID: <9308192208.AA27969@chaucer>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:08:14 -0700
From:	weber@src.dec.com
To:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

>  Granted, symmetry would be really nice, but the only way negative
>  subscripts make sense to me is if we view lists as being circular, e.g.,

My visceral reaction is "Yuck"!  Right now, you know how many elements will be
in x[i..j] l-- j-i+1, as long as this is >= 0.  If you have negative
subscripts, then the equation is:
    j-i+1           if j,i>0,
    length(x)+i-j+1 if i>0, j<0;
    j+i-length(x)+1 if i<0, j>0
    i-j+1           if i,j<0

(If I've made some arithmetical mistakes in the above, then that only goes
to prove my point -- this is confusing!!)

However, I do agree that it is irritating that one has to keep writing
length(x).  Another language I've seen solves the problem by using
an abbreviation, as follows:
  x[i..*] means x[i..length(x)], and
  x[*-3..*] will mean "take the last 4 elements of x, etc
Ie, the * means "length of whatever list the expression is subscripting"

You might want to choose a different symbol, instead of *.  *shrug*

At least for me, this syntax is quite readable.

  -Sam Weber

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Thu Aug 19 16:54:01 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:08:14 PDT.\"
             <9308192208.AA27969@chaucer>_Che"
Message-ID: <9308192341.AA24471@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 16:41:10 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

No, it's always j-i+1, even when j and i are both negative
(e.g., length(x[-8..-5]) == (-5)-(-8)+1 == (-5)+8+1 == 4).

The real problem is that a number of previously-illegal array
expressions become legal, and the question is, how badly does
this hurt as compared with the benefit obtained from being
able to cleanly refer to final elements?  To what extent do 
we want/need to have broken code stay broken?

My thought was that it's the one-beyond-the-end cases that are the
most important to have producing errors, though admittedly, the case
of foo[wild_random_number] bothers me...

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Another odd thought that occurred to me was the notion of a 
list reverser

   a = {#1,#2,#3,#4,#5}
   a[2..3]   => {#2, #3} 
   a|[2..3]  => {#4, #3}
   a|[2..3]| => {#3, #4}
   a|[1]     => #5
   a|[2..]|  => {#1, #2, #3, #4}

I suppose if we need to be constrained to existing syntax we could use
unary minus to reverse lists, in which case we get things like

   (-a)[2..3]  => {#4, #3}
   -(-a)[2..3] => {#3, #4}
   (-a)[1]     => #5
   -(-a)[2..]  => {#1, #2, #3, #4}

but I think a postfix reverser works much better...
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From src.dec.com!weber Thu Aug 19 17:43:55 1993
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    <9308192341.AA24471@palnu.research.microsoft.com>"
Message-ID: <9308200036.AA28160@chaucer>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 17:36:43 -0700
From:	weber@src.dec.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

>No, it's always j-i+1, even when j and i are both negative
>(e.g., length(x[-8..-5]) == (-5)-(-8)+1 == (-5)+8+1 == 4).

This is not true.

length(x[5..-8]) is not -8-5+1= -12

In fact, length(x[5..-8]) is an error if length(x)<12, and is equal
to length(x)-12 otherwise.

  -Sam

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Thu Aug 19 22:46:52 1993
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             <9308200036.AA28160@chaucer>o
	ha"
Message-ID: <9308200534.AA24642@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Thu, 19 Aug 1993 22:34:51 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: first, rest, last, any, ...

My apologies; that was a bad use of the word "always".
What I should have said is that it's

  max(0,j-i+1) 

in the all of the non-error cases.

In the case where i>0 and j<0, x[i,j] is empty (this is in accordance 
with the current convention, i.e., that x[i,j] is empty when j<i).
The case i<0,j>0 would be an error in the scheme I was proposing
since x[i,j] would be including the "forbidden element" x[0].

Actually, I'm now convinced that any attempt to reconcile negative
indices with the current state of affairs is basically hopeless.

For one thing, it's now clear that what *you* meant by x[5..-8] is
"the sublist of x starting at the fifth element and ending at the
eighth from the end," which I'll admit is not an unreasonable thing 
to expect, but which is entirely different from what I had in mind,
namely the empty list, obviously (*), since 5 > -8.

(*)  :)

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Sun Aug 22 15:39:03 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "22" "August" "1993" "15:25:56" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu " nil "28" "Rooms and \"Free Entry\"" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Full-Name: Jack Eifrig
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Date:	Sun, 22 Aug 1993 15:25:56 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	eifrig@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Rooms and "Free Entry"


I was messing around with the "free entry" property of rooms the other day,
and discovered some "unexpected behavior."  (It's not clear if this is a
bug, or just me misinterpreting the meaning of "free entry".)

If a room is *not* set for "free entry", the only way for an object to enter
the room is:

	1) Via invoking an approved exit (the whole "blessed object" idea.)
	2) Being owned by the owner of the room.
	3) Being on the "residents" list of the room.

In particular, you can't drop anything there!  I propose that a fourth
condition be added:

	4) The entering object's current location is within the room.

My understanding of "free entry" was that it was intended to be the 
equivalent of TinyMU*'s "JUMP_OK" flag:  If a room was not set "free entry",
you just couldn't teleport there.

What do other people think of this?  Granted, it weakens the strength of
a room's security considerably; in particular, there's no way to stop people
from leaving a "portal" object within a room that is set "not free entry",
and using it as a sort of teleportation pad.  On the other hand, if there
aren't too many programmers around, it let's you make more interesting puzzle
rooms that don't behave too weirdly: it's very counter-intuitive to be unable
to drop something because of the room you are in.  :-)

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Sun Aug 22 15:52:04 1993
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Date:	Sun, 22 Aug 1993 15:41:33 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig Jack Eifrig)
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com, eifrig@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Rooms and "Free Entry"


> In particular, you can't drop anything there!  I propose that a fourth
> condition be added:
> 
> 	4) The entering object's current location is within the room.

Good idea.  In fact, I'd already altered the rooms on my moos to
allow this.  Its easy enough to add another condition to $room:accept,
if what.location.location == this...

Another more formidable addition was hacking the :accept to allow
return from editors.  Since we wanted people to be able to return
to a room if they'd left from it, but not @move to any room on the 
MOO from an editor.

-j.

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Sun Aug 22 19:02:48 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "22" "August" "1993" "18:35:28" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu" nil "30" "Re: Rooms and \"Free Entry\"" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Sun, 22 Aug 1993 18:35:28 -0700
From:	Jonathan Bradshaw <jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu>
To:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
cc:	Jack Eifrig Jack Eifrig <eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu>,
	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com, eifrig@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Rooms and "Free Entry"
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Sun, 22 Aug 1993, Jacqueline D. Hamilton wrote:

> 
> > In particular, you can't drop anything there!  I propose that a fourth
> > condition be added:
> > 
> > 	4) The entering object's current location is within the room.
> 
> Good idea.  In fact, I'd already altered the rooms on my moos to
> allow this.  Its easy enough to add another condition to $room:accept,
> if what.location.location == this...
> 
> Another more formidable addition was hacking the :accept to allow
> return from editors.  Since we wanted people to be able to return
> to a room if they'd left from it, but not @move to any room on the 
> MOO from an editor.
> 
> -j.

My solution for that was to use ISA($generic_editor) and .owner == $hacker
to stop people making a child of the generic editor to teleport with!

However, this brings up a point. When to use :accept and when to use
:is_unlocked_for for these additions?

 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers"
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan"- D. Gibson



From visgraph.uucp!forrie Mon Aug 23 07:29:32 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "23" "August" "1993" "06:56:55" "-0700" "Forrest Aldrich" "forrie@visgraph.uucp" nil "27" "GUI clients for MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 06:56:55 -0700
From:	Forrest Aldrich <forrie@visgraph.uucp>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: GUI clients for MOO
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With the wealth of various GUI interfaces out there (bixnav, ripterm, etc.)
I thought that it might be a neat idea to develop something similar for
LambdaMOO (and perhaps other MUDs).

Bascially, from what I have been able to determine, these GUI clients act
more-or-less as a filter.  The server (the BBS program or what have you)
sends keywords/phrases/codes to the user/client, which in turn acts locally
upon it.  There are local ICONS, menus, etc. etc.

Does anyone have a bit more programmatical (is that a word?? :) knowledge of
these types of programs?  The capabilties of such a thing is, of course,
limitless... local maps, point and click to go somewhere with perhaps local
graphcial effects, sound... exchanges of files (via modem-protocol support),
and on and on.

There are many other uses for these GUI based clients, too, as with bixnav
(the Windows GUI client-interface to the BIX communications service).  

I'm interested in finding out more details about how to program one.

The platform I would be using to do this is the latest Borland C/C++ with
Application Frameworks.

Thanks...

Forrest


From rintintin.colorado.edu!kessner Mon Aug 23 08:41:38 1993
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From:	KESSNER ERIC M <kessner@rintintin.colorado.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Compiling Error

Ok. I'm trying to compile the latest server (1.7.5?) on a sun
box using gcc. Everything works fine until I try making and then I get

'my-stdarg.h:54: stdarg.h: No such file or directory'
*** Error code 1

Now I admit I'm not exactly up on my c program building skills but
it's obvious that either one of my system files is missing or a file
is missing from the release (of course I could also be overlooking
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Thanx, Eric
(kessner@rintintin.colorado.edu)

From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Mon Aug 23 09:07:00 1993
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Would it be possible to add a "Sender: " line to the header in the
mailing list? I'm trying to archive all the list, and the software
I'm using can pick this out. The regular To: From:, etc. are usually
of no use...

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu!esit Mon Aug 23 10:05:34 1993
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Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 09:54:28 -0700
From:	Emil Sit <esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
To:	forrie@decvax.dec.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  GUI clients for MOO

I think a major problem with this is that most M*s are connected to via
telnets, in character based interfaces, rather than a direct dialin. I'm not
sure how one would set-up a (for example) mswindoze interface thru (say)
xtalk. Of course, you could write an x based client for those ppl who have
an xterminal (slip connection, whatever), but it wouldn't be usuable
by all.

Of course, if someone DID write one..... :)

Nagilum

From maths.tcd.ie!creilly Mon Aug 23 10:15:55 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "23" "August" "1993" "10:05:28" "-0700" "Colman Reilly" "creilly@maths.tcd.ie" nil "31" "Re: GUI clients for MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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                              dated today at 09:54."
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Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 10:05:28 -0700
From:	Colman Reilly <creilly@maths.tcd.ie>
To:	Emil Sit <esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
cc:	forrie@decvax.dec.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, creilly@maths.tcd.ie
Subject: Re: GUI clients for MOO



     I think a major problem with this is that most M*s are connected to via
     telnets, in character based interfaces, rather than a direct dialin. I'm n
     ot sure how one would set-up a (for example) mswindoze interface thru (say)
     xtalk. Of course, you could write an x based client for those ppl who have
     an xterminal (slip connection, whatever), but it wouldn't be usuable
     by all.

Well a way around this suggests itself . . 

There exists a system called the World Wide Web, which is a distributed
information system. It cam support hypertext, including inlined graphics.

There are clients for all sorts of platforms coming on line, some of which
can work as slaves and some of which are text based.
     
So an easy way to do it is to write a client that just calls one of these
as a slave and passes it a reference to a hypertext document somewhere on
the web. 

     Of course, if someone DID write one..... :)

I'm working on it . . hypertext linked to your MOO anyone?

Colman
     
-------
Colman Reilly ,School Of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
creilly@maths.tcd.ie
(Home)+353-(0)1-8204643 (College)+353-(0)1-7022280 PGP Public Key on Request

From netcom.com!autodesk!autodesk.com!owen Mon Aug 23 11:42:25 1993
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From:	owen@autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley)
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To:	forrie@decvax.dec.com, esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu
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Subject: Re:  GUI clients for MOO


 > I think a major problem with this is that most M*s are connected to via
 > telnets, in character based interfaces, rather than a direct dialin. I'm not
 > sure how one would set-up a (for example) mswindoze interface thru (say)
 > xtalk. Of course, you could write an x based client for those ppl who have
 > an xterminal (slip connection, whatever), but it wouldn't be usuable
 > by all.
 > 
 > Of course, if someone DID write one..... :)
 
There are other substantive issues that would need to be handled at the 
MOO end first..
for one it would need a real system of spatial co-oridination.

The issue of Graphical front end for MOO seems to have reached 
a sort of critical mass. Many of us are addressing it right now :-)

LUX ./. owen



From visgraph.uucp!root Mon Aug 23 11:51:56 1993
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Through e-mail, Emil Sit writes:
| 
| I think a major problem with this is that most M*s are connected to via
| telnets, in character based interfaces, rather than a direct dialin.
[ ... ]

	Correct.  This would have to be some sort of specialized interface
	for the time being, I suppose.

	I can't see it being worth the bother to try something for UNIX, in
	curses... :)

	This would initially be targeted toward a DOS/Windows environment.
	However, the user could be one that dials in (say) to a mainframe
	and such, telnets to the host, and the local client (on his/her DOS/Windows
	machine) could still perform correctly.

	This might be something interesting on a MAC as well... but I'll let 
	someone else touch that world.

| I'm not
| sure how one would set-up a (for example) mswindoze interface thru (say)
| xtalk. Of course, you could write an x based client for those ppl who have
| an xterminal (slip connection, whatever), but it wouldn't be usuable
| by all.
[ ... ]

	I won't be touching X-windoze either.  Too much overhead, IMHO.  But
	someone who knows the trade might be able to adapt it... it would be
	interesting.

| Of course, if someone DID write one..... :)
[ ... ]

	Exactly.  Everyone would like to use something like this, but they
	don't want to help write it.  :)

	I'll see what I can do for this coming winter.   Any others?  Suggestions?

	Forrest

From groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu!esit Mon Aug 23 12:05:27 1993
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From:	Emil Sit <esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
To:	owen@autodesk.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, ngk@logan.tc.cornell.edu
Subject: Re:  GUI clients for MOO

I don't know if the original poster meant to have like real pictures of rooms,
or just something that would make navigating the text interface easier. The
latter could be done much easier than the former.

and you're right....I'm addressing it too... but I think I'll keep my mouth
shut about how for a bit.. :)

Nagilum

From visgraph.uucp!forrie Mon Aug 23 12:16:49 1993
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From:	Forrest Aldrich <forrie@visgraph.uucp>
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Subject: Re:  GUI clients for MOO (fwd)
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Through e-mail, D. Owen Rowley writes:
|  
| There are other substantive issues that would need to be handled at the 
| MOO end first..
| for one it would need a real system of spatial co-oridination.
[ ... ]

	I'm not certain what you mean here.  MY version, thus far anyways, was
	for the MOO end to be told to act in SERVER mode... it would then
	send certain textual strings to the CLIENT which would then act
	locally upon it.  I think that's how some of the existing clients
	(bixnav, etc.) handle this.  

	But yes, something would need to be programmed on the MOO end (perhaps
	in verbs, not necessarily the server itself) to accomodate any
	of this.

| The issue of Graphical front end for MOO seems to have reached 
| a sort of critical mass. Many of us are addressing it right now :-)
[ ... ]

	Indeed!  Glad I posted about it... anyone else?

	Forrest

From apssrv.aps.muohio.edu!CRWILSON Mon Aug 23 12:39:51 1993
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Subject: GUI clients.
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All MUD's respond to the basic set of commands, like moving, etc.

If you want a GUI client, one with 2 seperate windos, par exemple, one input
window, and one output window.  And an icon bar/palate (sp?), if you click on
an icon, send a normal string and let the MUD process it.

Have icons for 'look', 'n', 's', 'e', 'w', etc...plus user addable icons to
represent different things for RPG's, get my idea here?

- Chad (of the Wilson clan)


From groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu!esit Mon Aug 23 13:44:26 1993
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Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 13:32:10 -0700
From:	Emil Sit <esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
To:	CRWILSON@apssrv.aps.muohio.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  GUI clients.

well... just as a hint to what my team is working on, we're also gonna
need a "rotate" command, in addition to standard north, east, west, south,
up, down. (It will accept arguments in degrees, not radians most likely :)

If you have actual graphical stuff, the problem is a) where to keep graphics,
b) what form graphics are in (ANSI ala ACiD, RIP, bitmap?), c) how to show
action (ie a fight...). I was thinking more of a graphics window to show
stuff and a small text window for commands, rather than icon based.

Nagilum

From media.mit.edu!adams Mon Aug 23 21:39:34 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "23" "August" "1993" "21:30:39" "-0700" "adams@media.mit.edu" "adams@media.mit.edu" nil "14" "Re: GUI clients for MOO (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 23 Aug 93 11:39:00 PDT.\"
             <199308231839.AA02390@visgraph.uucp>r asse"
Message-ID: <9308240430.AA24897@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 21:30:39 -0700
From:	adams@media.mit.edu
To:	forrie@decvax.dec.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, adams@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: GUI clients for MOO (fwd)

>>>
                                                                                
        Indeed!  Glad I posted about it... anyone else?           
                                                                                
        Forrest                                                                 

<<<

I happen to be working on a GUI FE for the Mac. It is almost done, but it
is programmer-oriented, i.e., helps you program the MOO, edit verbs, properties
etc..The Server did not have to be modified in any way. I used th
PREFIX/SUFFIX to isolate text.

Adam Skwersky

From unity.ncsu.edu!brad_m Mon Aug 23 21:51:36 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "23" "August" "1993" "21:44:50" "-0700" "brad_m@unity.ncsu.edu" "brad_m@unity.ncsu.edu" nil "19" "Re: GUI clients for MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 21:44:50 -0700
From:	brad_m@unity.ncsu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: GUI clients for MOO
Content-Type: text

I've managed to receive funding this semester to either improve the GUI
for accessing M*'s or to build an online support system that helps new
users learn moo-ing faster. My background is in online help design, but
I'm interested in any feedback on what you all would do with 3K to hire a
hacker? Any advice, feedback, or suggestions would be very appreciated;
thanks in advance.

Brad

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> Brad Mehlenbacher	     Office Phone: (919) 515-4138        <<
>> Assistant Professor	     Home Phone:   (919) 833-8436        <<	
>> Technical Communication   Fax:    	   (919) 515-7856        <<
>>                                                               <<
>> English Department	     E-mail:       brad_m@unity.ncsu.edu <<
>> NC State University					         <<
>> Raleigh, NC 27695-8105                                        <<
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


From cunyvm.cuny.edu!WBWQC Tue Aug 24 00:46:22 1993
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 00:34:31 -0700
From:	"wbwqc@cunyvm.cuny.edu" <WBWQC@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
To:	moo-cows <moo-cows@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: GUI, graphical M**s


A graphical MUD called BSX (Bram Stokes' X-based Mud) has a usenet
group called alt.games.mud.bsx or alt.mud.bsx or something like that
with a working (last i heard) internet-connected server at lysator.
For more BSX info, see the MUD clients FAQ in rec.games.mud.announce.
(I don't have the BSX  group in netnews :-( ).    A 3-D graphical MUD
called Multiverse has an e-mail list (multiverse@medg.lcs.mit.edu).
Use their multiverse-request@ for membership info.
Both of these use non-telnet clients and (mostly) x-windows.
Multiverse developers are trying to make future versions contain 3-d
object-oriented objects, widgets, or icons.
Regarding:
----start quoted message----
Message-Id: <9308231654.AA05548@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
I think a major problem with this is that most M*s are connected to via
telnets,in character based interfaces,rather than a direct dialin.I'm not
sure how one would set-up a (for example) mswindoze interface thru (say)
xtalk. Of course,you could write an x based client for those ppl who have
an xterminal (slip connection, whatever), but it wouldn't be usuable
by all.
Of course, if someone DID write one..... :)
Nagilum
----end quoted message---------------

From artorg.hmc.psu.edu!dkatz Tue Aug 24 05:57:37 1993
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 05:41:05 -0700
From:	dkatz@artorg.hmc.psu.edu (David N. Katz)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com

I just reiceved e-mail from Bram Stolk, regarding the shutting down of the 
graphical mud located at lysator.liu.
It appears that the only BSX client has been shut down.  If anyone would like
to start a server you need


"If you want to use the bsx client, you would therefore have
to start your own server.
If you would do this, you could offer it as a service to the
internet.

To start your own server you need an lpmud 3.0 parser and
ftp.lysator.liu:/pub/lpmud/bsx/bsxserver.tar.gz


	Regards,

		Bram Stolk"


Bram's email address is stolk@fwi.uva.nl


David N. Katz   dkatz@artorg.hmc.psu.edu
M.S. Hershey Medical Center
Pennsylvania State University

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Tue Aug 24 08:45:53 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "08:25:32" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "9" "site hunting." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 08:25:32 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: site hunting.



Harper's Tale MOO is looking for a new site to run on,
preferably a big machine that won't notice a little moo.
Currently our db is 2.8 meg on disk.

Would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks...

-j.

From netcom.com!frankc Tue Aug 24 09:03:37 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "08:47:00" "-0700" "Frank Crowell" "frankc@netcom.com " nil "29" "re: gui and m**" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 08:47:00 -0700
From:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-COWS)
Subject: re: gui and m**



actually a ms windows to MOO is not too difficult to do.

a simple windows client can dial up to a unix account, run your
unix client, and log into the mud.  after that, you can start
adding your own hacks, er design to the windows client.

of course if your PC box is on internet, you can write a 
ms windows client that uses tcp/ip hooks.  i know of one
company the provides such a package. 

The hard part is to figure out the extensions and to write to
something that resembles a standard.  For example, there are
some BSX ideas that i like; RIP is becoming increasingly
popular with BBS, and so on.

somewhere last year i suggested (and got beat up for it) that
instead of hacking the server, hack the unix client.
If you want to simulate BSX type stuff, it could be done
without making any changes to your server.  So you write your
windows client the way you would like the muds to really 
behave, and you hack you unix client to fit that model. 

-frank

-- 
[Maddog's VirtualStuff Emporium          frankc@netcom.COM]


From visgraph.uucp!forrie Tue Aug 24 11:49:14 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "10:11:01" "-0700" "Forrest Aldrich" "forrie@visgraph.uucp" nil "117" "Re: gui and m**" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9308241547.AA15231@netcom4.netcom.com> from \"Frank Crowell\" at Aug 24, 93 08:47:00 amer.mit.e"
Message-ID: <199308241711.AA02203@visgraph.uucp>
Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 10:11:01 -0700
From:	Forrest Aldrich <forrie@visgraph.uucp>
To:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: gui and m**
Reply-to: forrie@decvax.dec.com
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Through e-mail, Frank Crowell writes:
| 
| a simple windows client can dial up to a unix account, run your
| unix client, and log into the mud.  after that, you can start
| adding your own hacks, er design to the windows client.
[ ... ]

	Exactly as I think... but:

| of course if your PC box is on internet, you can write a 
| ms windows client that uses tcp/ip hooks.  i know of one
| company the provides such a package. 
[ ... ]

	Well, there are also a number of pd packages that provide TCP/IP
	stuff.  A couple of things that come to mind are KA9Q, NOS (its
	predicessor), and WAMPES.  These are popular with hamradio enthusiasts,
	and run on PCs, as well as UNIX.

	There are also the WINSOCK routines, of which I know nothing about.

| The hard part is to figure out the extensions and to write to
| something that resembles a standard.  For example, there are
| some BSX ideas that i like; RIP is becoming increasingly
| popular with BBS, and so on.
[ ... ]

	My problem right _now_ is getting information about these.  In particular,
	I figured that I would start out trying to understand how RIP works...
	But I can't afford to keep dialing up long-distance to their main BBS
	in hopes of answers.  The author doesn't have a regular email address
	that I know of.

	Someone mentioned to me the use of Hypertext.  This is a term I am
	familiar with, but don't really understand what it means.

	My basic idea was to set up some means of symbols, strings, and such
	that would be sent to the client which would in turn act locally upon
	them.  I don't know how quickly a standard could be set for this, as
	all of this is relatively new as a whole.  I would imagine once I
	figured out how RIPterm did its 'thing', with permission of the author,
	some concepts could be adopted.  Otherwise I would start from scratch.

	Have you any suggestions?

	I'm the originator of this thread... didn't realize there was actually
	so much interest in it.  I'm glad there is, this means many, many
	good ideas can come forth.

	As far as this being interfaced with the MOO... I have thought that
	perhaps verbs could be programmed to do the Hypertext and interpretations,
	etc... but then again, might it be quicker to have an actual server hack
	that would act when told to be in 'server' mode, sending the equivalent
	of "SoandSo says, 'I hate lemon pie.'" in Hypertext/symbolic mode that
	would be interpreted by the client.  

	My initial idea for this interpretation would be to have the display window
	split up into 3 areas:

	private messages/whispers (with paging... a la "More..." for the queue)
	---------
	Public messages/etc
	---------
	input/typing area

	What's more, a special screen editing environment for capturing, editing,
	and creating verbs would be essential.  It would be nice to have some
	Hypertext that would grab the output of a verb listing and format it
	properly, locally... etc etc.

	The options are limitless, really.  

	Someone mentioned graphics... and what my original intention was about
	this.  My original intention is to have some graphical representations
	of everything, not necessarily a 3D view of where ever you go within
	the MUD, that could come later once a decent client/server relationship
	was established.

	One concern that comes to mind is, for example, if there is a new type
	of ICON you wish clients to have, developing a means by which to interpret
	the *.ICO (MSDOS/WINDOWS) file into Hypertext and then back into a *.ICO
	file...  how would you do this?  Or would there be another, easier way
	to transfer this data (perhaps an embedded ZMODEM protocol?)... and
	that would hopefully lead to a decent means by which to upload and edit
	stuff from Core to Core... without the need to do everything from scratch
	again.

| somewhere last year i suggested (and got beat up for it) that
| instead of hacking the server, hack the unix client.
[ ... ]

	::Grin::!!!  I would imagine that it would need to be a little of both
	here.  Some changes in the server, and client... with the latter being
	more flexible to these changes unless such is developed with verbs
	in the server.

| If you want to simulate BSX type stuff, it could be done
| without making any changes to your server.  So you write your
| windows client the way you would like the muds to really 
| behave, and you hack you unix client to fit that model. 
[ ... ]

	This would be easier... although I don't know much about BSX... and
	doubt that BSX would run on my system (SYSV, SCO UNIX)... but I'm 
	open to ideas.

	Right now, as mentioned above, I'm looking for information about
	how other clients are doing their job right now for ideas.... at
	least to start.  At this point, I'm in the middle of chicken
	scratches on paper.  Not having any experience with designing a client
	like this makes things difficult, which is why I am hoping for some
	input from outside and the list.

	Thanks!

	Forrest


From groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu!esit Tue Aug 24 12:35:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "12:26:56" "-0700" "Emil Sit" "esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu" nil "25" "Re: gui and m**" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:26:56 -0700
From:	Emil Sit <esit@groups.sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
To:	forrie@decvax.dec.com, frankc@netcom.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: gui and m**

(I apologize but I'm using regular unix mail... can I quote?)

I think the basic idea here is to use something like SGML. You'd set the
server up to send tags that would tell the client (which you'd probably
definitely need for multi-platform support... no raw telnet) to do things
like switch color, typestyle, etc. The primary problem I think is to have
support all the way down to people using dialins. The more complicated the
graphics, the less likely someone on a DOS box or simple terminal will
be able to use it.

The thread appears to be splitting into two major areas:
   1. Actual graphics... instead of (or in addition to) a description of a
      room,  you also have a picture of the room.
   2. A menu'ed interface of sorts.

I'm not sure how #2 would work exactly... I haven't connected to a MOO in about
a month and a half, and mainly play Mercs (DikuMUD hack'n'slash). I have heard
about links to irc, gopher, etc etc, so that might be put in as a menu, but
other than that I wouldn't see the NEED for it. Are we thinking about something
like AIX's InfoExplorer?

...and regardless of what it is, remember to leave a way which you can
turn the extra stuff off and get back the normal text interface.

Nagilum

From namesrv.mountain.net!quinn Tue Aug 24 12:46:38 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "12:28:14" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@namesrv.mountain.net" nil "13" "As long as people are begging for sites..." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <199308241928.AA07009@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>
Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:28:14 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@namesrv.mountain.net>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: As long as people are begging for sites...

I've long wanted a site on which to run my own MOO-RPG.  I've been in MOO for
two years now, mostly at LambdaMOO.

To get a sample of what I've done there, @go #88 (to get initiated into LRPG),
then @go #17745 and head due south.  A few puzzles in the immediate area, and a
portal to the 'inside' world.

I'd like to set up a post-apocalyptic themed MOO, with the RPG I am currently
developing off and online.  I don't mind working with a team, but they've got
to be a competent team.  I'm sick of having a clueless ArchWizard as a
landlord.

--Quinn (19845@lambdamoo.moo.mud.org)

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Aug 24 12:54:08 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "12:51:58" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca" nil "11" "Re: gui and m**" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:51:58 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: gui and m**

Can anyone imagine the size of a moo with graphics stored for each room? 8+)

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. Use ~m in unix mail to include messages.  Also use ~v to edit it.

From cool.vortech.com!clay Tue Aug 24 13:01:49 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "12:57:20" "-0700" "Clay Luther" "clay@cool.vortech.com" nil "14" "Re: gui and m**" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <199308241957.AA28464@cool.vortech.com>
Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:57:20 -0700
From:	Clay Luther <clay@cool.vortech.com>
To:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca (Byron Montgomerie)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (moo)
Subject: Re: gui and m**
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> 
> Can anyone imagine the size of a moo with graphics stored for each room? 8+)

Not that bad, really.  In our software, we use JPEG to compress 10mb images
into about 128K.  Assuming that we could use JPEG (or something similar) in
the moo, and force the client to uncompress the image for display (thus
reducing the net-bandwidth required), an image for an object might reasonably
take up no more room than a decent long-winded description.

-- 
Clay Luther                              clay@cool.vortech.com
Software Engineer                        Kodak Health Imaging Systems
(214) 994-1377                           Fax (214) 994-1310
for(1..10){print"$_ little ",$_%3?/0/&&"indian boys\n":"indians\n"}

From namesrv.mountain.net!quinn Tue Aug 24 13:07:19 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "12:46:40" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@namesrv.mountain.net" nil "37" "new fork(0) kinda thing" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Message-ID: <199308241946.AA07075@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>
Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:46:40 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@namesrv.mountain.net>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: new fork(0) kinda thing

Many of the times I use fork(0) it is simply to set off a block of
 code from the currently executing task.
 
I'd like to see a new statement which doesn't replenish ticks/seconds,
 but just tacks the enclosed code onto the end of the current task.
 
As an example:
 
@prog me:tell
if (random(100) == 1)
  fork (0)
    this:do_something_stupid();
  endfork
endif
return pass(@args);
..
 
... could be replaced by:
 
@prog me:tell
if (random(100) == 1)
  tail
    this:do_something_stupid();
  endtail
endif
return pass(@args);
..
 
...if the new statement were called 'tail'.  I can't honestly think of
 a good name for it.
 
After the entire task (perhaps a 'say' command triggered this one) was finishe I would :do_something_stupid.

If the implementation wouldn't result in any speed gain or spam relief,
 then skip it.

--Quinn (scuse the bad line breaks and such)

From namesrv.mountain.net!quinn Tue Aug 24 13:53:13 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "13:34:33" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@namesrv.mountain.net" nil "5" "clueless ArchWizzes" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 13:34:33 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@namesrv.mountain.net>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: clueless ArchWizzes

For the record, I didn't meany ANY LambdaMOO wizards with that clueless crack.
I won't name any names, but you know who you are, vile morons w/sites.

Congenially yours,
			--Quinn

From oclc.org!weibel Tue Aug 24 14:00:23 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "13:52:16" "-0700" "Stu Weibel" "weibel@oclc.org " nil "8" "Re: clueless ArchWizzes" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 13:52:16 -0700
From:	weibel@oclc.org (Stu Weibel)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: clueless ArchWizzes


> vile morons w/sites

I, for one, find this sort of discussion offensive and pointless.

Let's try and maintain a higher level of discourse, please

stu

From prodigy.bc.ca!swart Tue Aug 24 18:44:41 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "19:34:54" "-0700" "swart@prodigy.bc.ca" "swart@prodigy.bc.ca" nil "22" "Re: GUI Clients" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 19:34:54 -0700
From:	swart@prodigy.bc.ca
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: GUI Clients

A lot of the discussion on this thread seems to be focussed on low-level
protocols.  While I agree that images, various communications protocols,
and even (eugh) DOS support might be nice to include, I don't see them as
being *that* important to the fundamental character of a m++.  In fact, a
premature adoption of restrictive standards will cause the user population
to become so fragmented that people will become bound to their client
configuration rather than the VR that interests them.

The phrase that captured my attention is ``text-based virtual reality.'' 
Like a book.  I would like to see formatted text (fonts, character
positioning, maybe even some pictures and movies to help elucidate certain
situations), but the overriding power of this technology is that it is not
like a video game.  The challenge is to make a server that supports rich
display formats, but without restricting anyone to any particular platform.

The object-oriented nature of LambdaMOO seems like a promising way to
support flexible clients; it would be a pity to see a lot of good effort
wasted on dead-end software.

My $0.02...
Steve


From visgraph.uucp!forrie Tue Aug 24 19:12:23 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "18:44:36" "-0700" "Forrest Aldrich" "forrie@visgraph.uucp" nil "71" "Re: GUI Clients" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 18:44:36 -0700
From:	Forrest Aldrich <forrie@visgraph.uucp>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: GUI Clients
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Through e-mail, swart@prodigy.bc.ca writes:
| 
| A lot of the discussion on this thread seems to be focussed on low-level
| protocols.  While I agree that images, various communications protocols,
| and even (eugh) DOS support might be nice to include, I don't see them as
| being *that* important to the fundamental character of a m++.  In fact, a
| premature adoption of restrictive standards will cause the user population
| to become so fragmented that people will become bound to their client
| configuration rather than the VR that interests them.
[ ... ]

	The same could be argued for the many _versions_ and flavors of MUDs
	and MOOs out there.  A moot point, really.  

	I appreciate the fact that there are so many options out there...

	The development of these clients will not cease, and I see it as
	inevitable.  Why?  Most of us have access to a PC and ("eugh") DOS
	or Windows... the fact that the client runs on it should not 
	preclude any other platforms from being considered.

	Naturally, I think the M++ should be designed to accomodate either
	Text or this special (hypertext) graphical protocol.  It's an
	experiment, and one that I am confident will lead to other, perhaps
	better, developments.  Why hinder creativity?


| The phrase that captured my attention is ``text-based virtual reality.'' 
| Like a book.  I would like to see formatted text (fonts, character
| positioning, maybe even some pictures and movies to help elucidate certain
| situations), but the overriding power of this technology is that it is not
| like a video game. 
[ ... ]

	Hmmm... I'm not certain about what your impression is of the original
	thread here (which I began).  I was simply referring to a client that
	would be designed to support some type of hypertext/filter... the 
	client would be doing all the _graphical_ work.  I imagine icons,
	custom editing environments, etc.  The only changes in the MOO, really
	would be to accomodate this... to be put in client/server mode.  

	Everyone else who prefers ``text-based virtual reality'' will be just
	as happy...

| The challenge is to make a server that supports rich
| display formats, but without restricting anyone to any particular platform.
[ ... ]

	I don't see supporting rich formats as limiting it to text-based... and
	I don't think the intention was to 'shut-out' anyone... definately
	not.  I apologize if that is what it seemed.  I do realize, from personal
	experience, that not everyone has access to neat things... but I think
	that something like this could be designed to accomodate _everyone_,
	and I think it's a next 'logical' step from text-based... or at least
	a neat mix :)

	I didn't, however, think that some type of 3D display would come into
	the 'picture'.  IE when you are moving through the MOO... that would be
	neat, but certainly too much to begin with.

	What got me started on this was viewing RIPterm... and of course the
	various other programs like BIXNAV and the client for AmericaOnline...

| The object-oriented nature of LambdaMOO seems like a promising way to
| support flexible clients; it would be a pity to see a lot of good effort
| wasted on dead-end software.
[ ... ]

	Dead end software??  This I definately disagree with.

	Forrest

From soda.berkeley.edu!lim Tue Aug 24 23:25:04 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "24" "August" "1993" "23:13:05" "-0700" "Lincoln Myers" "lim@soda.berkeley.edu" nil "64" "A peer-to-peer idea" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 24 Aug 1993 23:13:05 -0700
From:	Lincoln Myers <lim@soda.berkeley.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: A peer-to-peer idea

My recommendation for how to best implement another generation of mud that's
beyond telnet (text or graphics or 3d or whatever tinkles your bell) would
be to have the client and server combined into one.

Essentially, instead of running TinyFugue or Telnet or TinyTalk, you run
LambdaMOO.  Your MOO and the server MOO then send messages to each other,
allowing the sorts of things you'd expect from a smart client, and then some.

Here are the advantages that I see of this approach over making a very
specific protocol and a number of special clients.

	- The client is programmed using MOO, not C, so it carries the same
	  advantages: easy to program, and much more portable.

	- Most importantly, entirely different protocols can be added on
	  after the fact.  The system would be set up such that
	  communications are established between related objects, allowing
	  unrelated objects and therefore protocols to be out of each
	  other's way.  Here's an example:

		Carrot's scrabble server object would talk to Carrot's
		scrabble client object in whatever protocol he felt was best
		for scrabble.  Brand's Distributed Peer-to-Peer Markov
		Chainer objects could communicate in whatever way he felt
		was best for Markov chainers.  Carrot and Brand never needed
		to agree to any sort of convention, yet the MOOs communicate
		in a way which is appropriate for both playing scrabble and
		chaining Markovs. :)

	- The client can share some of server's computational work, allowing
	  faster response from the server.  (and faster response overall if
	  it's something the client can mostly handle alone, e.g. a message
	  could be edited on the client with faster response and sent to the
	  server only when finished)

Here are my thoughts as to how to implement this:

	- Give the MOO itself better screen control (over the console and/or
	  logins on the same machine) through curses, tcl/tk, or tek4014
	  sequences.

	- Enhance the ability of the MOO to send data over the net,
	  specifically by setting up a protocol to allow sending of lists,
	  strings, integers, etc. as descrete units, rather than converting
	  to/from text.  Reorganize net connections to more easily allow and
	  regulate sending messages between objects on different servers.

Of course, there are also disadvantages:

	- Security is now an issue, since the client MOO is much more
	  responsive to the outside world.

	- Even though the server MOO will be likely to be more responsive
	  than a server under a more traditional approach, the client is
	  likely to be slower since it is now interpreting code.  For text
	  based stuff this shouldn't be a problem, but for 3d...

I think this is a good idea, even if one were to still use top-down scrolling
text, but it becomes even more useful as the client needs to become more
intelligent.  I say that if the client and server both need to be featureful
in the interpreting and storing/recalling data departments, you might as
write/modify one program instead of two.

Lincoln (Brand at LambdaMOO)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Aug 30 18:33:24 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "30" "August" "1993" "17:42:25" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Re: Mailing list" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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References: <9308231557.AA11380@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>
Date:	Mon, 30 Aug 1993 17:42:25 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list

> Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 1993 08:57:18 -0700
> From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
> To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
> Subject: Mailing list
> 
> Would it be possible to add a "Sender: " line to the header in the
> mailing list? I'm trying to archive all the list, and the software
> I'm using can pick this out. The regular To: From:, etc. are usually
> of no use...

I'm afraid that it's remarkably difficult for me to get such a header line
added, due to the arcane mail set-up here at PARC.  You should be able to spot
the messages by looking for `moo-cows' in the To: or Cc: lines, though.

	Pavel

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Tue Aug 31 08:46:32 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "31" "August" "1993" "08:34:33" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "8" "Beginner setup help" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 31 Aug 1993 08:34:33 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Beginner setup help
Content-Type: text

I have the programmerManual file, and the programmerTutorial;
is there any other inform,ation available on basic setup?
I have ther AIX binary running with the lambdacore db.
How can I import classes from other MOOs?
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From athena.mit.edu!ghudson Wed Aug 25 05:21:37 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "25" "August" "1993" "05:01:35" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@athena.mit.edu" nil "57" "Re: A peer-to-peer idea" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Tue, 24 Aug 93 23:13:05 -0700.
             <9308250613.AA20664@soda.berkeley.edu>"
Message-ID: <9308251201.AA12841@oliver.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 25 Aug 1993 05:01:35 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@athena.mit.edu>
To:	Lincoln Myers <lim@soda.berkeley.edu>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: A peer-to-peer idea


> Essentially, instead of running TinyFugue or Telnet or TinyTalk, you
> run LambdaMOO.

> The client is programmed using MOO, not C, [...]
> Entirely different protocols can be added after the fact.
> The client can share some of server's computational work, [...]

I don't think these goals are well-served by running MOO itself.
LambdaMOO uses a heavyweight object system, and, even with a
stripped-down core, is likely to take up too much space and CPU time
to be useful as a client for most people.  In fact, I would think that
only a few people would be able to run it.

There is already a programmable client, Vaportalk, available from
ferkel.ucsb.edu.  Its language, VTC, is C-like but not terribly
similar to MOO.  Although VT is a "finished" project (I don't plan on
releasing any more updates), it's stable and lightweight enough for
most purposes.

Of course, there is the obvious disadvantage that new players must now
learn *two* languages, MOO and VTC.  I don't think this problem is
solvable until someone comes up with an interpreter that is suitable
as both a server and a client.  I hope that Coldmud will end up this
way, but of course that's vaporware.

> - Enhance the ability of the MOO to send data over the net,
> specifically by setting up a protocol to allow sending of lists,
> strings, integers, etc. as discrete units,

This should probably be done in-db, perhaps with the assistance of a
toliteral() and parse_literal().

It's worth noting that another server, Coolmud, addresses this problem
in the more general sense: it allows you to send messages to objects
on other servers.  Object IDs are of the form #number@host.  In
theory, any method which works locally should work when acting on a
remote object.  However, Coolmud is network-intensive and not suitable
for a wide-area network.  Moreover, Coolmud imposes the constraint
that parents must be on the same server as children, so you can't have
an inheritance hierarchy spanning two servers.  (By contrast, the
Untermud server imposes a topology on the mud, much as Tinymud does,
and 'caches' remote objects on servers according to which server owns
the room they are in.  Untermud's distributability is not nearly as
seamless as Coolmud's.)

> I say that if the client and server both need to be featureful in
> the interpreting and storing/recalling data departments, you might
> as [well] write/modify one program instead of two.

Only in rare situations can the functionality of a client and a
corresponding server be identical.  This is especially the case when
your model (as presented in your message) is centralized, and not
peer-to-peer.

--GBH


From ipac.caltech.edu!dave Wed Aug 25 10:38:56 1993
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Date:	Wed, 25 Aug 1993 10:27:29 -0700
From:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: peer-to-peer

After seeing the stalk client, which has a language much like MOO, I
experimented with using a MOO client for Lambda.  A network connection
is made from the client moo to lambda and all the processing is done
with client moo-code.  Of course I had to telnet in to the client to
minimize my hacking of the client moo C code.  I put in a system()
call builtin to make it easy to do local editing by calling up emacs
with the proper text.  Worked like a champ.  There are a number of
issues that should be thought about:

      Escaping from the read loop to do hacking on the client db

      Large process size, not a problem for me, but for students...

      Handshaking with external processes

      Communicating with external processes

      Appropriate and complete client-only builtin set

      Allowing owners-only inbound connections

      Security of local filesystem

An interesting possibility came to me that by running the client moo
as an ordinary one, ie always in the background, it could act as the
player's agent when the player was not actually present.  For
AstroVR that raised some interesting possibilities regarding data
searches, etc.

Another interesting idea popped into my head and that is if the server
moo can know that it is connected to a client moo then it is easy to
always have client moo-code updated automatically, so one always has
the latest and greatest client software.  There are some security
issues here, but they are probably solvable, certainly so on
application-oriented non-wide-open public moos.

I like the stalk client alot, but it has some immediate limitations
once you think up the idea of a moo client.  It does not have an
object oriented archtecture, so building a smart client is lots harder
than it needs to be.  There is only a tiny "core", we already have the
LambdaCore, why not use it?  There are also some sytactic differences
with moo that are annoying and lead to a lot of coding errors in the
first few hours of the learning curve.  The stalk client still has a
few bugs (for example fork()) and needs more documentation on how to
put in new built-ins too.  It does have a system() builtin though, and
it took me only a few minutes to get a protoype of local editing to work.
On the whole, I recommend it for people to play with.  Undoubtedly
some of these limitations will be removed in time.

My moo-client experiment took about 2 hours to do, so anyone
interested might want to repeat the experience and then sit back and
think about what they learned. I assure you it will be interesting.

From ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu!WOODWARD Fri Aug 27 06:19:21 1993
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Date:	Fri, 27 Aug 1993 06:04:58 -0700
From:	WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Media Moo Question
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

This is probably old news now, but is there a problem with Media Moo? My 
connection has been refused for 2 days now?
Mark


From media.mit.edu!asb Fri Aug 27 15:37:02 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "27" "August" "1993" "15:30:29" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "20" "sorry for the downtime" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Fri, 27 Aug 1993 15:30:29 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	mediamoo@media.mit.edu
Cc:	nessus@media.mit.edu
Subject: sorry for the downtime


MediaMOO is fine now.

Sorry for the downtime.  Apparantly, someone rebooted purple-crayon on
Wednesday without shutting down MediaMOO.  Albert and I were both out of town
and didn't know about the problem.

Purple-crayon's hard drive runs off of a file server in the Media Lab's
basement.  That file server has been having problems.  That caused some
weirdness this afternoon.  (I think MOO is unhappy when it can't write to the
log file.)  The problem is being worked on.  That file server will be shut
down from 9 am to 10:30 am EDT on Tuesday.  At that time, MediaMOO will
continue running but the checkpoint will fail (ie the database will be
saved less often that morning) and there may be some lag.

Thanks for your patience.

-- Amy



From media.mit.edu!asb Fri Aug 27 16:13:05 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "27" "August" "1993" "16:00:02" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "17" "Re: Media Moo Question" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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             <01H28EASGJAQ8XDQSI@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>its magnuction o"
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Date:	Fri, 27 Aug 1993 16:00:02 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	WOODWARD@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Media Moo Question


Your message dated: Fri, 27 Aug 93 06:04:58 PDT
> This is probably old news now, but is there a problem with Media Moo? My 
> connection has been refused for 2 days now?
> Mark

Someone rebooted the machine.  Albert and I were both out of town and offline.
We're back up now.

By the way... MediaMOO folks can send mail to mediamoo-request@media.mit.edu
to be added to a mailing list specifically about MediaMOO.

-- Amy

(Obligatory disclaimer: MediaMOO is a professional community for media
researchers.  Sorry, but we can't give characters to nonresearchers.)


From nyx.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Sat Aug 28 12:50:09 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "28" "August" "1993" "12:29:33" "-0700" "Nicholas LaFlamme" "nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu" nil "26" "MOO and VMS and MOO and Ultrix." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Sat, 28 Aug 1993 12:29:33 -0700
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx.cs.du.edu>
To:	Moo Cows list <MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com>
cc:	laflamm1@muvms6.mu.wvnet.edu
Subject: MOO and VMS and MOO and Ultrix.
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII



  I know this may seem blasphemus, but is there a version of MOO out there
for VMS?  I know it seems unlikely, but I was hopiing someone had done a
port. 

  Also, I have been trying to compile MOO on a DEC Station 3100, to no avail.
I'm RUnning Ultrix v4.3 revison 43 and I get these errors:

          -- make
          cc -O -DMOO -c ast.c
          cpp: error ./options.h:216: undefined control
          cpp: error ./options.h:220: undefined control
          cpp: error ./options.h:224: undefined control
          cpp: error ./options.h:228: undefined control
          *** Error code 1

  As I'm by now means adept atC, or familiar with the inner workings of
MOO, I can only guess at what this means.  I am trying to compile version
1.7.4

  Any insight that could be provided would be appreciated.

				Nick



From teetot.acusd.edu!thor Sat Aug 28 21:53:28 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "28" "August" "1993" "21:44:39" "-0700" "thor@teetot.acusd.edu" "thor@teetot.acusd.edu" nil "17" "Help..." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Sat, 28 Aug 1993 21:44:39 -0700
From:	thor@teetot.acusd.edu
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Help...
Content-Type: text

Well, let's see.

The head of Academic Computing for the University of San Diego goes to
Interop and sees a MOO gopher and decides we just HAVE to have one.

Now.

Unfortunately, his system specialist is more than a little MUD ignorant
and, once he gets a MOO up, can't get the gopher moo code to work.

So sue me.

Anybody out there in MOO land wanna help?  I need to get this connection
up by the end of next week so he can demo it.  Yes, you read that right.

If you're interested in helping, drop me a line at
thor@teetot.acusd.edu.

From maths.tcd.ie!creilly Mon Aug 30 09:43:55 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "30" "August" "1993" "09:25:03" "-0700" "Colman Reilly" "creilly@maths.tcd.ie" nil "91" "Graphical Clients again." "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Mon, 30 Aug 1993 09:25:03 -0700
From:	Colman Reilly <creilly@maths.tcd.ie>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, creilly@maths.tcd.ie
Subject: Graphical Clients again.

This is what I'm doing.

Colman.

----------------------------

                           A HTTP-AWARE MUD CLIENT.
                                       
Introduction

   I have written a prototype MUD client that deals with the the problem of
   displaying graphical information on the MUD by using the http protocol to
   retrieve pictures from a http client separate  from the MUD.
   
   The client is at the moment written using Extened Tcl and Tk and is
   therefore not very portable. I am working on rewriting sections of it so
   that it only needs Tcl and Tk to compile. It should be ready soon.
   
   The client is not intended to provide hypertext within or around the MUD,
   but is intended to use the http protocol already available to allow access
   to graphics in a simple and easy on the server way.
   
    This is written for both the MOO and WWW audiences so excuse me if I
   explain one to the other.
   
HTTP and WWW.

   From "Internet Resource Discovery Services", ftp:
   caldera.usc.edu:pub/kobraczk/ieeecomputer.ps.Z
   
   "The World-Wide Web or WWW merge information discovery and hypertext. WWW
   organises data into a distributed hypertext, where nodes are either full
   text objects, directory objects or indices.
   
   The WWW architecture is based on the client-server model. The client
   provides users with a hypertext-like browsing interface. Besides it's native
   HyperText Transfer Protocol, WWW clients understand ftp and NNTP. . . .
   
   HTTP allows document retrieval and full-text search operations. HTTP runs on
   top of TCP and maps each request to a TCP connection. HTTP objects are
   identified by the HTTP protocol type, the corresponding server's name and
   the path name to the file where the objects' contents reside."
   
   It is important to note that a WWW clients which can deal with HTTP are
   available for a large number of different machines.
   
The Client

   The client I am writing works by picking out references to http objects from
   the text stream output by the MUD and displaying them using a slave HTTP
   browser, for example xmosaic from the NCSA. (In fact at the moment this is
   the only http client it can use.)
   
   In practice this means that you have a number of separate windows on
   screen: the text connection to the MUD and the xmosaic session displaying
   graphical objects.
   
Why do it this way?

   My main reason for writing this is to allow lectures to be given in virtual
   classrooms.  I would envisage an instructor preparing slides in advance,
   making them available through a http server and pointing students to them
   through references in class. (People without graphical clients could
   download and print slides before the lecture.)
   
   The other obvious use is to allow hypertext exhibitions in a virtual
   gallery. The http references can as easily point to an MPEG movie as
   anything else - allowing easy reference to online videos. Something I'm
   working on as a demo is to build a gallery of chaotic pendulums. You look at
   a pendulum, read the description and , if your client is http-aware, the
   movie pops up on screen.
   
   Of course ordinary graphics can easily be embedded in http references and
   picked up for display.
   
Support within the MUD

   Taking the example of a MOO, the easiest and cleanest  way  to do this is to
   have an extra property on players, say player.http-aware and a http-room and
   http-object, which display an associated http reference, of the form  ,
   which the new client would pick out and pass on to xmosaic.
   
   This means that the MOO is doing almost no work to support the graphics,
   which given the amount of resources a MOO eats anyway isn't a bad thing.
   
Colman
     
-------
Colman Reilly ,School Of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
creilly@maths.tcd.ie
(Home)+353-(0)1-8204643 (College)+353-(0)1-7022280 PGP Public Key on Request

From teetot.acusd.edu!thor Tue Aug 31 07:40:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "31" "August" "1993" "07:29:48" "-0700" "thor@teetot.acusd.edu" "thor@teetot.acusd.edu" nil "8" "Thanks" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 31 Aug 1993 07:29:48 -0700
From:	thor@teetot.acusd.edu
To:	Moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Thanks
Content-Type: text

Thanks to all who volunteered help in response to my plea.

The presentation went great and USDinfo MOO is now a reality that will
stay on our system.

I suppose I have to learn MOO coding, now. ;)

Thanks again.

From binky.ics.uci.edu!glowe Tue Aug 31 16:32:49 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "31" "August" "1993" "16:17:26" "-0700" "Glen Hougan Lowe" "glowe@binky.ics.uci.edu" nil "14" "LambdaMOO and X Windows" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Date:	Tue, 31 Aug 1993 16:17:26 -0700
From:	Glen Hougan Lowe <glowe@binky.ics.uci.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LambdaMOO and X Windows


Hello, I see that there is some talk of MOO clients with
a graphical interface.  I was wondering if there is a X11
client that I could toy around with.  (I thought I saw one
before, but it's summer and my brain is fried.)


__________________________________________________________________
Glen H. Lowe                     | -> glowe@bonnie.ics.uci.edu <-
Department of Information        |    eaiu303@orion.oac.uci.edu     
  and Computer Science           |    glowe@binky.ics.uci.edu
University of California, Irvine |    
U.S.A                            |    
------------------------------------------------------------------

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep  1 13:19:22 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "12:58:54" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "11" "Newbie MOO admin" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 12:58:54 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Newbie MOO admin
Content-Type: text

Is there a general "idiot's guide" to setting up a new MOO, in addition
to the programming guides? I've got my MOO running with a version of
the Lambdacore db, and have done a little programming, but I sure could use
help in things like changing system messages etc.
Thanks!


-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From bigdog.engr.arizona.edu!ece_0494 Wed Sep  1 14:41:18 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "05:18:55" "-0700" "Wayne Bouchard" "ece_0494@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu " nil "139" "Answers to MOO Frequently asked Questions (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 05:18:55 -0700
From:	ece_0494@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Wayne Bouchard)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Answers to MOO Frequently asked Questions (FAQ)
Content-Type: text

[Last updated September 1, 1993]

Database and Programming:
------------------------
1) Q: I want to start my own MOO. Where do I get the source?

   A: The standard MOO archive is parcftp.xerox.com in the directory pub/MOO.

      The file `LambdaMOO-X.Y.Z.tar.Z' (for a current server version of
      X.Y.Z) is a compressed tar file containing the complete source code,
      installation instructions, and a copy of the `Minimal' LambdaMOO
      database.

      The file `LambdaCore-DDMMMYY.db' (for some date DDMMMYY) is a
      LambdaMOO database file containing the `core' of the running LambdaMOO
      database as of the specified date.  This is almost certainly the
      easiest place for you to start from in creating your own MOO, since
      this includes such useful things as the various generics (room,
      player, exit, thing, container, note, etc.), the MOO text editors, the
      MOO mail system, etc.

      The `binaries' subdirectory contains already-compiled executables of
      the current release for various machines.

2) Q: What is this programmer's manual everybody talks about and where
      can I get it?

   A: The "LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual" is a complete reference for all
      database-independent aspects of the LambdaMOO system, including the
      programming language, built-in functions, and command parser.

      The Programmer's Manual is availible via anonymous FTP at
      parcftp.xerox.com in the directory /pub/MOO/. The file name is
      `ProgrammersManual.*' where `*' is the format tag. It is availible in
      DVI, PostScript, TeXInfo, and plain text formats.

3) Q: Is there a way to incorporate new features of LambdaCore into my
      MOO's DB?

   A: There is no easy way to merge databases. The easiest thing to do is
      just snag the code from LambdaMOO or somewhere and build the objects
      by hand. (For information on how to do so, see `help @dump' on
      LambdaMOO.)

4) Q: How do I do execute a verb automatically each time the server starts?

   A: When the server starts, it calls the verb #0:server_started.
      Create/alter that verb to have it call the verb you want to execute.
      
      (NOTE: If a task has suspended or forked, and its execution is
      still pending when the server checkpoints or is shutdown, that
      task is saved along with the rest of the database. Thus, when
      the server is restarted, that task will be resumed.)

5) Q: How can I make an object in a room "listen" to everything that's
      being said?

   A: When something is said in a room, each object in that room is sent
      that text via :tell. You can hack this verb to do whatever you want it
      to whenever anything is said or done in a room.

6) Q: My MOO checkpoints every hour. I want to change this but I don't
      know where to look.

   A: Change the value of the property #0.dump_interval to the desired
      number of seconds between dumps; the change will take effect after the
      next checkpoint.

      This is documented in the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, section 4.2.2,
      Database Checkpointing Frequency.


Server Related:
--------------

1) Q: What are the minimum requirements for running a MOO?

   A: The LambdaCore database is approximately 2 megabytes in size. The
      source and executable for MOO will likely occupy another 1-2 Megs. In
      its current state, MOO resides entirely in RAM when running. The
      process size is going to be roughly 2-3 times the size of the
      database file on disk.

2) Q: I'm running a MOO on a NeXT but every once in a while it crashes
      with a 'vm_allocate failed' error. What's wrong?

   A: This is a bug in the NeXT's operating system and not in the MOO
      server.  The current best guess as to the cause is massive
      fragmentation in either the virtual memory system or in the memory
      managed by malloc() and free().

3) Q: I've heard a lot about the next release. When is it due out?

   A: It is unpredictable when each new version of the server will be
      released. Pavel Curtis (The developer of LambdaMOO) has
      estimated that 1.8.0 might well be out sometime in the fall of this
      year (1993), but no specific date can confidently be relied upon.

Miscellaneous:
-------------

1) Q: What are some good clients to use with MOO?

   A: Most people prefer to use TinyFugue or the emacs client, mud.el.
      mud.el is availible at parcftp.xerox.com in the directory
      pub/MOO/clients/. As for other clients, you might try poking around at
      ftp.math.okstate.edu in the directory pub/mud/clients/.

2) Q: What are all the MOOs currently out there?

   A: Its hard to keep an accurate list of all known MOOs, but here's
      my best info:

	Name             Address                 Numeric Address Port
	-------------------------------------------------------------
	LambdaMOO        lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36     8888
         (The original)
	DragonsFire      netman.widener.edu      147.31.1.51     4444
	ZenMOO           cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253    7777
	ScrabbleMOO      next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   7777
	OpalMOO          cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1     7777
	PMC-MO           dewey.lib.ncsu.edu      152.1.24.90     7777
	VampireMOO       pluto.cs.trinity.edu    131.194.131.20  7777
	TechMOOseum      whyanext.com            156.151.253.1   8888
	MagicMOO         dougal.aston.ac.uk      134.151.36.1    7777
	JanusMOO         sun10.sep.bnl.gov       130.199.50.6    8888

      [NOTE: Some MOOs have been purposely omitted at the request of their
       administrators. If you wish to add _your_ MOO to this list, please
       send mail to the publisher.]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "MOO Frequently Asked Question List" is maintained by
Wayne E. Bouchard (web@HACKS.Arizona.EDU).  Direct all questions or
comments concerning this list to him.  Submissions and questions are
welcome and apprecieated.  This list will be posted again on the first
of next month.


From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Wed Sep  1 15:20:14 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "15:06:35" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu " nil "27" "Verbs on Exits?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Full-Name: Jack Eifrig
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Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 15:06:35 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Verbs on Exits?


An interesting problem came up the other day, in the context of making "door"
type exits:  these should be able to be "open"-ed and "close"-d by a
player.  We'd like to be able to make a generic "door" exit, and use it
wherever.

The most straightforward approach would be to take the $exit and add
"open" and "close" verbs to it (with argument specifiers "this none none").
Unfortunately, this won't work (under the LambdaCore exit scheme), since
the "exit" objects of a room aren't really in the room (but in $nothing
instead).  Thus, the server never gets a chance to match against the exit,
and the "close" verb doesn't run.

One could put the verb on the room, of course, but this isn't very convenient,
since this verb would then have to find the exit to close, and check that it
really *is* a door that can be closed, blah, blah, blah.

Thinking about this problem for a while, it seems that the right thing to
do is to re-implement the "here_huh" verb on $room to try to find a matching
verb on one of the room's exits.  The $match_utils:match_verb() verb is
almost what we want, but that requires that the dobj and iobj's have already
been matched correctly by the server, which obviously hasn't happened.

Has anyone already done the necessary patching, before I start hacking this
up myself?  It sounds really annoying to get exactly right...

	- Jack Eifrig (eifrig@cs.jhu.edu)

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Sep  1 15:34:25 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "14:36:58" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "36" "Re: Newbie MOO admin" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 01 Sep 1993 12:58:54 PDT.\"
             <9309011958.AA21041@whale.st.usm.edu>>; noid or "
Message-ID: <9309012137.AA07239@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 14:36:58 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Newbie MOO admin

>   Is there a general "idiot's guide" to setting up a new MOO, in addition
>   to the programming guides? 

The short answer is, "No".  Documentation is a problem in general and
wizard documentation has historically had a low priority (wizards
already know what they're doing, you see... :-).  

There are however some random help topics from which useful
information may be extracted.  The one you'll want to look at first is

  help $login

The $login object centralizes most of the functions for controlling
access, e.g. setting the welcome message and the list of commands
available to not-logged-in players, maintaining site blacklists and
redlists, disabling player creation, and other good stuff.  In short
it determines who can login to your MOO; you'll want to establish
control over that early on.  

Once you decide who you want to let on and get the $login parameters
set the way you want (and understand about @redlist, @blacklist, @toad
and @newt), then you can go through the rest at your leisure and not
be completely at a loss when annoying guests show up or when players
start doing nasty things.

For the rest, you'll want to look through the topics listed in 

  help wiz-index

which collectively contain what little has been written about how to run 
a MOO using LambdaCore.
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From harlequin.com!kmp Wed Sep  1 15:43:38 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "15:23:00" "-0700" "Kent M Pitman" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "17" "Verbs on Exits?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: <93Sep1.150659pdt.12548@alpha.xerox.com>
Message-ID: <19930901222327.5.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 15:23:00 -0700
From:	Kent M Pitman <kmp@harlequin.com>
To:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Verbs on Exits?

Just because it happens to put exits in #-1 doesn't mean you can't move them.
You can @move the exit into the room and call it a door, a window, or whatever.
I do this all the time on LambdaMOO and elsewhere.

You can also separate out the code from $exit so that non-exits can have
exit-like functionality.  I've done this for a private moo of mine and it works
quite well.  I have buildings, lakes, etc. that are all exits.  (This is only
necessary if you need to have the objects inherit from something other than
exit.  As long as your exit isn't very elaborate in scope, you can just have it
inherit from $exit.  But when it needs to exist elsewhere in the inheritance
tree and also be an exit, since there is no multiple inheritance, it helps to
separate the core functionality from the exit.)  If you decide to go this
route, ask me privately and I'll give you some additional tips on how to do it.

I personally don't think that patching any of the huh stuff is the way to go on
this.
 -kmp

From iastate.edu!jsmart Wed Sep  1 16:05:50 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "15:44:26" "-0700" "jsmart@iastate.edu" "jsmart@iastate.edu" nil "7" "Re: Verbs on Exits?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 15:44:26 -0700
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Verbs on Exits?



$room:here_huh calls $match_utils:match_verb.

$match_utils:match_verb won't call a verb unless it is +x.

Cassnak

From cs.utexas.edu!dogface!fnordbox!loydb Wed Sep  1 18:02:40 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "31" "August" "1993" "17:13:39" "-0700" "Loyd Blankenship" "fnordbox!loydb@cs.utexas.edu " "<9309010013.AA00chy@fnordbox.UUCP>" "17" "While & Suspend()" "^Date:" nil nil "8"])
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Sender: dogface!fnordbox!loydb@cs.utexas.edu
To:	Moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: While & Suspend()

I've been told by a couple of people that it is bad practice to put a
suspend() inside a while loop. The claim was that the while loop was
continually checked even while the process was suspended.

Is this true? I've been ping-ponging verbs to avoid the practice, but would
just as soon not have to.

Loyd

***************************************************************************
* loydb@fnordbox.UUCP	     SJ Games: 1	     *	Loyd Blankenship  *
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From media.mit.edu!asb Wed Sep  1 12:49:09 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "11:56:43" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" "<9309011856.AA12699@media.mit.edu>" "9" "finding out about checkpoint failures" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 11:56:43 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: finding out about checkpoint failures


Is there any way to have the system notify me when the checkpoint fails?

We just crashed because of an out of memory error, and then I discovered that
the previous day's checkpoints had all failed because the drive was full.
*sigh*

-- Amy


From media.mit.edu!asb Wed Sep  1 13:04:51 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "12:02:51" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "26" "\"memory allocation failed\" on a Sun SparcStation ipc" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 12:02:51 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: "memory allocation failed" on a Sun SparcStation ipc


On our Sun SparcStation ipc, the MOO keeps crashing with a "memory
allocation failed" error.  But by my count, we should have plenty 
of swap space:

> top
Memory: 32268K available, 29368K in use, 2900K free, 1980K locked
  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE   TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
 4004 MediaMOO  54    0 18168K 14520K run     3:17 51.24% 51.17% moo
 4019 MediaMOO  26    0   512K  820K run     0:00  0.00%  0.00% top


> pstat -T
124/582 files
 92/322 inodes
 41/138 processes
25388/99376 swap

Why are we crashing?  (I confess I'm not very knowledgeable about system
administration.)  By the way: we are using the built in malloc rather than
gnu-malloc because someone told me there's a bug in gnu-malloc on Suns.

Thanks for your help.

-- Amy


From media.mit.edu!asb Wed Sep  1 18:12:53 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "17:30:12" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" "<9309020030.AA05594@media.mit.edu>" "12" "Re: \"memory allocation failed\" on a Sun SparcStation ipc" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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             <9309012353.AA26388@nova.decio.nd.edu>s (a <12433>"
Message-ID: <9309020030.AA05594@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 17:30:12 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: "memory allocation failed" on a Sun SparcStation ipc



Fragmentation, eh?
Could you please explain a bit?
Does this mean there's nothing I can do about it?

If I shell out $$$ for another drive so I can increase my swap space, will
that solve the problem?  If I switch to a decstation with the same amount of
swap space, will that solve the problem?

-- Amy


From parc.xerox.com!masinter Wed Sep  1 18:14:53 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "17:10:53" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "9" "Re: Newbie MOO admin" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <93Sep1.171057pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 17:10:53 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Newbie MOO admin

In the latest LambdaCore, check out 'look $network', too. It lists
some variables you need to set if you're going to use the networking
features. 

I haven't checked this out, but there may be an incompatibility
between the 1.7.5 release and the latest lambdaCore, having to do with
open_network_connections no longer getting an initial blank line.
$gopher and $network:raw_sendmail used to do a 'read' after the
$network:open to eat the blank line.

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Sep  1 18:18:24 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "16:53:51" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "26" "Re: \"memory allocation failed\" on a Sun SparcStation ipc" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309012353.AA26388@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 16:53:51 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: "memory allocation failed" on a Sun SparcStation ipc
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

> 
> > top
> Memory: 32268K available, 29368K in use, 2900K free, 1980K locked
>   PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE   TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
>  4004 MediaMOO  54    0 18168K 14520K run     3:17 51.24% 51.17% moo
>  4019 MediaMOO  26    0   512K  820K run     0:00  0.00%  0.00% top
> 
> 
> > pstat -T
> 124/582 files
>  92/322 inodes
>  41/138 processes
> 25388/99376 swap
> 
> Why are we crashing?  (I confess I'm not very knowledgeable about system
> administration.)  By the way: we are using the built in malloc rather than
> gnu-malloc because someone told me there's a bug in gnu-malloc on Suns.
> 
It is the same for NeXTs. The problem appears to be fragmentation rather
than allocation of memory.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | (219) 631-1616 | Note: Opinions stated are not
 Advanced Computer Solutions  | (219) 273-5917 | representative of my employer
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep  1 18:24:36 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "18:06:21" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "19" "Re: While & Suspend()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309010013.AA00chy@fnordbox.UUCP>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 18:06:21 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	fnordbox!loydb@cs.utexas.edu
cc:	Moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: While & Suspend()

> Date:	Tue, 31 Aug 1993 17:13:39 -0700
> From:	fnordbox!loydb@cs.utexas.edu (Loyd Blankenship)
> 
> I've been told by a couple of people that it is bad practice to put a
> suspend() inside a while loop. The claim was that the while loop was
> continually checked even while the process was suspended.
> 
> Is this true? I've been ping-ponging verbs to avoid the practice, but would
> just as soon not have to.

This is nonsense; while your task is suspended, it isn't doing anything at all
or using up any noticeable amount of server resources.

You probably don't want to suspend every time through the loop, though, since
that would slow your task down considerably; rather, you should probably use
something like $command_utils:suspend_if_needed(), which checks whether or not
you're close to running out of ticks or seconds.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep  1 18:33:27 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "18:11:58" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "12" "Re: finding out about checkpoint failures" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309011856.AA12699@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 18:11:58 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: finding out about checkpoint failures

> Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 11:56:43 -0700
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> Is there any way to have the system notify me when the checkpoint fails?

Not from within the database; you could, of course, have a cron job wake up
every hour or so and check that the most recent checkpoint was, in fact, pretty
recent, sending you mail if not.

I will look into fixing this in release 1.8.0.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep  1 18:35:37 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "18:18:44" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "40" "Re: \"memory allocation failed\" on a Sun SparcStation ipc" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <12433> <9309012353.AA26388@nova.decio.nd.edu>
	<9309020030.AA05594@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 18:18:44 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: "memory allocation failed" on a Sun SparcStation ipc

> Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 12:02:51 -0700
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> On our Sun SparcStation ipc, the MOO keeps crashing with a "memory
> allocation failed" error.  But by my count, we should have plenty 
> of swap space:
>
> ...
> 
> Why are we crashing?  (I confess I'm not very knowledgeable about system
> administration.)  By the way: we are using the built in malloc rather than
> gnu-malloc because someone told me there's a bug in gnu-malloc on Suns.


> Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 17:30:12 -0700
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> Fragmentation, eh?
> Could you please explain a bit?
> Does this mean there's nothing I can do about it?
> 
> If I shell out $$$ for another drive so I can increase my swap space, will
> that solve the problem?  If I switch to a decstation with the same amount of
> swap space, will that solve the problem?


I'd like to see the precise log message for the `out of memory' panic, since
that will show how much memory it was trying to allocate at the time.  Also, it
doesn't help much to see what the swap space situation is when the server is
running fine; we would need to see it at the time of the crash.  You can do
this by running the server under a debugger and putting in a breakpoint on the
routine `panic'; that way, the server will stop in the debugger at the very
moment of panicking and you could see if, in fact, you had a lot of swap space
left.

As for fragmentation, I don't think that's the problem; I've never seen any
such problem on SunOS (which is what LambdaMOO itself runs on), only on NeXT
machines.

	Pavel

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Sep  1 18:53:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "18:44:58" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "53" "Re: While & Suspend()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Tue, 31 Aug 1993 17:13:39 PDT.\"
             <9309010013.AA00chy@fnordbox.UUCP>227-50"
Message-ID: <9309020145.AA07623@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 18:44:58 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	fnordbox!loydb@cs.utexas.edu (Loyd Blankenship)
cc:	Moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: While & Suspend()

>   I've been told by a couple of people that it is bad practice to put a
>   suspend() inside a while loop. The claim was that the while loop was
>   continually checked even while the process was suspended.

not true.

There *is* a rather common novice-programmer mistake with FORK in
which someone will write something like

  WHILE (<test>)
    <stuff>
    FORK (n)
      <more-stuff>
    ENDFORK
  ENDWHILE

when s/he really wanted to do something like

  WHILE (<test>)
    <stuff>
    suspend(n);
    <more-stuff>
  ENDWHILE

The former spins off a new forked task each time through the loop and
moreover all of these tasks appear *immediately* in the task queue
(assuming <stuff> contains no suspends), thus spamming the player into
next Tuesday.

The key point is that executing a fork is essentially a no-op as far 
as the parent task is concerned.

My guess is that somebody was trying to warn you about this and got 
FORK confused with suspend.

Not that there aren't legitimate reasons to put a fork inside a
loop---consider the following version of :announce

  FOR p IN (setremove(this.contents,player))
    FORK (0)
      p:tell(msg);
    ENDFORK
  ENDFOR

which guards against broken :tell verbs by putting each :tell in its
own task---but it's generally *very* expensive; you incur the overhead
of creating a new task for EACH iteration of the loop.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From iastate.edu!jsmart Wed Sep  1 22:40:01 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "September" "1993" "22:29:26" "-0700" "jsmart@iastate.edu" "jsmart@iastate.edu" nil "17" "Re: Verbs on Exits?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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             <9309012305.AA02851@mcs-server.gac.edu>"
Message-ID: <9309020529.AA07156@iastate.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Sep 1993 22:29:26 -0700
From:	jsmart@iastate.edu
To:	eostrom@mcs-server.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Verbs on Exits?

*blush*

I had said "$room:here_huh calls $match_utils:match_verb." earlier.

I am completely wrong.  I was doing @list here:here_huh to my own room, not
realizing that I was seeing #3879:here_huh instead of $room:here_huh.  My
fault.  I'll look closer next time.

As an answer to the question of exit verb matching... I have to change my
answer, obviously.

chparent your room to #3879 (or port the code if on another moo) and THEN make
sure than all your verbs are +x on the exit.

Sorry about that.

Cassnak

From illuminati.io.com!zachary Thu Sep  2 07:48:16 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "2" "September" "1993" "02:24:38" "-0700" "Paul Jimenez" "zachary@illuminati.io.com " nil "10" "" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 2 Sep 1993 02:24:38 -0700
From:	zachary@illuminati.io.com (Paul Jimenez)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com


A curious bug/feature in MOO: exits named by a single digit cannot be activated.

This was run across when an elevator was being created...
(As an aside, does anyone have a working elevator they'd be willing to let me
port? something a bit more complex than a 'nexus' room with faked messages.
Only being on one floor at a time, concepts of up and down, etc... email me
in private or whatever... thanks...)

--Zachary@Metaverse, LambdaMOO, JaysHouseMOO, etc...

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Thu Sep  2 10:54:03 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "2" "September" "1993" "11:15:56" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "22" "Numbered-named exits" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 2 Sep 1993 11:15:56 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Numbered-named exits

The verbs on an object can be referred to by their names, obviously, but
also by their 'serial number' in the list of verbs definded on the
particular object.
Or, in English:
Let's say we have an object defining the verbs:
0 - foo any to any
1 - bar any none none
2 - foo any to any
3 - foo none with this
So that:  verbs(object)=={"foo", "bar", "foo", "foo"}
Now we want to remove the verb 'foo any to any', but not the first one (0),
but the second one (2).
We can't just @rmverb object:foo, because that would remove the first (0) verb.
But @rmverb object:2 works.
For some obscure reason, you can't use the number (instead of the verb's
name) to activate it.
This is, from command-line. You can call a verb from another verb by its
number (obviously, if it's +x).
Example: object:3(<args>); would call the foo none with this.
Gustavo Glusman -- bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il



From feenix.metronet.com!kira Thu Sep  2 11:24:15 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "2" "September" "1993" "08:10:41" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "18" "Re: exits" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 2 Sep 1993 08:10:41 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: exits


> A curious bug/feature in MOO: exits named by a single digit cannot be activated.

I'd b interested to know why this is.  I coded around it by altering
the player :my_huh in the following way (before the scan for features)

22:  if ($string_utils:is_numeric(verb))
23:    "It's probably an exit alias, and not intended to be called as a verb.";
24:    return 0;
25:  endif


It's also rather annoying that exits with multi-word names can't be matched.
I believe that's a :here_huh change though, one I have to make every time
on new cores.  Haven't done it yet for Harper's Tale either, bleh.

-j.


From mcs-server.gac.edu!eostrom Thu Sep  2 12:03:18 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "2" "September" "1993" "06:01:18" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@mcs-server.gac.edu " nil "20" "Re: Numbered-named exits" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 2 Sep 1993 06:01:18 -0700
From:	eostrom@mcs-server.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Numbered-named exits
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> This is, from command-line. You can call a verb from another verb by its
> number (obviously, if it's +x).
> Example: object:3(<args>); would call the foo none with this.

>;me:1()
Line 1:  parse error
1 error.
>;me:(1)()
#-1:Input to EVAL, line 3:  Type mismatch
... called from #217:eval_cmd_string (this == #2612), line 18
... called from #217:eval*-d (this == #2612), line 10
(End of traceback)
>;me:("1")()
#-1:Input to EVAL, line 3:  Verb not found
... called from #217:eval_cmd_string (this == #2612), line 18
... called from #217:eval*-d (this == #2612), line 10
(End of traceback)

If you have a transcript of calling verb by number, I'd like to see
it; this would be very useful but as far as I know is impossible.

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Thu Sep  2 12:28:49 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Thu" "2" "September" "1993" "12:21:13" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "21" "Verb names vs. numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 2 Sep 1993 12:21:13 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Verb names vs. numbers

I couldn't find an example of what I said previously, so I take it back.
What there is, though, is the following:
If an object has some verbs defined on it (let's say 2: 0 and 1), you can
test whether for $object_utils:has_callable_verb(object,"1").
This will return TRUE.
But then you try to call this verb... object:("1")(<args>); and you get a
verb-not-found traceback. (that is, if the object hasn't -by chance- a verb
named "1".)

Example:
what="1";
x=<some object>;
if ($object_utils:has_callable_verb(x,what))
  x:(what)();
endif

This gives a traceback, if no :"1" is defined.
Sorry for the previous error.
Gustavo Glusman -- bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il



From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Thu Sep  2 12:38:50 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "2" "September" "1993" "06:53:20" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "1" "Re: Numbered-named exits" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 2 Sep 1993 06:53:20 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, eostrom@mcs-server.gac.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Numbered-named exits

You can't call a verb by tostr(number).  You can only reference

From crl.com!blast Fri Sep  3 23:08:23 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "3" "September" "1993" "22:55:02" "-0700" "Tim Keanini" "blast@crl.com" nil "18" "checkpoints and backups?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 3 Sep 1993 22:55:02 -0700
From:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: checkpoints and backups?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hi all, 
I am putting together a MOO and I was wondering what other MOO admins had
for ideas for keeping thier MOO happy and healthy.

How often does everyone back up the .db?

WHat is the method that you folks use, is it just as simple as 'cp .db
back.db' or do you folks have the stuff automated.

Is it OK to do a cp while the MOO is up?

What are some tips used to keep the MOO life going smooth and safe?

Thanks
Tim Keanini  <blast@crl.com>




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Sep  5 15:54:52 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "5" "September" "1993" "15:43:04" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "35" "Re: checkpoints and backups?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <Pine.3.05.9309032202.A3058-9100000@crl.crl.com>
Date:	Sun, 5 Sep 1993 15:43:04 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	blast@crl.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: checkpoints and backups?

> Date:	Fri, 3 Sep 1993 22:55:02 -0700
> From:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
> 
> How often does everyone back up the .db?

We back up LambdaMOO itself much less frequently than I'd like, though this may
well improve soon.  Right now, we make a checkpoint once every 24 hours, at
3:00 AM each night.

> WHat is the method that you folks use, is it just as simple as 'cp .db
> back.db' or do you folks have the stuff automated.

The system administrators around PARC do backups to tape, using the Sun `dump'
program, every night.  The LambdaMOO database is included in those backups.

> Is it OK to do a cp while the MOO is up?

Yes.  You can use `cp' on any file except the one the server is in the middle
of creating, which is always named with a funny version number on the end, like
this:

	lambda.db.new.#24#

> What are some tips used to keep the MOO life going smooth and safe?

I don't suggest restarting the MOO automatically during the operating system
reboot, since it sometimes requires human judgement to decide what version of
the database to use, especially if there's been a crash and a panic dump.

Always shutdown your server manually BEFORE shutting down the hardware or
operating system; don't rely on the SIGKILL signal sent by the operating system
to do this for you.  Most systems won't give the server enough time to complete
a checkpoint before they simply blow the process away.

	Pavel

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Mon Sep  6 19:40:04 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "6" "September" "1993" "19:30:46" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "9" "@args for inherited verb" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Mon, 6 Sep 1993 19:30:46 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: @args for inherited verb
Content-Type: text

I've created an object which is a child of the generic container class,
but when I attempt to change the syntax of the "put" verb, using @args,
I get the message "this object does not define that verb".
How can I change the syntax? I want it to be: put any on this.

-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Sep  7 16:56:23 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "7" "September" "1993" "16:44:26" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "25" "Re: @args for inherited verb" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 7 Sep 1993 16:44:26 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: @args for inherited verb

> Date:	Mon, 6 Sep 1993 19:30:46 -0700
> From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
> 
> I've created an object which is a child of the generic container class,
> but when I attempt to change the syntax of the "put" verb, using @args,
> I get the message "this object does not define that verb".
> How can I change the syntax? I want it to be: put any on this.

Unfortunately, you can't shadow only the syntax of a parent's verb; you have to
shadow both the syntax and the implementation.  To do what you want to do,
you'll have to do the following:

		@verb child:"p*ut in*sert d*rop" any on this
		@program child:put
		return pass(@args);
		.

That is, you define a new `put' verb on your child object with a different
syntax and then, for the implementation, just invoke the parent's code with the
same arguments.

A flaw in this workaround is that the `put foo in child' syntax will still work
on the child, running the code on the parent directly...

	Pavel

From mcs-server.gac.edu!eostrom Wed Sep  8 09:16:55 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "04:15:44" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@mcs-server.gac.edu " nil "18" "Re: @args for inherited verb" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 04:15:44 -0700
From:	eostrom@mcs-server.gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: @args for inherited verb
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[create a new verb "put any on this" and just have it pass(@args).]

> A flaw in this workaround is that the `put foo in child' syntax will
> still work on the child, running the code on the parent directly...

Unless you _also_ write a "put any in this" on the child, which tells
the player "You can't put anything in that!"  So then you have a put
verb on the parent; a put verb on the child with the same syntax that
doesn't work; and a put verb on the child with different syntax that
works exactly the same way as the verb on the parent.  This idea
strikes me as pretty funny, actually.

One problem with this is that $container:put in the LambdaCore
database has "in" hardcoded in one message ("What do you want to put
in foo?").  This could be altered to use prepstr, maybe I'll go do
that now.

--Erik

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Wed Sep  8 10:26:33 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "09:41:29" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "18" "HELP!" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 09:41:29 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: HELP!

Ok, I'm an idiot.

I added to the $login:connect verb.

And the code had a bug in it.

Now, we have a database that we'd *REALLY* like to keep (yes, we have a
backup, but a *LOT* got done in one day), but nobody can log in to it.

We have attempted: Open the database from emacs to alter the source, but
this had no effect when the database is restarted.  Presumably, both source
and byte-code are stored in the database???

Any ideas...?
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep  8 10:30:06 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "09:24:46" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " "<9309081624.AA03279@whale.st.usm.edu>" "10" "MOO memory per user" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 09:24:46 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO memory per user
Content-Type: text

I may have a site for my MOO!!!
THe only question I haven't been able to answer for the owner of the
site is: "Does the server take up much memory per user?"
I know it's reading the whole database into memory, but does each user
login take up much RAM?
An acccurate answer hewre may meanb life and death!!! *grin*
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep  8 10:44:18 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "10:34:25" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "12" "Re: MOO memory per user" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309081624.AA03279@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 10:34:25 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO memory per user

> Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 09:24:46 -0700
> From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
> 
> THe only question I haven't been able to answer for the owner of the
> site is: "Does the server take up much memory per user?"
> I know it's reading the whole database into memory, but does each user
> login take up much RAM?

The amount of memory consumed per connected user is utterly negligible as a
fraction of the total memory use.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep  8 10:55:30 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "10:36:31" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: HELP!" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 10:36:31 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: HELP!

> Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 09:41:29 -0700
> From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
> 
> We have attempted: Open the database from emacs to alter the source, but
> this had no effect when the database is restarted.  Presumably, both source
> and byte-code are stored in the database???

This should have worked just fine.  Try it again and be absolutely sure that
you're telling the server to start from the correct (modified) version of the
database.

This technique, by the way, is the only way to accomplish this sort of thing in
the current release of the server.  The next release will include a better back
door for archwizards.

	Pavel

From hpwargd.wal.hp.com!afo Wed Sep  8 12:39:58 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "12:11:52" "-0700" "Aaron Oppenheimer" "afo@hpwargd.wal.hp.com" "<9309081911.AA03318@hpwargd.wal.hp.com>" "28" "Matching & the Server" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 12:11:52 -0700
From:	Aaron Oppenheimer <afo@hpwargd.wal.hp.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Matching & the Server


Hi all,

I'm trying to implement "suffix matching" in our server here inside HP. What
I'd like is to have aliases on objects of the form "*foo" which would be
matched if a player said "get barfoo". The main reason for this is to
implement objects that represent groups of other objects; for instance, an
object called "ten coins" would have an alias of "*coins" which would be
matched by "drop all coins", "drop 4 coins", or "drop coins". The object
then checks dobjstr to see how much of itself to split off and drop.

So, I've changed $string_utils:match so that it accepts the "*foo" form and
counts them as partial matches. $room:look uses $string_utils:match and so it
works fine. But... what matching utility does the server itself use? Or is it
hard coded? In other words, if I say "get barfoo", the parser can't find the
barfoo object, and calls huh. If I'm lucky the parser calls some other MOO
matching code to do this and I just can't find it; otherwise, I'm outta luck,
short of hacking the huh code or having aliases of {"one coin","two coins"...
"fifty coins"}.

Thanks for any help.

-Aaron

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Aaron Oppenheimer         afo@wal.hp.com         Medical Products Group
Hewlett Packard Co.                                         Waltham, MA
=-=-=-=-=-=  I can hardly speak for myself, much less HP. =-=-=-=-=-=-=

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Wed Sep  8 16:16:28 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "14:53:57" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "15" "matching collective objects" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 14:53:57 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	afo@hpwargd.wal.hp.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: matching collective objects
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Take a look at #52018@LambdaMOO.  It's a collective object that works,
 for the most part, like a normal object.  The syntax is a bit different
 when manipulating only part of it, though.  Examples:

hand bob $300 from gold
drop $36 from gold
get $8888 from copper

It's used extensively in Lambda-RPG.

-quinn




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep  8 18:11:08 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "8" "September" "1993" "14:56:12" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "10" "Re: Matching & the Server" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309081911.AA03318@hpwargd.wal.hp.com>
Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 14:56:12 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	afo@hpwargd.wal.hp.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Matching & the Server

> Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 1993 12:11:52 -0700
> From:	Aaron Oppenheimer <afo@hpwargd.wal.hp.com>
> 
> I'm trying to implement "suffix matching" in our server ...
> 
> But... what matching utility does the server itself use? ...

The server's matching algorithm is hard-coded.

	Pavel

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Sat Sep 11 12:57:00 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "11" "September" "1993" "12:48:52" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "13" "Player name _vs_ number" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Sat, 11 Sep 1993 12:48:52 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Player name _vs_ number
Content-Type: text


First off-- sorry about the empty message I sent..need more sleep.

I've created a verb that takes a players name as an argument, and works
fine if the player is logged on. If the player is NOT logged on, the
verb will only work if called with the player's number; if I use the name
I get an "invalid indirection" error message. Isw there a function that
will return the player number, given the name?
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================


From gac.edu!eostrom Sat Sep 11 13:17:33 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "11" "September" "1993" "08:01:51" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "28" "Re: Player name _vs_ number" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309112001.AA14063@gac.edu>
Date:	Sat, 11 Sep 1993 08:01:51 -0700
From:	eostrom@gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player name _vs_ number
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> I've created a verb that takes a players name as an argument, and works
> fine if the player is logged on. If the player is NOT logged on, the
> verb will only work if called with the player's number; if I use the name
> I get an "invalid indirection" error message. Isw there a function that
> will return the player number, given the name?

I think what's really happening is that it's working if and only if
the player given as an argument is _in the same room as_ the player
typing in the command.  The server then automatically matches dobj to
the object in the room.  When the player isn't logged on, e probably
has been vanished to limbo, and so the server doesn't match eir name.

The verb you want is $string_utils:match_player(), probably as

dobj = $string_utils:match_player(dobjstr);
if ($command_utils:player_match_failed(dobj, dobjstr))
  return E_INVARG;
endif

:player_match_failed checks to see if your match failed (makes sense,
eh?) and prints a message if so.  Then it returns 1 if failed, so you
can gracefully exit from the verb.

I'm assuming you want the player as direct object; if you want
indirect object, it's a simple transformation.  If you want to get
trickier, well, you're welcome to, I suppose.

--Erik/JF

From wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu!UN024052 Sun Sep 12 00:45:47 1993
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Date:	Sun, 12 Sep 1993 00:35:33 -0700
From:	UN024052@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Compilation problems
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I'm having a bit of trouble compiling 1.7.5 on my AIX RS/6000 (go figure...).
All of the files compile, but when gcc gets called the last time to produce
the output file, the system chokes, claiming undefined symbols.  Has anyone
dealt with this problem?

Please note:  I did get a copy of the binary 1.7.0 for AIX, but it was *NOT*
  compiled with #define OUTBOUND_NETWORK as advertised.

Any help greatly appreciated...

Send replies to:
sorko@wolverine.cis.fordham.edu  or
un024052@wvnvms.wvnet.edu

From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Sun Sep 12 00:55:19 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "12" "September" "1993" "00:46:48" "-0700" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" nil "5" "Re: Compilation problems" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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       \"Compilation problems\" (Sep 12, 12:35am) I w:	Sat, 1"
Message-ID: <9309120746.AA01196@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Sun, 12 Sep 1993 00:46:48 -0700
From:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	UN024052@wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Compilation problems

Well, um, what undefined symbols?  ___main?  If so, you are mixing GNU
stuff with other stuff.  Missing libraries?  -lm perhaps? -lbsd?


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Sun Sep 12 17:14:05 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "12" "September" "1993" "14:22:22" "-0700" "Michael Richardson" "mcr@latour.sandelman.ocunix.on.ca" nil "13" "Graphics in MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Graphics in MOO


  [Ugg... I'm so far behind moo-cows, its really embarrassing]

  Anyone considering adding graphics to a MUD should take a long hard
look at World Wide Web, particularly the XMosaic client from NCSA.
There are issues of interaction that are missing, but there are kludgy
solutions to that now (involving search fields), but there are other
solutions coming, and new ideas could certainly be tried.
  I suspect that some custom server hacks would be the most efficient
way to do things, although with a disk based db other possibilities
suggest themselves. (Pavel... have you considered using mmap() rather
than read/write where available?)


From hermes.oit.unc.edu!shava Mon Sep 13 07:09:40 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "13" "September" "1993" "06:56:10" "-0700" "Shava Nerad Averett" "shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu" nil "29" "Re: Graphics in MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309131356.AA27289@hermes.oit.unc.edu>
Date:	Mon, 13 Sep 1993 06:56:10 -0700
From:	Shava Nerad Averett <shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu>
To:	mcr@latour.sandelman.ocunix.on.ca (Michael Richardson)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO

>   Anyone considering adding graphics to a MUD should take a long hard
> look at World Wide Web, particularly the XMosaic client from NCSA.
> There are issues of interaction that are missing, but there are kludgy
> solutions to that now (involving search fields), but there are other
> solutions coming, and new ideas could certainly be tried.
>   I suspect that some custom server hacks would be the most efficient
> way to do things, although with a disk based db other possibilities
> suggest themselves. (Pavel... have you considered using mmap() rather
> than read/write where available?)

Dykki Settle (dykki_settle@unc.edu) and I (shava@unc.edu) have been hacking
out the design for doing this in mosaic.  What it would require in the
server, as we see it (without having gone into the code at all yet -- sorry
-- we just started as moo-users and are *planning* on putting one up...)
is to put the output that goes to the clients into a disk file and then
doing a timed refresh of that file as a URL.  We're going to play with 
this some, but if anyone else wants to also play with it as a concept and
tell us why we're stoned and it'll never work, please do..;)

Our basic thought is that we would refresh the file...

	Periodically (every 10 secs?)
	When a <more> button is hit
	After a string is entered in the input window.

Any thoughts?  Again, caveat, we don't know the moo code, but do know a
bit of html/mosaic stuff...

Shava

From maths.tcd.ie!creilly Mon Sep 13 08:24:39 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "13" "September" "1993" "07:17:24" "-0700" "Colman Reilly" "creilly@maths.tcd.ie" nil "26" "Re: Graphics in MOO" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Message from Shava Nerad Averett 
                              dated today at 06:56."
Message-ID: <9309131517.aa00826@salmon.maths.tcd.ie>
Date:	Mon, 13 Sep 1993 07:17:24 -0700
From:	Colman Reilly <creilly@maths.tcd.ie>
To:	Shava Nerad Averett <shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu>
cc:	Michael Richardson <mcr@latour.sandelman.ocunix.on.ca>,
	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, creilly@maths.tcd.ie
Subject: Re: Graphics in MOO



     >   Anyone considering adding graphics to a MUD should take a long hard
     > look at World Wide Web, particularly the XMosaic client from NCSA.
     > There are issues of interaction that are missing, but there are kludgy
     > solutions to that now (involving search fields), but there are other
     > solutions coming, and new ideas could certainly be tried.
     >   I suspect that some custom server hacks would be the most efficient
     > way to do things, although with a disk based db other possibilities
     > suggest themselves. (Pavel... have you considered using mmap() rather
     > than read/write where available?)
     
     is to put the output that goes to the clients into a disk file and then
     doing a timed refresh of that file as a URL.  We're going to play with 
     this some, but if anyone else wants to also play with it as a concept and
     tell us why we're stoned and it'll never work, please do..;)

This work . . see Colman's Hyper-Gallery on MediaMOO for data. I have a
prototype. Does _no-one_ ever read this list?

Colman
     
-------
Colman Reilly ,School Of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
creilly@maths.tcd.ie
(Home)+353-(0)1-8204643 (College)+353-(0)1-7022280 PGP Public Key on Request

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Mon Sep 13 15:29:35 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "13" "September" "1993" "13:27:04" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "5" "Floating Point Numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Mon, 13 Sep 1993 13:27:04 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Floating Point Numbers

Anybody got a [better] solution to a need for floating point numbers?
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Tue Sep 14 04:36:13 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "14" "September" "1993" "04:23:10" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "58" "Recycling" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1993 04:23:10 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Recycling
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I noticed the following:

#630:"_recycle"   this none this
 1:  set_task_perms(caller_perms());
 2:  if (this.recreate_enabled)
 3:    return $recycler:(verb)(@args);
 4:  else
 5:    return recycle(@args);
 6:  endif

 recreate_enabled        .Gustavo (#57967)     r c    1

This means, any child of $builder can decide that his/her .recreate_enabled
looks nicer with a 0, and hence every recycle s/he does, leaves an invalid
object.

What is this good for?
Is there any problem with leaving invalid objects (holes?) in the dbase?
Is it better not to have them?
I wrote a simple verb to fill all these holes...

@verb me:@validate none none none rdx
@prog me:@validate
error=0;
new=create(#1);
if (!valid(new))
  player:tell("Couln't create a new object.");
  return;
endif
filled=renumber(new);
validated={filled};
while (new!=filled && !error)
  reset_max_object();
  new=create(#1);
  if (valid(new))
    filled=renumber(new);
    validated=setadd(validated,filled);
  else
    player:tell("Couldn't create a new object.");
    error=1;
  endif
endwhile
for o in (validated)
  $recycler:_recycle(o);
endfor
player:tell("Validated ",length(validated)," invalid objects.");
.

Could this do something dangerous? Is there any simpler way?

BTW, wouldn't MOOcode gain by implementing Pascal's structure:
 repeat <statements> until <condition>;
The code I brought before would use this gladly.

Gustavo Glusman -- bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il




From io.com!zachary Tue Sep 14 04:41:04 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "14" "September" "1993" "04:26:18" "-0700" "Paul Jimenez" "zachary@io.com " nil "9" "Re: Floating Point Numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1993 04:26:18 -0700
From:	zachary@io.com (Paul Jimenez)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Floating Point Numbers


A [better] solution to a need for floating point numbers:

Fractions
Infinite series

I think fractions would be your best bet... stored in a list... I think someone did fun thing on $math_utils that you may want to lookit...

--Zachary

From unipress.com!joe Tue Sep 14 06:34:42 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "14" "September" "1993" "06:22:40" "-0700" "joe@unipress.com" "joe@unipress.com" nil "16" "*** PANIC: Unhandled exception!" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1993 06:22:40 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: *** PANIC: Unhandled exception!


Running on a DEC Alpha 500S with OSF/1 v1.2, MOO dies from time to time with
the result you see in the Subject line.

The stack dump is kinda useless, since at the point of an unhandled execption
a longjmp() has just finished.  It's also hard to tell exactly which exception
isn't being handled.

If anyone else has had any experience with MOO on this platform, any advice
would be appreciated.  I don't have the time right now to go in and printf()
the thing to death and try and figure out any more, but I should get around to
it eventually.

Thanks.

--joe

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Sep 14 14:34:46 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "14" "September" "1993" "14:18:07" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "21" "Re: *** PANIC: Unhandled exception!" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309141322.AA10130@repo.unipress.com>
Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1993 14:18:07 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	joe@unipress.com
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: *** PANIC: Unhandled exception!

> Running on a DEC Alpha 500S with OSF/1 v1.2, MOO dies from time to time with
> the result you see in the Subject line.

There isn't much I can do for you without a lot more information, but I can
tell you some things that it might be useful.

There are only two exceptions used in the server right now, one for throwing
out of a call to gethostbyaddr() when a timer goes off (net_bsd_tcp.c) and
another for throwing out of the checkpointing code when some printf to the
database file fails, usually because of running out of disk space (storage.c).
There is only either zero or one entry on the handler stack at any time, for
the only exception, if any, that can be raised during that time.

Exceptions are raised pretty rarely in the server, so you could put copious
printf()s in exceptions.c/ES_RaiseException to show all of the state without
getting spammed by the output.

I suspect that the problem is a bug in the implementation of setjmp/longjmp in
OSF/1; I've found other bugs in their runtime system from time to time.

	Pavel

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Sep 14 19:04:43 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "14" "September" "1993" "18:53:57" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "7" "Recycling" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Gustavo Glusman's message of Tue, 14 Sep 1993 04:23:10 PDT <9309141021.AA14919@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>"
Message-ID: <9309150153.AA10083@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1993 18:53:57 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Recycling

The point of .recreate_enabled is precisely to allow moo users to
choose whether they get brand new objids when they create and really
destroy their objects when they recycle, or whether they participate
in the re-use pool.  See "deliver #9118 to me about numbers" on
LambdaMOO for why re-use is bad.  Me, I just don't want to see six
digit numbers in my lifetime.


From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Tue Sep 14 23:17:09 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "14" "September" "1993" "22:59:53" "-0700" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" nil "5" "The Lag" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1993 22:59:53 -0700
From:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: The Lag

I'm amazed.  I logged into Lambda, and there was no lag.  What did you do
Haakon?  Is it a miracle, or just good coding?


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From media.mit.edu!asb Wed Sep 15 09:17:32 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "09:08:47" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "81" "the dangers of reusing object numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 09:08:47 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: the dangers of reusing object numbers


I'm all in favor of reusing object numbers, despite the dangers.
But for your amusement, here's the funniest bug I've ever seen.
This particular problem could only occur with a wizardly verb.


Subject: dog turns into can of coke!
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 10:53:57 -0400
From: asb@media.mit.edu

I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe!  This one's a classic:

 ------- Forwarded Message
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 22:51:03 -0400
From: Albert Lin <lin@media.mit.edu>
Subject: bartender bug


I had just created another dog, named Biffina (#4573), when I saw the
following text on my screen:

Bubba the barkeep stamps up to you.  "There you are! We are a bit short of
glasses.  If you don't mind...."  Bubba the barkeep snatches the Biffina out of
your hand and minces away angrily.

Needless to say, this caught me completely by surprise.  Doing a
prospectus on me revealed:

 rT      can of Coca-Cola Classic (#4573)

My dog had been turned into a can of Coke!  Apparently, Khadthulu had
created the Apocolypse Cafe with Bubba the barkeep.  Somehow, the
.glasses property on Bubba got messed up, and my newly created object
appeared in that list.  So, after the timeout, Bubba stamped up to me,
grabbed my dog, and turned it into a can of Coke.  I'm guessing that
this was possible because Bubba has a wiz-owned verb somewhere.

What a weird bug.

 - -Albert

 - -----------

>page khadthulu with hi! can i have my dog (#4573) back?
Your message has been sent.
You sense that Khadthulu is looking for you in Apocolypse Cafe.
It pages, "you're dog?!?!?!"

 ------- End of Forwarded Message




EXPLANATION:

The bartender has a .glasses property.  Every once in a while, it looks around
for glass objects that people have walked away with and brings them back to
the bar.  When someone orders a drink, it renames an unused glass to what they
ordered and serves it.

The glasses are owned by the person who owns the bar (because I wanted them to
come out of that person's quota.)  But the verb that renames the object is
owned by the person who wrote (adapted from Aphid's code) the bartender, me.
So I made the verb that renames the drink object wizardly so it could rename
an object owned by someone else.

Someone made a glass for their bartender and then recycled it.  (They own it,
so they can recycle it.)  But the object number stays on the bartender's list
of glasses.  Albert made a dog and got the recycled object number.  The
bartender program saw it as a glass object that someone had walked away with!
And since the verb is wizardly....

The solution: make sure only the @add-glass verb can add things to the
.glasses property of the bartender, and put a recycle method on generic drink
which removes its object number from the .glasses property. 

Ah, recycled object numbers....

-- Amy



From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep 15 09:32:05 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "09:20:06" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "5" "Adding wizards." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 09:20:06 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Adding wizards.
Content-Type: text


-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Sep 15 11:25:11 1993
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Message-ID: <9309151806.AA14287@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 11:06:28 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Recycling

Er, I didn't look at any hole filling code, sorry.  The hole filling
code we use is the Lithani Relic, #19019 on Lambda.  Mostly we don't
actually use it, because it stops the MOO dead for over a minute,
which leads to massive lag that doesn't dissipate for several minutes
after that.  We "resurrected" all the invalid object numbers below
#200, put most of them out in the magic number repository for general
consumption, and reserved some for future core objects or special
purpose objects (e.g. the petitioner got #4).

At present there are about 3000 objects in the recycling pool, holding
reasonably constant, since we've been jumping up and down about db
space usage so much, and reaping agressively.  The reason that there
are so many holes in the DB is that we didn't start doing object
re-use until after object #30000, and we didn't force it on people
until about #45000.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Sep 15 11:25:31 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "11:09:02" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "3" "The Lag" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu's message of Tue, 14 Sep 1993 22:59:53 PDT <9309150600.AA23707@sphinx.nmt.edu>"
Message-ID: <9309151809.AA14490@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 11:09:02 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: The Lag

Well, actually, it was merely a reboot, which Ford did yesterday,
Haakon being out of town.  There's some problem where things get laggy
after a while, like a week, and rebooting speeds stuff up.

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Sep 15 13:43:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "13:29:21" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "16" "Re: Adding wizards." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 15 Sep 1993 09:20:06 PDT.\"
             <9309151619.AA68907@whale.st.usm.edu> at"
Message-ID: <9309152029.AA03740@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 13:29:21 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Adding wizards.

create a player using your favorite method (e.g., @make-player,
@create ...), then, if #n is the object id of the player

    >@chparent #n to $wiz
    Parent changed.
    >;#n.wizard=1
    => 1

You're best off wizarding a fresh player rather than an existing
player, since any verbs owned by an existing player will suddenly
acquire wizard privileges.
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Sep 15 15:01:57 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "14:47:45" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "91" "on beta-wizards, para-wizards and necromancers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309152147.AA03950@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 14:47:45 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: on beta-wizards, para-wizards and necromancers

[... I was reminded of one of my backlogged postings, this one in
     response to a proposal to introduce "alpha and beta wizards"
     having different different sets of privileges.  Most of the
     responses were correct (IMHO) in that many of the special powers
     that one might want to parcel out to special players
     are best implemented in the db.  However... ]

There *is* a division of powers within wizardom that I believe is
useful to implement in the server and in fact requires (I think)
minimal changes.

Background:
  Once upon a time, I said that one should be extremely wary of wizard
  verbs that call eval() and set_verb_code().  More generally, one wants
  to keep TIGHT control on the ability to create or modify wizard verbs
  --- not necessarily because the wizards are untrustworthy but being
  human, they're forgetful and do silly things from time to time.  With
  a reliable audit trail on the production/alteration of wizard verbs,
  one can quickly answer questions like "Who wrote this sh*t?"

Idea:

  set .programmer=0 on a wizard player and you should get 
  a NONPROGRAMMER WIZARD who can do everything EXCEPT create/modify verbs.

No new flags are needed; we're merely giving meaning to the currently
anomalous situation of an object for which .programmer=0 and .wizard=1.
The new hierarchy goes

   player   
   programmer
   wizard  
   programmer-wizard (if you want to give this a more exciting name 
                      like "necromancer", feel free...)

The only server hacking needed is another 10 lines of code to

  (1) require .programmer=1 && .wizard==1 in order to
     (a) change .programmer or .wizard on any object
     (b) create/modify properties/objects owned by a programmer-wizard
     (c) set_task_perms(<any programmer-wizard>)

  (2) require .programmer=1 in order to create/modify any verbs 
      (the only change from before is to enforce this for wizards).

      In order to make the whole system a little more consistent, I'd
      also suggest that the notion of "modifying verbs" be extended to
      include set_verb_info() and set_verb_args() as well as
      set_verb_code(), but this is a side issue.

Note that making these changes to the server will not break any
existing code since currently all existing wizards are also
programmers.  One may go through at leisure to search for and chown
those few verbs that actually require programmer status and then later
de-programmer most of the wizards.

Why is this useful?

Consider the problem posed by having >1000 wizard owned verbs (the
current situation on Lambda).  If any one of them does something
stupid (e.g., evals a user supplied string with its own perms), the
permissions of that wizard can be usurped.  If however those
permissions cannot be used to alter any existing verbs or install any
new ones, the cracker will (if things are set up right) have much more
work to do to subvert the system.

Note that the vast majority of wizard verbs in LambdaCore exist
for such purposes as getting around restrictions on accessing +c
properties, using builtin functions like notify() and move(), and
utility routines that need to do set_task_perms(caller_perms()).
Very few actually need to create/modify verb code.

Then we would just need a single programmer-wizard, an object for the
programmer-wizard to own and something like 5-10 verbs/properties to
handle the creation of wizard verbs; we can be super-paranoid about
them.  One could, for example, entirely forbid creation/modification
of wizard verbs except via an explict player command from some wizard
(and perhaps even put suitably absurd limitations on the creation of
new programmer-wizard verbs...  "Type the secret prog-wiz password now
(you have 10 seconds): ")

For the remaining 1000 nonprog-wizard verbs one need only
be merely paranoid (some paranoia is called for since non-programmer
wizard verbs can still do things like recycle the db --- admittedly bad, 
but not as bad as being able to subtly pervert it with Trojan horses).

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From bellcore.com!norman Wed Sep 15 15:44:51 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "15:30:08" "-0700" "norman@bellcore.com" "norman@bellcore.com" nil "6" "Re: on beta-wizards, para-wizards and necromancers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 15 Sep 93 14:47:45 PDT.\"
             <9309152147.AA03950@palnu.research.microsoft.com>e"
Message-ID: <9309152230.AA07265@mailee.bellcore.com>
Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 15:30:08 -0700
From:	norman@bellcore.com
To:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: on beta-wizards, para-wizards and necromancers

>   set .programmer=0 on a wizard player and you should get 
>   a NONPROGRAMMER WIZARD who can do everything EXCEPT create/modify verbs.

Nice idea.  I hope it gets implemented.

Norman

From extro.ucc.su.oz.au!colinm Wed Sep 15 18:56:22 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "16" "September" "1993" "09:37:40" "-0700" "Colin McCormack" "colinm@extro.ucc.su.oz.au" nil "15" "Re: on beta-wizards, para-wizards and necromancers" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <199309160137.AA15424@extra.ucc.su.OZ.AU>
Date:	Thu, 16 Sep 1993 09:37:40 -0700
From:	Colin McCormack <colinm@extro.ucc.su.oz.au>
To:	rfc@research.microsoft.com (Roger Crew)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: on beta-wizards, para-wizards and necromancers


It's, finally, the value of the .wizard pseudo-property which determines the
posession of wizard privileges, but descent from the $wizard class which
determines the facilities of which a specific wizard is capable.

It's tempting to ask whether the creation of a class of non-programmer wizards
is analogous to the creation of a class of non-programmer players (ie:
builders), and interesting to consider whether one could securely restrict
facilities from a wizard by building an analogous class of wizard-builders.

Trivially, these wizard-builders would have no access to eval, nor to chparent
themselves.

Colin (SamIAm)


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep 15 21:20:59 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "15" "September" "1993" "21:09:17" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "9" "@notedit problem" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309160409.AA69762@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Wed, 15 Sep 1993 21:09:17 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: @notedit problem
Content-Type: text

Oh, no, here he is with another one:

All of a sudden, nobody but me seems to be able to use @notedit.
I can't tell if it's a permission problem or wht.
Does anyone have a suggestion where to look first?
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From dartmouth.edu!Michael.J.Fromberger Thu Sep 16 09:30:11 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "16" "September" "1993" "09:15:32" "-0700" "Michael J. Fromberger" "Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu " nil "18" "Missing mail recipients" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <6129442@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 16 Sep 1993 09:15:32 -0700
From:	Michael.J.Fromberger@dartmouth.edu (Michael J. Fromberger)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Missing mail recipients
Reply-to: sting@dartmouth.edu

Greetings,

Of late, I have been unable to reference my mail recipients as *<name>.  

For example, if I type '@mail on *quota-log', I am returned "There is no mail
recipient called "*quota-log""

Any ideas?  Are my eval_subs just messed up?

Any help most appreciated.

-Sting
(aka Caedmon, AngloSaxony)

--
Michael J. Fromberger
Consultant, Postmaster
Sting@Dartmouth.EDU / mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Sep 16 10:46:41 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "16" "September" "1993" "10:29:38" "-0700" "\"Wayne E. Bouchard\"" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "11" "RE: Missing mail recipients" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <930916102938.22401783@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
Date:	Thu, 16 Sep 1993 10:29:38 -0700
From:	"Wayne E. Bouchard" <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	sting@dartmouth.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Missing mail recipients

> Of late, I have been unable to reference my mail recipients as *<name>.  
>
> For example, if I type '@mail on *quota-log', I am returned "There is no mail
> recipient called "*quota-log""

First of all, make sure that all the mail recipients are in $mail_agent. 
The verbs that do the matching, as far as I remember, use 
$mail_agent.contents for the list of valid recipients.

-Wayne (aka Sadric)


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Fri Sep 17 19:06:28 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "17" "September" "1993" "18:38:48" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "4" "MOO client for VMS ?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309180138.AA33292@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Fri, 17 Sep 1993 18:38:48 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO client for VMS ?

Does anyone know of a MOO client that will run on VMS?
I have a user who can't get UNIX access, and she's getting awfully
frustrated by raw telnet.
Thanks!

From unipress.com!joe Sat Sep 18 08:41:42 1993
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Date:	Sat, 18 Sep 1993 08:21:42 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: suspend() thougths


suspend() leads to things like :suspend_if_needed() on Lambda. 
:suspend_if_needed() is bad, bass-ackwards, etc.  Perhaps the following
modification to MOO would make things better:

Add a bit to each verb called the 'a' bit (for "atomic").  Verbs with their
'a' bit set are assumed to require that no suspend() calls take place anywhere
in their code or verbs they call (to ensure proper settings for properties on
objects before other tasks are engaged, etc.).  In short, they act pretty much
like all verbs do now.  The new semantics are that when an 'a' verb calls a
'!a' verb, an error occurs.  Also, when suspend is called with an 'a' verb on 
the stack, an error occurs.  The fact that these things generate errors would 
help in some cases tracking down suspend calls when they might screw things up.

Verbs which are '!a' simply get suspended if and when they require it, for
running out of ticks or seconds.  They would be semanticly equivalent to
putting :suspend_if_needed()s all over the place.  As to how many seconds this
auto-suspend should be for, I'm sure we can all agree upon something like
FIVE.

I'm hesitant to try to implement this for fear of getting tied up in it for a
long time, but the MOO source is so notoriously nice I'm game.  What do you
folks think?


--joe
-K*

From unipress.com!joe Sat Sep 18 09:43:08 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "18" "September" "1993" "09:24:16" "-0700" "joe@unipress.com" "joe@unipress.com" nil "15" "Re: suspend() thougths" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Sat, 18 Sep 93 13:31:53 -0230.\"
             <9309181601.AA08356@saturn.cs.mun.ca>offeminded "
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Date:	Sat, 18 Sep 1993 09:24:16 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths


(On the idea of a suspend_if_needed() primitive.)

Adding bits increases the complexity of the system in a bad way --
one argument might be that "if we can get away with adding builtins rather
than verb-bits to do some job X, then we should.  Otherwise, we'll end up with
100 new bits, which will be harder to understand than 100 new builtins."

BUT the purpose here is to avoid having to sprinkle calls to suspend() in
loops.  Avoiding having to use a builtin or other special MOO code at all is 
what I'm really aiming at here.  So it still seems 'a' bits are the right 
thing.

--joe
-K*

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sat Sep 18 09:49:59 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "18" "September" "1993" "09:30:09" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "79" "Re: suspend() thougths (sic) [really, REALLY sick!]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Sat, 18 Sep 1993 09:30:09 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths (sic) [really, REALLY sick!]




Explicitly atomic (uninterruptable) verbs?  I like it, go for it, but don't
expect LambdaCore to be up to using it for decades.  Mebbie someone could come
up with $semaphore or something?!

Mmm, if a +a verb is called, when if ever will it time out.  Should it be given
15k ticks and then die if it hasn't returned already or should it go on forever,
(at least until it runs out of things to do).  If the latter is the case then
maybe +a verbs should only be able to run with .wizard perms, just so that
noone can write:

	@program $nasty:spam +a
	while (1);
	endwhile;
	.

Now if +a verbs do arrive then presumably everyone will want to be able to use
them (to protect critical regions of their code, property assignments etc.).
But since, for security reasons, +a verbs are wizdusted ONLY, then it's gonna
make things pretty frantic while wizards chase round the core rewriting
everyone's critical regions for them.  Messy.  So mebbies [I am 30 and I speak
like a child!] $semaphore could be used to supply critical region functionality
in a secure way:

	@program $coolthing:gaga
	while (!$semaphore:lock(this, verb))
		suspend(1);
	endwhile;
	"Do something critical";
	this.foo = 1;
	$semaphore:unlock(this, verb);
	.

Where we have:

	@program $semaphore:lock +a [#somewiz]
	object_to_lock = args[1];
	verb_to_lock = args[2];
	if ( { object_to_lock, verb_to_lock } in this.locks )
		return 0;
	else
		this.locks = { @this.locks , { object_to_lock, verb_to_lock } };
		return 1;	
	endif;
	.


	@program $semaphore:unlock +a [#somewiz]
	object_to_lock = args[1];
	verb_to_lock = args[2];
	this.locks = setremove(this.locks, { object_to_lock, verb_to_lock });
	.


Ok, the logic may be wrong, and it's simplified anyway to avoid complicating
the issue [specifically ANYONE can :unlock an ob:verb regardless of who
originally locked it], but the details are better left to people who know what
they're talking about (ie. not me).

But, etc.

Comments,

	Andy (Net).


ps.  Just because the new task model, implicit in joe's proposal, will perform
'automatic' suspends as an when a task requires them doesn't mean that explicit
suspends should be done away with.

+a, scary stuff indeed.




		
er, what does ass-backwards mean?

From ahab.eecs.nwu.edu!hpa Sat Sep 18 10:56:49 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "18" "September" "1993" "11:34:33" "-0700" "H. Peter Anvin N9ITP" "hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "31" "Re: suspend() thougths" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309181734.AA06620@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu>
Date:	Sat, 18 Sep 1993 11:34:33 -0700
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
To:	joe@unipress.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-Cows mailing list)
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Content-Type: text

joe@unipress.com proposes:

a  = must not suspend
!a = may not suspend, auto-suspended when necessary

There is a problem here.  Some verbs may want to suspend at designated
points only.  There would either have to be a critical..endcritical
construct in the MOO language, or there would have to be an in-between
between the two alternatives.  For example, with two flags:

s  = may suspend by explicit suspend()
!s = must not call suspend()
a  = can be auto-suspended
!a = must not be auto-suspended

Restrictions:

!s verbs must not call s or a verbs.
!a verbs must not call a verbs.

The autosuspend delay should be a compile-time option, left up to the
archwizard.

	/hpa

--   
INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu         FINGER/TALK: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
IBM MAIL: I036073 at IBMMAIL  NeXTMAIL:    hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu
ANMDRKNING: Heja Sverige friskt humvr!  EG vdntar utanfvr!
WNT: Just one step behind VMS


From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Sun Sep 19 16:52:21 1993
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Subject: $Literals
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If I have a lot of $literals defined on #0, does it actually slow the MOO
 up?  In other words, do I need to be thrifty with $literals?

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.Edu


From unipress.com!joe Sun Sep 19 18:59:32 1993
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Date:	Sun, 19 Sep 1993 18:48:41 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths (sic) [really, REALLY sick!]


> Mmm, if a +a verb is called, when if ever will it time out?  
> Should it be given 15k ticks and then die if it hasn't returned already or
> should it go on forever, (at least until it runs out of things to do).

Tasks which have part of their execution occur with an 'a' verb on their call
stack would be subject to all of the limitations any other task would have, in
the way I'm imagining things.

This does raise an interesting dillema, however.  Theoretically, 'a' verbs (or
now, verbs which purposefully do not call suspend()) need to perform some
operations on several properties on an object in an uninterrupted way, or get
output to the user NOW before any other task can.  This is really impossible
to be sure of in the current system, since a high load on the MOO-running
machine can make just about anything run out of seconds.  I'm not going to
lose sleep over this -- the time limit on verbs is sufficiently high right now
so that this problem won't occur very often.  But it does make one think ...

> But since, for security reasons, +a verbs are wizdusted ONLY,

Not at all.  'a' verbs have the same general semantics as verbs which
purposefully do not call suspend().  They run out of seconds and ticks just
like they do now.  One of the benefits of having an 'a' bit will be being able
to detect when some wise ass stuck a suspend() call in a utility verb you're
using, for example.

The main goal is that '!a' verbs don't have to stick :suspend_if_needed()s
in all of the loops -- this can be done for them automatically.  I'd say make
all verbs '!a' if it weren't for the fact that some need to do atomic property
updates or atomic output.

> ps.  Just because the new task model, implicit in joe's proposal, will
> perform 'automatic' suspends as an when a task requires them doesn't mean
> that explicit suspends should be done away with.

Agreed.  Backward compatability, etc.

> +a, scary stuff indeed.

Not nearly as frightening as clear properties (ha ha).

From unipress.com!joe Sun Sep 19 19:09:22 1993
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Date:	Sun, 19 Sep 1993 19:01:11 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-Cows mailing list)
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths


> a  = must not suspend
> !a = may not suspend, auto-suspended when necessary

> There is a problem here.  Some verbs may want to suspend at designated
> points only.  There would either have to be a critical..endcritical
> construct in the MOO language, or there would have to be an in-between
> between the two alternatives.  For example [ delted ]

Adding critical section constructs to the MOO language would theoretically
allow the MOO program to back out a sequence of property modifications in the
case of running out of ticks or seconds in a critical section -- I see this
as pounding tacks into cork with a sledgehammer.

With an 'a' bit you could just stick the part of your verb that needed atomic
update in a separate verb.  For example:

@program foo which is '!a'
this:duh();
this:_critical_section(4);
this:duh();
.

@program _critical_section which is 'a'
this.same1 = args[1];
this.same2 = args[2];
this.same3 = args[3];
.

The verb foo would be able to call duh() which would be automaticly suspended
(if needed) and still make sure the .same properties on it were all the same
thing.  The paranoid may even put a suspend() in before the call to
_critical_section() just for luck.

--joe


From unipress.com!joe Sun Sep 19 19:53:37 1993
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Date:	Sun, 19 Sep 1993 19:44:51 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com
To:	joe@unipress.com (Joe Miklojcik)
cc:	hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin),
	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-Cows mailing list)
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths


> There is a problem here.  Some verbs may want to suspend at designated
> points only.  There would either have to be a critical..endcritical
> construct in the MOO language, or there would have to be an in-between
> between the two alternatives.  For example [ delted ]

Um, well, um, well, um.  OK, I get it now.  Forget I said anything because it
turns out that unless we do something EVIL with two bits like H. Peter Anvin
suggested much existing code will break -- namely any that does suspend() on
purpose in a specific spot.

Sorry to have riddled your mbox with what turns out to be a bad idea.

--joe


From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Mon Sep 20 10:17:02 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "09:56:25" "-0700" "by way of lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "joe@unipress.com " nil "25" "suspend() thougths" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 09:56:25 -0700
From:	joe@unipress.com (by way of lynch@ils.nwu.edu)
Sender: lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: suspend() thougths

I'm new to this whole game, but what I find I want most is a verb that
simply won't run out of ticks.

Now it's all very well for development to catch run-away verbs and time
them out, but it's a real pain to have to sprinkle suspend throughout my
code when I know it's gonna be a time/memory hog.  Also, this read/suspend
interaction is basically disgusting.

Perhaps it would be reasonable to give verbs (or even the objects the verb
lives on) a property which determines how many ticks a verb gets.  The
heavy-duty verbs tend to get clumped on utility objects anyway, so adding
this property to objects shouldn't be too unreasonable.

That way, verbs that are expected to take 1,000,000 ticks can have them,
and verbs that should only take a few ticks can be even more closely
watched during development to be sure they are behaving correctly.

The default would, of course, be the same as the current tick setting.

The hard-part would be altering the time-out mechanism to check this
property...I assume that's down in source code somewhere...

[Disclaimer:  I don't understand enough of this to know if I'm even making
sense.]


From io.com!zachary Mon Sep 20 12:01:45 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "11:48:40" "-0700" "Paul Jimenez" "zachary@io.com " nil "19" "@args not working properly." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309201848.AA02365@illuminati.IO.COM>
Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 11:48:40 -0700
From:	zachary@io.com (Paul Jimenez)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: @args not working properly.


It's come to my attention that @args is not working properly on the MOO I
help run..

a common situation:
someone creates a new verb and forgets to specify tnt...
they then find that when they try and call it from another verb, they get 
'no verb found'-type error messages. No problem we'll just use @args to fix
this, right?
So @args object:verb tnt
@show object:verb show that the params are indeed this none this
but we STILL get the 'verb not found'-type error messages.

so to me it sounds like something somewhere isnt getting updated where it should
and it also sounds like that something is somewhere in the server. anyone else
have these problems or know how to fix them? anyone? anyone? Beuler?...

--Zachary
  Zachary@lambdamoo, @metaverse, @jayshousemoo, @...

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Mon Sep 20 12:14:28 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "12:03:11" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "2" "Re: @args not working properly." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 20 Sep 1993 11:48:40 PDT.\"
             <9309201848.AA02365@illuminati.IO.COM>06"
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Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 12:03:11 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	zachary@io.com (Paul Jimenez)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: @args not working properly.

@chmod object:verb +x  ?


From gac.edu!eostrom Mon Sep 20 12:19:29 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "07:05:34" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "23" "Re: @args not working properly." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309201905.AA09571@gac.edu>
Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 07:05:34 -0700
From:	eostrom@gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	zachary@io.com (Paul Jimenez)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: @args not working properly.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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> a common situation:
> someone creates a new verb and forgets to specify tnt...
> they then find that when they try and call it from another verb, they get 
> 'no verb found'-type error messages. No problem we'll just use @args to fix
> this, right?
> So @args object:verb tnt

The argspec for a verb has nothing to do with whether or not a verb
can be called.

> @show object:verb show that the params are indeed this none this
> but we STILL get the 'verb not found'-type error messages.

Because the verb is !x.  The @verb command (_not_ set_verb_info())
assumes that if a verb is tnt, it should be +x (unless otherwise
specified), and if not, it should be !x.  The two are not directly
related, though, so if you use the @args command, it assumes you just
want to change the args, and if you use the @chmod command, it assumes
you just want to change the permissions flags.

@chmod <object>:<verb> +x

--Erik/JF

From io.com!zachary Mon Sep 20 12:31:00 1993
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Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 12:20:11 -0700
From:	zachary@io.com (Paul Jimenez)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: server bug.


uhm. I feel stupid. Thanks to the many of you who told me that I WAS BEING 
A COMPLETE IDIOT and not setting the damn thing +x.

blushingly embarassed,

 --Zachary

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Mon Sep 20 16:42:30 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "16:28:07" "-0700" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" nil "10" "Replying to this Mailing List" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 16:28:07 -0700
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Replying to this Mailing List
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When stuff from moo-cows arrives in my mailbox, the from/reply-to
 field is always set to the author rather than the list so that
 when I reply, it goes to the author and not the list.  Is this
 something I need to change on my end or something that should be
 set at xerox.com?

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Sep 20 17:49:16 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "17:39:28" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: Replying to this Mailing List" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <01H36L2V7T1YATKETZ@conrad.appstate.edu>
Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 17:39:28 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Replying to this Mailing List

> Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 16:28:07 -0700
> From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
> 
> When stuff from moo-cows arrives in my mailbox, the from/reply-to
>  field is always set to the author rather than the list so that
>  when I reply, it goes to the author and not the list.  Is this
>  something I need to change on my end or something that should be
>  set at xerox.com?

I think that things are working properly as they are.  Your local mail program
should provide (and most do) at least two different reply commands, one that
only goes to the sender (usually the default) and another that goes to everyone
who received the original message.  In the BSD Unix `Mail' program, for
example, the `r' command is reply-to-sender and `R' is `reply-to-all'.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Sep 20 17:52:56 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "20" "September" "1993" "17:42:01" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "10" "Re: $Literals" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <01H357AP80BMATKCFL@conrad.appstate.edu>
Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 17:42:01 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: $Literals

> Date:	Sun, 19 Sep 1993 16:41:12 -0700
> From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
> 
> If I have a lot of $literals defined on #0, does it actually slow the MOO
>  up?  In other words, do I need to be thrifty with $literals?

There is no significant performance cost to $literals, at least until you get
pretty extreme (e.g., more than several hundred of them).

	Pavel

From harlequin.com!kmp Tue Sep 21 00:52:43 1993
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In-Reply-to: <9309210106.AA13654@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Message-ID: <19930921074531.1.KMP@BALBOA.Harlequin.COM>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 00:45:00 -0700
From:	kmp@harlequin.com
To:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Replying

    Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 21:06 EDT
    From: Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>

    Would it be possible to remove the destination from the reply-to so that R
    won't send a copy to me when I use it?

There are a zillion mail readers in the world and all behave differently.
Moo-Cows is not the debug-my-mailreader mailing list.  The mail headers on
mail going to Moo-Cows is usually formatted in the normal way that all
internet mail is formatted (except for the statistically expected number of
stupid mail headers generated by individual mailers of people contributing
to the list).  If you (or others) have questions about how to use your mail
reader effectively, this is not the place to ask those questions.   Instead,
you should probably take it up with the person that maintains your site or
with the person or company that sold you your mail-reading software.

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Sep 21 07:17:22 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "21" "September" "1993" "07:16:17" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca" nil "3" "Re:  Replying" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309211416.AA14517@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 07:16:17 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca, kmp@harlequin.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  Replying

Ok, enough with the flames already.  I use many different unix packages and knowing every single option for each is not in the cards.  I am replying to this
only to stop this stupid thread.


From aero.org!obrien Tue Sep 21 13:01:19 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "21" "September" "1993" "12:49:00" "-0700" "Mike O'Brien" "obrien@aero.org" nil "39" "Re: suspend() thougths" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 20 Sep 1993 16:57:08 PDT.\"
             <9309202357.AA03565@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>5/Eos/e (you h"
Message-ID: <199309211949.AA15041@aerospace.aero.org>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 12:49:00 -0700
From:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: suspend() thougths

	I've been thinking about it, and it's occurred to me that
I may be the only person on this list who's seen this tick problem
before, in another context, so I thought I'd share it.

	Fifteen years ago, the PLATO computer-based education
system at the U. of Illinois came across this problem.  This
system, architecturally, was very similar to LambdaMOO.  It had
a threaded-code interpreted language, TUTOR, executed in a unique
environment.  Response analysis was handled by user-written code
which, at that time, had to complete within a timeslice (equivalent
to the current "tick" limit).  This was too restrictive, so after
some time, a new command was added to the language which was
functionally equivalent to "suspend_if_needed()".  This took
the immediate pressure off.

	So far, the parallels are exact, I'd say.

	The upshot was that, eventually, the TUTOR interpreter
was rewritten to be able to save full context across a timeslice
and the restriction was removed entirely.  The "suspend_if_needed()"
primitive was converted to a no-op for the sake of backward
compatibility.

        The one difference from the MOO environment was that
users had a non-interceptable "bail-out" keypress available to
them if they wound up in an infinite loop.  The equivalent would
be "terminate all tasks and go 'home'".  Since student records
carried equivalent baggage to a character in terms of
permanently-saved state, this implied all the dangers that one
could foresee if this were done in MOO.  However, the benefits so
outweight the drawback, which could in any event be provided for,
that no one ever looked back.  TUTOR users today would look at
you funny if you told them about the bad old days of
"suspend_if_needed()".

	Problems of "lag" and fairness were handled by implementing
a real scheduler which penalized for excessive CPU usage.

Mike O'Brien

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Sep 21 14:47:09 1993
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References: <9309210106.AA13654@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:35:57 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Replying

> Date:	Mon, 20 Sep 1993 18:06:47 -0700
> From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
> 
> Would it be possible to remove the destination from the reply-to so that R
> won't send a copy to me when I use it?

The software here at PARC isn't adding any Reply-To: field...

From crl.com!arthurc Tue Sep 21 14:53:09 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "21" "September" "1993" "14:12:20" "-0700" "Arthur Chandler" "arthurc@crl.com" nil "12" "Excessive CPU usage" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:12:20 -0700
From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Excessive CPU usage
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

  
   " Problems of "lag" and fairness were handled by implementing
a real scheduler which penalized for excessive CPU usage.

                        Mike O'Brien"

   I'd like to know more about this plan. Could or should MOOs
monitor CPU usage and have "quotas" based on login time or resources
used? Also,on several MOOs I see listings of people who have been idle for
hours, or even days. What kind of resources do these folks consume?



From aero.org!obrien Tue Sep 21 16:01:39 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "21" "September" "1993" "15:38:23" "-0700" "obrien@aero.org" "obrien@aero.org" nil "12" "Re: Excessive CPU usage" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309212231.AA13181@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 15:38:23 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Excessive CPU usage


yduJ remarks:

>>What the scheduler does not do is preemptive scheduling; it waits for
>>a task to yield control (the ticks and seconds limits aren't exactly
>>"yielding control", but they act pretty much the same).

Yes, this is precisely the change that was made on PLATO: from
voluntary, Smalltalk-style "yield" scheduling to preemptive scheduling.
It was a big help.

Mike O'Brien

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Sep 21 16:01:39 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Arthur Chandler's message of Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:12:20 PDT <Pine.3.05.9309211418.B3488-9100000@crl.crl.com>"
Message-ID: <9309212231.AA13181@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 15:31:11 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	arthurc@crl.com
cc:	obrien@aero.org, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Excessive CPU usage

The MOO scheduler already *does* penalize for excessive CPU use.  If
you use lots of CPU, it puts you off until some more people have used
that much CPU.  I don't remember exactly; Pavel described the
algorithm once to me after I accused him of doing this sort of thing.
Not only that: if your task runs out of seconds, usually it has used
*more* than its alloted number of seconds, and you don't just wait for
the standard max seconds, you wait for the whole amount you *used*
(even though you didn't get to see the results of this use!).  This
frustrates me when there are runaway tasks and I'm hunting them down;
one mistyped call to ;queued_tasks() from the wizard character and
it's dead in the water for 10-15 *minutes*.

What the scheduler does not do is preemptive scheduling; it waits for
a task to yield control (the ticks and seconds limits aren't exactly
"yielding control", but they act pretty much the same).

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Tue Sep 21 16:30:28 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "21" "September" "1993" "16:18:34" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "17" "read() and suspend()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 16:18:34 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: read() and suspend()

from 'help read()'

[after much text about how impossible it is to call read() after suspend()]

"It is possible to call `read()' many times in the same command task, so
long as the task does not call `suspend()' or an explicit argument is
given."

or an explicit argument is given to which?  read?  or suspend?

Does read take an argument?

If so, what type?
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From gac.edu!eostrom Tue Sep 21 16:53:20 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "21" "September" "1993" "11:41:01" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "28" "Re: read() and suspend()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309212341.AA16348@gac.edu>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 11:41:01 -0700
From:	eostrom@gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: read() and suspend()
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> from 'help read()'
> 
> [after much text about how impossible it is to call read() after suspend()]
> 
> "It is possible to call `read()' many times in the same command task, so
> long as the task does not call `suspend()' or an explicit argument is
> given."
> 
> or an explicit argument is given to which?  read?  or suspend?
> 
> Does read take an argument?
>
> If so, what type?

from 'help read()'

"Syntax:  read ([obj <player>])   => str"

"This function suspends the current task, waiting for a line of input
from the given <player> (which defaults to the player that typed the
command that initiated the current task), and resumes when such a line
is received, returning that line as a string...  `Read()' may only be
called by a wizard, and, unless <player> is given explicitly, only in
a command task that has never been suspended by a call to
`suspend()'."

If you hadn't deleted so much text, I could've answered your mail just
by quoting it out of order.

From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Wed Sep 22 08:31:51 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "08:21:51" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu " nil "16" "Recycling Features: Security hole..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Full-Name: Jack Eifrig
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             <9309212341.AA16348@gac.edu>"
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 08:21:51 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu (Jack Eifrig)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Recycling Features: Security hole...


Coincidentally, I ran into a very neat security hole involving features
and the Recycler the other day.  Seems that features don't remove
themselves from a player's feature list when they hit the Bit Bucket.

Now, $player:my_huh() strips out recycled features when it goes a-huntin',
but that's really not sufficient:

Seems that a player recycled one of his features, and another player
coincidentally made a feature with the same number.  Needless to say,
Bad Things could have happened.

The solution is to make a :recycle() verb for the feature, and patch
the permissions checks for $player:remove_feature with "... || caller
= feature || ...".


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep 22 08:47:43 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "08:37:23" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "5" "Mailing list creation" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 08:37:23 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Mailing list creation

Ok, here it is:
I created a child of the generic mail recipient called *wizzes,wizlist.
I set the readers and writers properties, but when I try to subscribe
or send to the the list, I get "*wizzes" is not the name of any mail
recipient". Same for the alias. What Am I forgetting to do?

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Wed Sep 22 09:04:06 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "08:46:20" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "7" "Re: Mailing list creation" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <199309221546.AA03986@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 08:46:20 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list creation

Don't include the * when you name the list, and make sure you've
 moved it into $mail_agent.

@rename wizlist to wiz,wizlist,wizards,wizzes
@move wizlist to $mail_agent

-quinn

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep 22 09:14:18 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "08:59:03" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "3" "Re: Mailing list creation" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 08:59:03 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com,
	quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us
Subject: Re: Mailing list creation

Thanks. *duh*
Geez...I wish the C mailing lists were as friendly as THIS one!
(wonder if I could do my software engineering course in MOO!)

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Sep 22 09:16:59 1993
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             <9309221537.AA15012@whale.st.usm.edu>"
Message-ID: <9309221554.AA13237@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 08:54:07 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list creation

(1) Leave off the * when naming the object.  The * is really part of the format
for specifying recipients in a @send or @read command.  That is, * followed by
a name means that name refers to a nonplayer recipient; a name without a
leading star refers to a player.

(2) move the object into $mail_agent.


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep 22 09:22:00 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "09:11:56" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "2" "Re: Mailing list creation" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:11:56 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu, rfc@research.microsoft.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list creation

Thanks. It worked just fine, of course when I did what you suggested.
"And I accidentally got all the perms right on the first try!

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Wed Sep 22 09:30:21 1993
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:18:52 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Checking if a player is logged in

I've pored over dumps of the generic player, but...is
there a property or a flag to easily check if a player is logged in?
I'm working on several verbs that need to know if the player is on.

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Wed Sep 22 10:13:48 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "09:55:11" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "21" "managing libraries" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:55:11 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: managing libraries

How do you folks edit and manage large libraries like $XXX_utils?

We're trying to do source code control here, as well as make objects
portable from database to database, and are writing verbs to dump out and
restore objects with their properties and verbs, but I was wondering what
y'all did.

While I'm on the topic.

The psuedo-properties such as .programmer:

If you wanted to be sure that an object from one database behaved properly
in another, would it be necessary to save/restore these?

If so, where would one find a complete list of these things?

Are they in source code, or extensible?
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From gac.edu!eostrom Wed Sep 22 10:32:00 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "05:21:47" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "15" "Re: Checking if a player is logged in" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 05:21:47 -0700
From:	eostrom@gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Checking if a player is logged in
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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> I've pored over dumps of the generic player, but...is
> there a property or a flag to easily check if a player is logged in?
> I'm working on several verbs that need to know if the player is on.

p in connected_players() => true iff p is logged in

idle_seconds(p) => true iff p is logged in, but can only be used in a !d verb

The former is probably clearer, if marginally less efficient; and the
idea of worrying about this degree of performance difference in
MOO-Code is kind of silly.  It's possible that a
something:is_logged_in() verb would be nice for clarity, since this is
fairly often wanted information.

--Erik/JF

From ipac.caltech.edu!dave Wed Sep 22 10:36:21 1993
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 10:26:57 -0700
From:	dave@ipac.caltech.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com


Testing if players are logged in:

   if (who in connected_players())
      ...do stuff
   endif

Use the built-in function connected_players().


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Sep 22 10:40:22 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "10:27:05" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "11" "Checking if a player is logged in" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Billy Chambless's message of Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:18:52 PDT <9309221618.AA65380@whale.st.usm.edu>"
Message-ID: <9309221727.AA03279@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 10:27:05 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Checking if a player is logged in

$object_utils:connected(object)

Probably not in your core, completely trivial:

$object_utils:"connected"   this none this
 1:  ":connected(object) => true iff object is a connected player.";
 2:  "equivalent to (object in connected_players()) perhaps with less server overhead";
 3:  "use object:is_listening() if you want to allow for puppets and other non-player objects that still 'care' about what's said.";
 4:  return 1 + connected_seconds(@args);

Don't forget to make it !d

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Wed Sep 22 10:46:23 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "10:31:45" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: Checking if a player is logged in" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <93Sep22.103156pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 10:31:45 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Checking if a player is logged in

Frequently, what people want is 

  something:is_listening()

which is used to tell if something somehow cares whether it hears
messages. I installed this for use by the generic announcer, following
dog, etc.

The idea is that a player :is_listening if the player is logged on.
A puppet :is_listening if it is forwarding to something that
:is_listening, a vehicle or portable room :is_listening if it is
passing messages inward to something that :is_listening, etc.


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Wed Sep 22 10:52:24 1993
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In-Reply-to: "lynch@ils.nwu.edu's message of Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:55:11 PDT <9309221655.AA03697@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>"
Message-ID: <9309221737.AA04105@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 10:37:21 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: managing libraries

Uh, we just up/download the appropriate definitions to/from our client
and sometimes remember to tell *core that we did it.  On OpalMOO their
@maogram maintains a time stamp in the verb code itself (this is a
good idea, maybe LMoo should do it).  I use @dump to port things to
other moos, this always entails a bit of editing of the @dump script
but it hasn't bothered me enough to figure out the real hard thing of
actually getting a script creator that is bulletproof.  (Well, #404 on
LMoo is pretty bulletproof, but its output is hard to read.)

$code_utils.buildin_props has a list of built in properties.  It must
be maintained by hand if you add a builtin to the server.

From repo.unipress.com!joe Wed Sep 22 13:13:05 1993
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             <199309212238.AA20392@aerospace.aero.org>t"
Message-ID: <9309212355.AA02054@repo.unipress.com>
Date:	Tue, 21 Sep 1993 16:45:05 -0700
From:	joe@repo.unipress.com
To:	obrien@aero.org
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, joe@repo.unipress.com
Subject: Re: Excessive CPU usage


> Yes, this is precisely the change that was made on PLATO: from
> voluntary, Smalltalk-style "yield" scheduling to preemptive scheduling.
> It was a big help.
> Mike O'Brien

Yah, but it does not solve the problem of already existing verbs which rely on
the fact that they will *>NOT<* be preempted until they explicitly say they
should be.

Refer to the pathetic thread I'm ashamed to have started here a short while
ago to see what happens when you try to remove this quality and make
preemptions happen implicitly.

MOO is pretty firmly rooted in this "yield" scheduling style you refer to. 
Even if you put in implicit preemption and rewrote the Core database to take
it into account, I doubt you'd have an easy time herding neophyte programmers
into using it.  Personally, I have a hard enough time trying to explain fork().

I'm shutting up now!  Really!

--joe

From lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz!ard Wed Sep 22 14:18:20 1993
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 <9309221559.AA42772@whale.st.usm.edu>t.
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Message-ID: <9309222103.AA01964@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:03:45 -0700
From:	Andrew Donkin <ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
To: moo-cows.PARC@Xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list creation

Hi; you say:

|(wonder if I could do my software engineering course in MOO!)

	That's a nice point, and I've been thinking about it for a while.
One software engineering course here uses Smalltalk on PC's, and I think
that a MOO might be a better(?) way to teach the OO concept.  There are
arguments against, of course, like students spending too much time
"playing" in the MUD instead of programming in it.  However our MOO started
out with virtually nothing; our students had to develop it from scratch, so
there was nothing to "play" with.
	The killer, of course, is the lack of any graphical interaction
(which Smalltalk has).  However it sounds like a lot of people are working
on that one, too.
	I think the way a MOO lets you interact with your ojects is unique,
and a tremendous incentive for a student.

	Anyway, I am curious about any MUDs in educational use (pref.
MOOs).  I am more interested in programming, rather that virtual museums or
lecturing via MUDs, for example.  I'd be interested in any comments on the
matter.

	Thanks -

,------------------------------------------------------------------------,
|               Andrew Donkin - ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz             |
|          Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato         |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'

From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Wed Sep 22 14:45:44 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "14:31:09" "-0700" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" nil "8" "Class projects" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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       \"Re: Mailing list creation\" (Sep 22,  2:03pm) Hole"
Message-ID: <9309222131.AA07763@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:31:09 -0700
From:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Class projects

You might consider coolmud.  It's the next version after moo, and sfw
applied a lot of the knowledge from moo towards cool.  Cool abstracts
things even further than moo does, and colmud (someone elses) will go even
further can cool.

PS: Sorry Pavel.  :)

-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Wed Sep 22 14:47:05 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "14:33:50" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "17" "MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:33:50 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO + gaming system[s]

For some time now, I've been thinking that a MUD + a gaming system (eg AD&D
or gurps or war-games) would be really cool.

I'm envisioning a world where the MUD itself is the DM (modulo wizard
'fixes') and various puppets (term?) would be the npcs.

Has anybody already tried this?

Can anybody tell me why it's a really stupid idea?

Assuming negative responses to the first two, any people with tons o' MOO
experience and/or tons o' gaming experience wanna collaborate on such a
beast?
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Wed Sep 22 14:54:16 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "14:46:04" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "11" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:46:04 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]

Have you been living in a MOO-cave for the past two years? ;)

There have been numerous MOO-RPGs and MOOs devoted entirely to a 
 a gaming environment.  Muds in general spring from the gaming
 tradition, tho sadly many (especially Dikus and LPs) tend to be
 more hack-and-slash than role-playing.

Take a look at LRPG for the oldest example.  It's been around longer
 than 90% of the LambdaMOO wizards.

-quinn

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Wed Sep 22 14:58:37 1993
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:49:26 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]

Just realised you're coming from NWU.  I co-wizzed DalMOO-- an
 RPG-MOO at that very university a year or so ago.

-quinn again

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Wed Sep 22 15:03:38 1993
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:53:34 -0700
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT


> For some time now, I've been thinking that a MUD + a gaming system (eg AD&D
> or gurps or war-games) would be really cool.
>
> I'm envisioning a world where the MUD itself is the DM (modulo wizard
> 'fixes') and various puppets (term?) would be the npcs.
>
> Has anybody already tried this?

Uh, aren't the vast majority of MUDs exactly that?


From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Wed Sep 22 15:23:30 1993
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Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 15:07:42 -0700
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Bouncing Mail
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Everytime I send mail to this list, I get MAILER-DAEMON@.local sending
 me:

While talking to muds01.mu.wvnet.edu:
>>> HELO .local
<<< 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized as local
554 <laflamm1@muds01.mu.wvnet.edu>... Service unavailable

Then it shows me the message I sent.  Am I doing something wrong or is this
 happening to everyone?

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Sep 22 16:05:26 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "22" "September" "1993" "15:58:08" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "48" "Re: Bouncing Mail" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Wed, 22 Sep 1993 15:07:42 PDT.\"
             <01H39AVOKJ0YB3JS5F@conrad.appstate.edu>ave
	noth"
Message-ID: <9309222258.AA13660@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 15:58:08 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bouncing Mail

>   Everytime I send mail to this list, I get MAILER-DAEMON@.local sending
>    me:
>   
>   While talking to muds01.mu.wvnet.edu:
>   >>> HELO .local
>   <<< 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized as local
>   554 <laflamm1@muds01.mu.wvnet.edu>... Service unavailable

If you see stuff like this, forward it to the list maintainer.  Whether it's a
bug at wvnet or a bug at xerox, the maintainer will have some idea what to do
(if time permits).
   
And while I'm at it, since we seem to have picked up a bunch of new subscribers, 
I'll insert, for the benefit of that (hopefully small) percentage that might
otherwise end up branding themselves as clueless idiots,

General rule #1: 
   For an Internet mailing list named "foo@bar.baz", the maintainer's address
   is usually "foo-request@bar.baz", so (as a COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE)
   for THIS mailing list (i.e., "moo-cows@parc.xerox.com"), the maintainer's
   address would be (and, in fact, is)

	moo-cows-request@parc.xerox.com

   So (as a COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE), if you, say, wanted to be 
   REMOVED from this list, you should send mail to

	moo-cows-request@parc.xerox.com
   
   Once again, that's

	moo-cows-request@parc.xerox.com

   Save this message if you think you might have trouble remembering.
   
Friendly warning #1:
   If you send stuff that should be going to the list maintainer to the 
   ENTIRE list, you run the risk of severely annoying lots of random people.
   You may as well just send a "Hi! I'm a clueless idiot" message to the 
   entire list.

Apologies to those of you who aren't clueless idiots.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From cs.uchicago.edu!harris Wed Sep 22 22:51:39 1993
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Message-ID: <9309230544.AA19270@tartarus.uchicago.edu>
Date:	Wed, 22 Sep 1993 22:44:01 -0700
From:	Adam Harris <harris@cs.uchicago.edu>
To:	Andrew Donkin <ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list creation

> 	Anyway, I am curious about any MUDs in educational use (pref.
> MOOs).  I am more interested in programming, rather that virtual museums or
> lecturing via MUDs, for example.  I'd be interested in any comments on the
> matter.
> 

That feels like my take on it as well--only shamefacedly can I admit
that I learned what real OO is, not from C++, but from MOO.
Ah, what can be done to remedy that.

You mentioned that the "killer" is lack of visual interface.  From what
I can discern, most of the visual interface being programmed or planned
into hacked servers or clients relates precisely to stuff like virtual
museums (visual effects/pictures in a room), lecturing via MOO (Pavel's
AstroMOO (sp?)), or even maneuvering around in rooms (Matrix rooms, vector
rooms, boxology, etc).  The idea of graphics for design/programming
purposes never occurred to me before.

Is there any work being done to use graphics
as a tool for programming?   I don't have any specific ideas, but it
seems to me that the highly structured coding environment would be
ideal for using client-side graphics.
Does anyone know anything about this, or even have strong opinions 
on the matter?

-Adam

..................................................................
Adam Harris                                 harris@cs.uchicago.edu
Univ. of Chicago, CS Dept. Tech. Typesetter         (312) 772-6664
Onshore Techie Consultant, VCS Chicago member
..................................................................


From netcom.com!frankc Thu Sep 23 02:34:38 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "23" "September" "1993" "02:26:37" "-0700" "Frank Crowell" "frankc@netcom.com " nil "31" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 02:26:37 -0700
From:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-COWS)
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]


Well, i must be living in a moo-cave too.  First of all,
there probably aren't more that 10 known MOOs and two
of those are Lambda and the dead GodNet.  Compare that
with over 200 Lp and diku muds.  I would not call MOOs
numerous.

I believe the writer was asking for a MOO more
like what lynx was working on.  The only MOOs that seem to meet
the original requests was GodNet (now gone) and the RPG subset
at Lambda.

to build an ad&d or heros (or whatever) system you have to
build some things in the infrastructure. Generally there
has to be some notions of animation, action-reaction, and maybe even
heartbeats.  This may also mean that rooms have to be reset.
Combat and other action has to be synchronized.  The objects 
should have properties such as damage, defense, or whatever.
NPCs have to be able to act and react. Heartbeats or other mechanisms 
control healing, disease, or drunkeness.

I know that there has been several attempts at building such
MOOs but i have yet to see a working version. This also includes GodNet,
which was a good attempt at the npc animation part, but was weak 
in the 'combat' part. *The keyword is "MOO", not lp or diku.* 

Finally the writer was asking about puppets.  I thought that MOO
supported puppet objects; anyone know for sure? 

-- 
[Maddog's VirtualStuff Emporium          frankc@netcom.COM]

From netcom.com!frankc Thu Sep 23 02:38:18 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "23" "September" "1993" "02:32:32" "-0700" "Frank Crowell" "frankc@netcom.com " nil "10" "re: muds+games, my bad reading" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 02:32:32 -0700
From:	frankc@netcom.com (Frank Crowell)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO-COWS)
Subject: re: muds+games, my bad reading

whoops my bad reading. the writer said MUDs , not MOO.
in that sense, lp and diku are covered.  but naturally I am
more interested in MOOs.  so its my question: any MOO RPG
ad&d, grups, hero, whatever out there? if so, who are you?

[well, what did you expect at 2 am?]


-- 
[Maddog's VirtualStuff Emporium          frankc@netcom.COM]

From media.mit.edu!asb Thu Sep 23 07:27:12 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "23" "September" "1993" "07:16:46" "-0700" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "23" "Client for Programming  (was Re: Mailing list creation )" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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             <9309230544.AA19270@tartarus.uchicago.edu> rumor asupermod"
Message-ID: <9309231416.AA22468@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 07:16:46 -0700
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	Adam Harris <harris@cs.uchicago.edu>
cc:	Andrew Donkin <ard@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz>, MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com,
	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Client for Programming  (was Re: Mailing list creation )


> Is there any work being done to use graphics
> as a tool for programming?

Yes.  Adam Skwersky and I have a Macintosh client designed to make programming
easier almost ready for brave alpha testers.  Send email to asb@media.mit.edu
and adams@media.mit.edu if you'd like to give it a try  (should be
ready in 2-3 weeks.)

It doesn't do much that mud.el users don't already enjoy... but it's a
big step up from raw telnet!  Features include:

-- help pops up in a separate window
-- object browser that shows you all of an object's verbs and properties.
	Double-click on a verb or property to edit it.  Pull-down menu
	to climb the hierarchy and look at the parent object
-- WYSIWYG editing of verbs and properties.  Check boxes to change
	permissions on your verb or property.

We're trying to keep it simple for now, but ideas for extensions will
certainly be appreciated.

-- Amy

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Thu Sep 23 10:40:04 1993
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Okay, I know that Monohaze MOO is supposed to be working on an RPG system
 but I haven't been able to connect to them in a while.  I'm building
 an RPG system over on OpalMOO but it's a long and painful process so
 don't come asking when it will be done because I don't know.  One of
 these days.

---- Dov Sherman
     (aka APHiD aka Delores aka Whazzat aka Anne_Merkel aka Ranma-chan)


From crl.com!arthurc Thu Sep 23 11:24:08 1993
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 11:07:59 -0700
From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	frankc@netcom.com, MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
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   And of course, LambdaMOO has at least one RPG area. I know some folks
who go to Lambda only to head for the dragons and sorcerors. Which brings
me to a question/observation:
   Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD by the
addition of an RPG area? If your home computer has limited resources, I'd
think there would be a danger that a sizeable number of folks would just
zoom through the MOO in order to get to the RPG area. Of course, if the
gaming is thematically connected to the MOO theme, then no prob.... I
guess. But I would think there could be a danger of losing a MOO's
identity if the RPG part loomed bigger and bigger.




From ccs.neu.edu!nop Thu Sep 23 11:37:29 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "23" "September" "1993" "11:26:55" "-0700" "Jay Carlson" "nop@ccs.neu.edu" nil "8" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 11:26:55 -0700
From:	Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>
To:	arthurc@crl.com
cc:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu, frankc@netcom.com, MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]

> Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD 

Too late, MOOs already are MUDs.

Jay Carlson
nop@io.com    nop@ccs.neu.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Thu Sep 23 11:42:29 1993
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Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
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>   Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD by the
>addition of an RPG area? If your home computer has limited resources, I'd
>think there would be a danger that a sizeable number of folks would just
>zoom through the MOO in order to get to the RPG area. Of course, if the
>gaming is thematically connected to the MOO theme, then no prob.... I
>guess. But I would think there could be a danger of losing a MOO's
>identity if the RPG part loomed bigger and bigger.

Well, I take a bit more tyrranical of an attitude about themeliness
 at OpalMOO than some do, so you can be assured that the RPG area
 is very thematic.  In fact, I think that area is necessary to really
 complete the gritty, backstreets feel.  Also, I'm not limiting RPG
 to hack-n-slash.  We also have drug addiction, sex, disease, bad
 relationships, and a host of other things.  It's gonna be slick!


From aero.org!obrien Thu Sep 23 12:45:57 1993
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References: <9309212355.AA02054@repo.unipress.com>
Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 12:32:43 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Excessive CPU usage



>>Yah, but it does not solve the problem of already existing verbs which rely on
>>the fact that they will *>NOT<* be preempted until they explicitly say they
>>should be.

Well, for what it's worth, PLATO "solved" this problem by leaving in their
equivalent of "suspend()" (note: not "suspend_if_needed()").  This would
guarantee you a full timeslice when it returned, for critical code sections.

They did this because it was easy.  Actually what's needed are markers for
critical code sections, which turn off preemption (suspending if required before
beginning the section).  Such atomic locks will be necessary eventually anyway,
when MOOs move to a distributed architecture.  Others may argue, but I'm
pretty sure they will, sooner or later.  ("They called me mad when I...")

Mike O'Brien

From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Thu Sep 23 14:34:28 1993
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 14:24:33 -0700
From:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu, frankc@netcom.com
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]

Well, um, MonoHaze was running on a machine I got them.  I did warn them
that the particular disk they were using was not on the normal backup
schedule.  And, well, one day we came in and Solaris had eaten every
single disk (5 machines, 5 disks).  I'm not sure what the status is now.
We couldn't recover the db, and there is still nothing to be done about
local backups for those disks if they continue working on the MOO.


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From crl.com!arthurc Thu Sep 23 15:03:20 1993
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 14:49:50 -0700
From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
Reply-to: Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
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  Care to say more about this? Are you saying that there's no difference
between a MOO and a MUD? I realze that some writers (like Brenda Laurel) 
treat computers as theater. But if MOOs = MUDs, then why use two terms?

On Thu, 23 Sep 1993, Jay Carlson wrote:

> > Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD 
> 
> Too late, MOOs already are MUDs.
> 
> Jay Carlson
> nop@io.com    nop@ccs.neu.edu
> 






From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Thu Sep 23 15:47:54 1993
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Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:39:04 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com


Caramba!

|  Care to say more about this? Are you saying that there's no difference
|between a MOO and a MUD? I realze that some writers (like Brenda Laurel) 
|treat computers as theater. But if MOOs = MUDs, then why use two terms?
|
|On Thu, 23 Sep 1993, Jay Carlson wrote:
|
|> > Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD 
|> 
|> Too late, MOOs already are MUDs.
|> 
|> Jay Carlson
|> nop@io.com    nop@ccs.neu.edu
|> 

no, No NO!  Don't do it, don't take the bait!


From crl.com!arthurc Thu Sep 23 16:22:57 1993
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From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	Ian McFarland <imf@netcom.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
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  Irate? No one irate over here. Just trying to address the question of
adding MUD-type environments to MOOs, which seem to me to be related, but
heading in different directions.
  The very header of this thread says a lot: No one would say MUD + gaming
systems, as if they were distinct. But a MOO seems to be more socially
oriented, a MUD more fantasies of spellcasting and killing in a fantasy world.
  Attend a meeting of the Netoric Group at MediaMOO, with their discussion
of strategies for using computers to teach composition. Now imagine such a
session in a MUD. MOOs clearly grew out of MUDs; but the dungeon aspect is
being displaced by other kinds of interactions.
  Is a MOO "better" than a MUD? I wouldn't say so. Depends on what you
want out of real-time interaction with other people. Are they different,
and evolving in different directions? I would say so.Is adding an RPG area
to a MOO, as Opal seems to be doing, a good thing? They clearly think it
is, and more power to them. My only concern is that, if you're trying to
develop a MOO with other kinds of object-oriented building and/or more
RL-type social interaction, then the addition of an RPG (MUD-like) area
might turn out to be a drain on your resources. 



From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Thu Sep 23 16:32:38 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "23" "September" "1993" "16:23:50" "-0700" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" "schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu" nil "113" "A Dino Speaks out" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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       \"Re: MOO + gaming system[s]\" (Sep 23,  3:28pm)t "
Message-ID: <9309232324.AA26411@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 16:23:50 -0700
From:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: A Dino Speaks out

First off, lemme get out my cane and bifocals (and a couple of
asbestos suits).

I've mudded for a long long time.  TinyMUD, actually.  Back in those days
a MUD was a wonderful game you played.  You had to do it in secret, or
else the network people would turn off routing to your site.  It wasn't
quite arpanet I don't think.  I was naive in those days, so I don't
rememeber.

There was only one mud in those days, and telnet.  I used emacs myself
(M-x shell and a telnet command) just so I could use real editing
commands.  You couldn't page people.  If you wanted to see someone you
had to sit in a popular room with a 'say' typed and wait for them to
walk through.  There was no posing either (I came right after thepose
command was added).  You had to lock yourself against yourself, and
put your pose into the fail message then rob yourself.

On muds you strove for creativity.  Muds had a very limited command
scope.  People learned to do great things in mud.  Exits that went
nowhere, but were described so that you could look at things in a
room.  Exits named 'look flowers' that were locked, and showed you and
the rest of the room a cute message.  Lots of beautiful building.
Wonderful, fantastic creations spread across a torrent of telnet
connections.

It was like a competition.  You had to build the most wonderfully
described and 'exit'ed area's to attract people.  The more people who
saw (and liked) what you built the better you felt.  Several names
stand out in history, TinyMUD, Islandia, TinyWORLD, MbongoMUD, PoohMUD
(the greatest of them all), and others.

Soon, Lachesis added programming to mud.  Forth was hacked in.  There
was a flurry of activity as people sought to make the most wonderful
programs.  TinySex had also been disocvered, and people realized they
could use those program to view those escapades.  Spying came in, and
MUF traps to imprison people.  Brigadoon mud came, and there was a
place just for cool programming.  People went there for techinical
reasons, and to make the best program that everyone else would want (a
CUSP?  AYEWBF?).

There had been other varients, combat muds, and I don't know their
history, but I think they are as old, or older than TinyMUDs.

When I first went to a MOO it was a long time ago.  I distinctly
remember two moos.  One was a true ghondmoo, and the other was
LambdaMOO.  My character from Lambda is gone (I have a new one).  I
don't know what happened to it.  I can date the time I came to Lambda
by a post from Haakon about a conversation he logged in a room (The
hot tub?) about how the 'ps' listing looked malformed right before a
server crash.  Perhaps Haakon can remember when this was.

LambdaMOO was a lot of fun then.  People were all still wide eyed at
the wonder of it all.  There was a lot of beautiful building, and some
fantastic coding.  IT was fast then, too.  No lag.  I don't go there
much anymore because of the lag.  I digress.  I went to LambdaMOO and
explored.  I looked at all the wonderful things, and every so often I
saw another mudder, wandering through the house exploring the same
things I had explored (or would soon explore).

I was away from the house for a while.  On a trip, I suppose you could
say.  I spent time at other muds, some of which still had the innocent
wonder of mudding (like OpusMUD, Pegasus, TinyWORLD), and others were
cesspools of spying, hate, tinysex, and power struggles.

When I came back to the house, I found a lot of new people there.  I
found a lot of sex, and spying, and hate.  I don't know about the
power struggles.  Haakon seems to have choosen well, and I don't think
there have ever been any.  The people who visited the house were
different than the people I used to know.

The most noticable thing was that the people I used to know were
intelligent.  I had seen this on a lot of other muds in my trip.  I
had seen many muds that were successful, with a small, close group of
players suddenly be overrun by new people.  People who knew nothing
about what the mud was, or how it worked, or even how they had gotten
there.  People who thought it was just a cool place to talk to other
poeple.  People who didn't care for the other people whose home they
were invading , people there because they had heard that you could
have sex on a mud, people who just liked to ruin the fun for other
people.  It's a self-perpetuating process, unfortunately.  Once a mud
has fallen, the climb back to greatness is near impossible.

When I came back to LambdaMOO I found that everywhere I went were
people engaged in 'small talk'.  There isn't a lot of sex visible on
LambdaMOO, but that could only be because the lag is prohibitive.
There are a lot of clueless people there, who don't really understand
what is going on, and just want to talk to someone on the giant chat
line they think the internet is.

I don't see any more building there that even holds a light to what
had come before.  On muds, when programming came out people learned to
program before they learned to build.  The result was a poorly built
area with some snazzy program in it.  The program might have been
useful, or interesting, but the location was bad.  A well written love
note delivered on paper that your cat puked on just invoke the right
feelings.

Lately people here have been discussing if a MOO is a MUD or vice
versa.  A MOO is a mud.  In these modern days, most muds are nothing
more than a glorified talk link with a little atmosphere.

That was my point.  If you don't understand it, then you probably have
never been on a good MUD before.

I have 56 meg free in /usr/spool/mail, and my internet-standard
asbestos suit is ready.






-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Thu Sep 23 23:09:54 1993
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Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
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> Care to say more about this? Are you saying that there's no difference
> between a MOO and a MUD? I realze that some writers (like Brenda Laurel) 
> treat computers as theater. But if MOOs = MUDs, then why use two terms?

Well, MOO is an acronym which stands for "MUD Object-Oriented", so I've
 been told.  And since MUD is an acronym for Multi-User Dungeon/Dimension/
 Demesne, I guess you could say it's one darn obfuscated term.

MOO simply denotes a MUD with a particular design environment.  It's a
 different flavor of MUD just as we have other MUD varieties such as
 LP-MUD, dikuMUD, MUSE, MUSH, and so on.  Personally, I prefer MOO
 because it has a much easier to use environment, in my opinion.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From cs.stanford.edu!bhayes Fri Sep 24 07:27:33 1993
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 07:10:45 -0700
From:	bhayes@cs.stanford.edu
To:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]

Pfui.  Saying MOO stands for "MUD Object-Oriented" and therefore all
MOOs are MUDS misses the point.  They seem to be attracting different
cultures.  It's like saying "a Hopi is just a Londoner who doesn't
speak English."

From aristotle.ils.nwu.edu!dbora Fri Sep 24 07:50:36 1993
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 07:18:47 -0700
From:	dbora@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Donald Bora)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LambdaMoo server programming

  

Has anyone out there messed around with the Lambda server code.  I am 
thinking about making some modifications to the code and was wondering
if anyone has made changes and knows the code.



				Just curious.


-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Donald F. Bora                            |                    |     | 
The Institute for the Learning Sciences   |                    |  O  |
Northwestern University                   |                    (--|--)
Evanston, Ill                             |                       | 
e-mail: dbora@ils.nwu.edu                 |                      / \
work:   (708) 467-1972                    |  
             --------Be excellent to each other--------

From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Fri Sep 24 08:29:09 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "08:14:29" "-0700" "Jack Eifrig" "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu" nil "12" "Command-line-esque Parsing" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:14:29 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Command-line-esque Parsing


This is such an obvious task that I can't believe I am unable to locate
a verb in the *_utils objects that does what I want:

Given a string, I want to parse it up into a dobjstr, prepstr, and iobjstr,
just like the server would.

The original motivation is to be able to handle command lines with more than
one preposition in them, like "look at foo in bar".

Any suggestions?


From server.cs.jhu.edu!eifrig Fri Sep 24 08:47:01 1993
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             <9309241418.AA16454@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>"
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:27:02 -0700
From:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

Can someone please tell me how to use Mr. Spell?  It's sitting in the
LambdaCore distribution, but for the life of me I can't figure out
it's verb interface.  :-)

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Fri Sep 24 09:04:02 1993
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:49:19 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Command-line-esque Parsing

$string_utils:parse_command(cmdline-string)

It returns a big cryptic list.  Look at the help to try to figure it out.

-quinn

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Sep 24 10:07:47 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "09:24:29" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "164" "Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "eifrig@server.cs.jhu.edu's message of Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:27:02 PDT <93Sep24.082706pdt.11801(4)@alpha.xerox.com>"
Message-ID: <9309241624.AA23627@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 09:24:29 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

Well, we managed to get Mr. Spell without the supporting user verbs.
Here are the supporting verbs that need to go on a player class.
(There may be more; others should feel free to post additional bits of
script that need to be executed.)

@verb $player:"@addword @adddict"   any any any
@program $player:@addword
set_task_perms(player);
if (verb == "@adddict" && !(player in $spell.trusted || player.wizard))
  player:tell("You may not add to the master dictionary. The following words
will instead by put in a list of words to be approved for later addition to the
dictionary. Thanks for your contribution.");
endif
if (!argstr)
  player:notify(tostr("Usage: ", verb, " one or more words"));
  player:notify(tostr("       ", verb, " object:verb"));
  player:notify(tostr("       ", verb, " object.prop"));
elseif (data = $spell:get_input(argstr))
  num_learned = 0;
  for i in [1..length(data)]
    line = $string_utils:words(data[i]);
    for ii in [1..length(line)]
      if (seconds_left() < 2)
        suspend(0);
      endif
      if (verb == "@adddict")
        result = $spell:add_word(line[ii]);
        if (result == E_PERM)
          if ($spell:find_exact(line[ii]) == $failed_match)
            player:notify(tostr("Submitted for approval:  ", line[ii]));
            $spell:submit(line[ii]);
          else
            player:notify(tostr("Already in dictionary:  " + line[ii]));
          endif
        elseif (typeof(result) == ERR)
          player:notify(tostr(result));
        elseif (result)
          player:notify(tostr("Word added:  ", line[ii]));
          num_learned = num_learned + 1;
        else
          player:notify(tostr("Already in dictionary:  " + line[ii]));
        endif
      elseif (!$spell:valid(line[ii]))
        player.dict = listappend(player.dict, line[ii]);
        player:notify(tostr("Word added:  ", line[ii]));
        num_learned = num_learned + 1;
      endif
    endfor
  endfor
  player:notify(tostr(num_learned ? num_learned | "No", " word", num_learned !=
1 ? "s " | " ", "added to ", verb == "@adddict" ? "main " | "personal ",
"dictionary."));
endif
.
@verb $player:"@spell @cspell @complete"   any any any
@program $player:@spell
"@spell a word or phrase  -- Spell check a word or phrase.";
"@spell thing.prop  -- Spell check a property. The value must be a string or a
list of strings.";
"@spell thing:verb  -- Spell check a verb. Only the quoted strings in the verb
are checked.";
"@cspell word  -- Spell check a word, and if it is not in the dictionary,
offset suggestions about what the right spelling might be. This actually works
with thing.prop and thing:verb too, but it is too slow to be useful--it takes
maybe 30 seconds per unknown word.";
"@complete prefix  -- List all the word in the dictionary which begin with the
given prefix. For example, `@complete zoo' lists zoo, zoologist, zoology, and
zoom.";
"";
"Mr. Spell was written by waffle (waffle@euclid.humboldt.edu), for use by";
"MOOers all over this big green earth. (....and other places....)";
"This monstrosity programmed Sept-Oct 1991, when I should have been studying.";
set_task_perms(player);
if (!argstr)
  if (verb == "@complete")
    player:notify(tostr("Usage: ", verb, " word-prefix"));
  else
    player:notify(tostr("Usage: ", verb, " object.property"));
    player:notify(tostr("       ", verb, " object:verb"));
    player:notify(tostr("       ", verb, " one or more words"));
  endif
elseif (verb == "@complete")
  if ((foo = $string_utils:from_list($spell:sort($spell:find_all(argstr)), "
")) == "")
    player:notify(tostr("No words found that begin with `", argstr, "'"));
  else
    player:notify(tostr(foo));
  endif
else
  "@spell or @cspell.";
  corrected_words = {};
  data = $spell:get_input(argstr);
  if (data)
    misspelling = 0;
    for i in [1..length(data)]
      line = $spell:words(data[i]);
      for ii in [1..length(line)]
        if (ticks_left() < 1000 || seconds_left() < 2)
          suspend(0);
        endif
        if (!$spell:valid(line[ii]))
          if (rindex(line[ii], "s") == length(line[ii]) &&
$spell:valid(line[ii][1..length(line[ii]) - 1]))
            msg = "Possible match: " + line[ii];
            msg = msg + " " + (length(data) != 1 ? "(line " + tostr(i) + ")  "
| "  ");
          elseif (rindex(line[ii], "'s") == length(line[ii]) - 1 &&
$spell:valid(line[ii][1..length(line[ii]) - 2]))
            msg = "Possible match: " + line[ii];
            msg = msg + " " + (length(data) != 1 ? "(line " + tostr(i) + ")  "
| "  ");
          else
            misspelling = misspelling + 1;
            msg = "Unknown word: " + line[ii] + (length(data) != 1 ? " (line "
+ tostr(i) + ")  " | "  ");
            if (verb == "@cspell" && !(line[ii] in corrected_words))
              corrected_words = listappend(corrected_words, line[ii]);
              guesses = $string_utils:from_list($spell:guess_words(line[ii]), "
");
              if (guesses == "")
                msg = msg + "-No guesses";
              else
                msg = msg + "-Possible correct spelling";
                msg = msg + (index(guesses, " ") ? "s: " | ": ");
                msg = msg + guesses;
              endif
            endif
          endif
          player:notify(tostr(msg));
        endif
      endfor
    endfor
    player:notify(tostr("Found ", misspelling ? misspelling | "no", "
misspelled word", misspelling == 1 ? "." | "s."));
  elseif (data != $failed_match)
    player:notify(tostr("Nothing found to spellcheck!"));
  endif
endif
.
@verb $player:"@rmword"   any any any
@program $player:@rmword
set_task_perms(player);
if (argstr in player.dict)
  player.dict = setremove(player.dict, argstr);
  player:notify(tostr("`", argstr, "' removed from personal dictionary."));
else
  player:notify(tostr("`", argstr, "' not found in personal dictionary."));
endif
@verb $player:"@rmdict"   any any any
@program $player:@rmdict
set_task_perms(player);
result = $spell:remove_word(argstr);
if (result == E_PERM)
  player:notify("You may not remove words from the main dictionary. Use
`@rmword' to remove words from your personal dictionary.");
elseif (typeof(result) == ERR)
  player:notify(tostr(result));
elseif (result)
  player:notify(tostr("`", argstr, "' removed."));
else
  player:notify(tostr("`", argstr, "' not found in dictionary."));
endif
.


From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Fri Sep 24 10:30:49 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "10:16:12" "-0700" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" nil "14" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 10:16:12 -0700
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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> Pfui.  Saying MOO stands for "MUD Object-Oriented" and therefore all
> MOOs are MUDS misses the point.  They seem to be attracting different
> cultures.  It's like saying "a Hopi is just a Londoner who doesn't
> speak English."

I never said that most MUDs were in the same league with most MOOs.  Just
 that MOO is a MUD environment.  MOO's environment has made more advanced
 development possible in MOO than in most other MUDs.  I guess it depends
 on if you think MUD is a dirty word or not.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Fri Sep 24 10:45:20 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "10:22:36" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" nil "12" "Just an idea..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in From: address found on alpha.xerox.com:
	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033	 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
															^-illegal special character in phrase
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 10:22:36 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Just an idea...

I don't know how "implementable" it would be, but it would be really nice if
some core objects could be made available in "options packages," like little
core dumps of very select objects which could be loaded into existing DB's
with a wizardly "patch()" function. That way, anyone who actually had a need
for Mr. Spell (for example) could go get it off parcftp, and everyone else
need not worry about "what is this for and how do I use it and why does it
take up 40% of the distribution core?" Also, those with established DB's would
be able to patch in neato new stuff like $gopher et al. Presumably, it would
work to have a function that just commandeered the next few available objnum's
and added the necessary props to #0.

====Rob (CF/Albion/Gelfin).

From mit.edu!ghudson Fri Sep 24 10:55:51 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "10:47:53" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "48" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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             <01H3BT8JLN7EB8JLDM@conrad.appstate.edu>"
Message-ID: <9309241747.AA28407@snorkelwacker.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 10:47:53 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]


bhayes:
> Pfui.  Saying MOO stands for "MUD Object-Oriented" and therefore all
> MOOs are MUDS misses the point.  They seem to be attracting different
> cultures.  It's like saying "a Hopi is just a Londoner who doesn't
> speak English."

ab3588:
> I never said that most MUDs were in the same league with most MOOs.
> Just that MOO is a MUD environment.  MOO's environment has made more
> advanced development possible in MOO than in most other MUDs.  I
> guess it depends on if you think MUD is a dirty word or not.

Sigh.  I really hate to add to this thread, but I'm getting tired of
the informed people failing to get through to the uninformed people.

MUD is a very broad term.  It encompasses LP-MUD and DikuMUD
(generally used as straightforward games, although LPmud does have a
C-like, object-oriented language, not terribly unlike MOO), as well as
TinyMUD (not used much any more), TinyMUCK, TinyMUSH, TinyMUSE
(popularly in use for chatting, just like most of what goes on on
LambdaMOO), UberMUD and UnterMUD (programmable servers taking a
functional approach, although not terribly different from MOO sans
inheritance; not much in use), COOLMUD, and Coldmud.

There is no attribute which distinguishes MOOs from other types of
muds.  MOOs are not the only socially-oriented muds, by a long shot;
they are vastly outnumbered in that regard by mushes and by mucks.
MOOs are not the only programmable servers; again, they are
outnumbered by LP-MUDs and by mucks.  MOOs are not the only
object-oriented servers; LP-MUD, COOLMUD, and Coldmud provide
object-oriented languages.

To address bhayes specificially: no, MOOs are *not* attracting
different cultures than other kinds of muds, unless you count media
researchers as a separate culture.  A significant number of other
types of servers are populated by people who have absolutely no
interest in killing orcs, or even in role-playing Star Trek
characters.

I suggest that people who still maintain that MOOs do not belong in
the category of 'mud' actually spend some time on a significant
variety of other brands of muds before they try to speak
authoritatively.

--GBH
Oh, and thank you, Schlake.


From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Fri Sep 24 11:01:12 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "10:52:30" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "21" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 10:52:30 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
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> > Pfui.  Saying MOO stands for "MUD Object-Oriented" and therefore all
> > MOOs are MUDS misses the point.  They seem to be attracting different
> > cultures.  It's like saying "a Hopi is just a Londoner who doesn't
> > speak English."
The communication problem here is that, while MOOs are tech nically a type
of MUD, the word MUD has a negative connotation to many people.
> 
> I never said that most MUDs were in the same league with most MOOs.  Just
>  that MOO is a MUD environment.  MOO's environment has made more advanced
>  development possible in MOO than in most other MUDs.  I guess it depends
>  on if you think MUD is a dirty word or not.
> 

MUD != battle-oriented LPMUD hack-n-slash.

And no, I'm not critcizing combat muds, just saying that MOOs
usually are more socially oriented.
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Blast it, Jim, I'm a programmer, not an electrician!!"
* =============================================================================

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Fri Sep 24 11:11:03 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "10:58:56" "-0700" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" nil "16" "Re: MOO + gaming system[s]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu
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Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]
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> And no, I'm not critcizing combat muds, just saying that MOOs
> usually are more socially oriented.

Uh, don't take this the wrong way but, it doesn't sound like you've been
 on many other MUDs.  A LOT of them are predominantly socially-oriented.
 As a general rule, dikuMUDs are hack-n-slash but most places that big
 with the word "Tiny" are social.

Interesting note: I remember that one MUD writer got so sick of people
 being ONLY social and using page too much that he made a MUD that only
 had ONE room.  As sort of talking-heads MUD.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From slac.stanford.edu!ENGBERG Fri Sep 24 11:14:03 1993
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> >    Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD by the
> 
> You mean lose its object-orientation?

most combat/sorcery MUDs out there are already object oriented.  some would
argue that the OO they've had for years (like found in LPMud) is a better
model of true OO ... multiple inheritance, none of this permissions bits
nonsense, etc.

of course, these non-dynamic drivers have their own problems, but the
implicit attitudes of superiority that many Mooers exude is not justified
by any conceptually revolutionary aspects of the programming environment.

-dave

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Fri Sep 24 11:45:16 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "11:26:40" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" nil "17" "Just an idea..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in From: address found on alpha.xerox.com:
	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences	Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
														       ^-illegal special character in phrase
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Message-ID: <9309241826.AA07153@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 11:26:40 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Just an idea...

I don't know if this went through the first time, I got the message back as
undeliverable (but it was kinda vague), so if you've seen this before, please
write me *personally* and tell me so...

Anyhow, as I was saying, I think it would be nice if objects could be dumped
into "option packages," like mini-db's that could be made publicly available
and loaded into existing databases with a wizardly "patch()" function. It 
would presumably commandeer the next few available objnum's and make
appropriate property additions to #0. Thus those who needed Mr. Spell (for
example) could get it off parcftp, and other people who didn't wouldn't
have to worry with the "what is this and how do I use it and why does it take
up 40% of the distributed core?" reaction. Also, those with established DB's
would be able to patch in neato new stuff like $gopher et al. As usual, I
can't speak to how implementable this might be, just that it would be nice
to have.

====Rob (CF/Gelfin/Albion)

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Sep 24 12:19:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "12:10:03" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "22" "Mailing list etiquette" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 12:10:03 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mailing list etiquette

Folks: Nearly every time you send to a mailing list that contains
several hundred recipients (such as moo-cows), some of those addresses
will be broken, and you will get an error message back.

Please do not resend your message just because you got an error
message back.  Look carefully at that message: it *will* tell you who
failed (albeit crytically).  As long as it was not
"moo-cows@xerox.com" that failed, then your message got through.  The
thing to do is wait a day or two and see if *you* receive your own
message.  If you do, then it got through to hundreds of people even
though you got a couple of failure.  Even then, if you don't get a
copy of your own message, it's better to ask a friend who's on the
list if e got the message instead of broadcasting it to the list
again.

If you want to be helpful, you can forward those failure messages to
*the list owner* (that's moo-cows-request@xerox.com in this case), who
can hopefully correct the problem in the list itself.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Fri Sep 24 12:34:10 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "12:12:57" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" nil "9" "Re:  Mailing list etiquette" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in From: address found on alpha.xerox.com:
	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7033 Mathematical Sciences	Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
														       ^-illegal special character in phrase
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Message-ID: <9309241912.AA07252@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 12:12:57 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, yduj@cs.stanford.edu
Subject: Re:  Mailing list etiquette

My apologies. The error was not, however an "I couldn't find this user" error,
it was alpha.xerox.com saying something like there were illegal characters in
the From: line. The message made it sound like the whole thing had bombed out.
I resent the message, not so much to make sure my mail got out as to see if
this was a recurring problem, or just a one-time glitch. As it turns out, the
problem happened again, and I'm trying to find out what caused it.

Again, sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
====Rob.

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Fri Sep 24 13:51:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "13:47:21" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "776" "Re: Mailing list etiquette [and other stuff, while I'm here]" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 13:47:21 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows-request@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mailing list etiquette [and other stuff, while I'm here]

#1:

Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu> sez:

>unless it was "moo-cows@xerox.com" that failed, then your message got through.

And yet, this mailing list has generated more errors per message than all
others I've been on.

So, is it possible that the keepers of the list are, um, too busy or too
broke or not knowledgable enough to do the job?  I ask only because if so,
there *HAS* to be somebody on the list who would be willing and able to
help out.  Alas, I'm willing, but not able.


#2

I was first sending to moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Somebody convinced me this was the correct address, despite its obvious
wierdness.

Then I saw moo-cow@parc.xerox.com, and said, now that's what it should be.

Finally, Judy (who seems to know what she's talking about, and is even
mentioned by handle in help) claims it's moo-cows@xerox.com.

So, like, are any of these likely to increase/lessen the error messages
below?


#3

Is there an FAQ for MOO specifically, or MUDs in general?


#4

Is there a beginner's manual anywhere?  I'm finding that some of my
questions are too stupid for some of the old-timers to tolerate.  [Not that
this bugs me a whole lot, but I'd just as soon RTFM as piss them off. :-)]


#5

Is there a *short* list of the 'best' MOOs/MUDs that are publically
accessible?  I once saw a *huge* one, but sorting out the wheat from the
chaff by trying to connect and checking them out would be far too
time-consuming?

[Errors returned referenced in #2]
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A copy of your message is being returned to you due to difficulties
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The following errors occurred during message delivery processing:


<hold NS:virtual.net/cname moo-cows-list@virtual.net 65534>: expired after
4 days, problem was: try again

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Subject: Undeliverable Mail
This mail message is undeliverable.
(Probably to or from system 'fnordbox')
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	Sincerely,
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-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Fri Sep 24 14:06:11 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "13:48:02" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "12" "Re: Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 13:48:02 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell

>Well, we managed to get Mr. Spell without the supporting user verbs.
>Here are the supporting verbs that need to go on a player class.
>(There may be more; others should feel free to post additional bits of
>script that need to be executed.)

Would it break any existing code to recycle Mr. Spell?

It's a huge thing that really doesn't seem all that used...
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From quickmail.apple.com!bob_monsen Fri Sep 24 14:10:52 1993
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:46:10 -0700
From:	"Bob Monsen" <bob_monsen@quickmail.apple.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Multiple Databases

                                                             Reply from the
desk of
                                                             Bob Monsen
 Subject:   Multiple Databases
A useful change to the server would be the addition of support for multiple
database files. Calling these new database files 'packages' clarifies things
slightly. One of these packages would be the "local" database, which contains
all local changes, and which is the only thing saved when checkpointing.
Another would be the "core" package, which contains what the current LambdaMoo
core contains (perhaps minus some functions that could be packaged separately).

I've already suggested something similar to this to Mr Curtis, but a more
general scheme would be useful for distributing the "packages" that were
suggested by thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu. Each object would need to have a
property containing its package, and possibly a list of prerequisite packages
that would be required to run.

Initially, there would be two packages, "core" and "local". The "core" package
would contain everything thats currently in the core database. The "local"
package would be used for creation of new objects. New packages could be
created as needed by changing the home package of an object (a wizardly
operation). The dump-database verb would be changed to dump a set of packages,
or even a named package, and checkpointing would only dump the "local" package.

One could easily distribute things like "Mr Spell" using this scheme, or have a
package for a dungeon & dragon simulator.

Note that there is already a scheme for separating the core objects from the
local objects for creating core databases. This is a conceptual extension to
that facility.

Having browsed the LambdaMoo server source, it looks like this sort of change
would be very easy to implement.

Comments?

Bob Monsen
Apple Computer


--------------------------------------
Date: 9/24/93 10:57
To: Bob Monsen
From: thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
I don't know how "implementable" it would be, but it would be really nice if
some core objects could be made available in "options packages," like little
core dumps of very select objects which could be loaded into existing DB's
with a wizardly "patch()" function. That way, anyone who actually had a need
for Mr. Spell (for example) could go get it off parcftp, and everyone else
need not worry about "what is this for and how do I use it and why does it
take up 40% of the distribution core?" Also, those with established DB's would
be able to patch in neato new stuff like $gopher et al. Presumably, it would
work to have a function that just commandeered the next few available objnum's
and added the necessary props to #0.

====Rob (CF/Albion/Gelfin).

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To: moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Just an idea...





From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Fri Sep 24 14:22:54 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "14:12:16" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "8" "Re: Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:12:16 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Mr. Spell
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>Would it break any existing code to recycle Mr. Spell?
No, it doesn't break any existing code. But it's so huge, that if you just
@recycle it, the task runs out of ticks...
Either recycle() it, or run a task deleting the properties before @recycle?
Any better methods?




From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Sep 24 14:49:35 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "14:39:16" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "16" "Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309242139.AA18163@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:39:16 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Mr. Spell

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   Date: 	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:12:16 PDT
   From: bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)

   >Would it break any existing code to recycle Mr. Spell?
   No, it doesn't break any existing code. But it's so huge, that if you just
   @recycle it, the task runs out of ticks...
   Either recycle() it, or run a task deleting the properties before @recycle?
   Any better methods?

I don't know any better methods; what I did in my private MOO was to
do the delete props task.  ;recycle($spell) is faster, but leaves a
hole.  To fill that hole, ;renumber(create(#1))  ;reset_max_object()
@recycle #xxx.  Also @rmprop #0.spell no matter what you do.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Sep 24 15:03:58 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "14:52:52" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "17" "Multiple Databases" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "\"Bob Monsen\"'s message of Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:46:10 PDT <9309242042.AA27511@jumbo.apple.com>"
Message-ID: <9309242152.AA21996@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:52:52 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bob_monsen@quickmail.apple.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Multiple Databases

Ah, the "scheme for separating the core objects from the local objects
for creating core databases" is quite destructive: it recycle()s all
non-core objects, and then uses renumber() on all the remaining
objects to compact things, finally ending with a reset_max_object().
This is done to a separate copy of the LambdaMOO database, producing a
much smaller core database.  Quite a bit of massaging of the objects
is done also, to prevent recycled object references, messages on
mailing lists, etc. from escaping into the resulting core.  Usually we
screw up and someone has to tell us what they found in the core so we
can fix the code for the future.

I don't know enough about how the server communicates with the
database to know whether your scheme would be workable: what would you
do about object numbers?  How would you save your objects out if you
wanted to make a local change to the core database?  How would you
specify which database a newly created object went in?  Could you move
objects from database to database?

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Fri Sep 24 15:13:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "14:58:02" "-0700" "\"Wayne E. Bouchard\"" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "15" "Recycling Mr. Spell" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:58:02 -0700
From:	"Wayne E. Bouchard" <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Recycling Mr. Spell

A friend of mine ran into some problems recycling Mr. Spell when he got a 
new copy of the database. Seems none of the property removing tasks he had 
worked without running out of ticks. So what he finaly ended up doing was 
this:

;for n in (properties(mr.spell)) delete_property(mr.spell, n); 
$command_utils_suspend_if_needed(0); endfor

This STILL took about 5 or so minutes to run however. (Mostly because of 
the machine he was running on.)

Anyhow, if you run into more problems, try that.

-Wayne (aka Sadric)


From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Fri Sep 24 15:33:12 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "15:23:01" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "41" "1.7.5 bug?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: 1.7.5 bug?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

We are using version 1.7.5 of the server and core (this means, the latest,
I'm not sure what the number is, for the core).

I noticed (traceback-wise) that there is a difference between
$mail_recipient:is_writable_by and :is_readable_by.
:is_readable_by checks first if .readers is a list. If not, it's readable
by all.
:is_writable_by doesn't check this. So that the only way to make it
writable by all players is to include all the players in .writers.
The correction I propose is: change -
#46:"is_writable_by"   this none this
 1:  return $perm_utils:controls(who = args[1], this) || who in this.writers;
to -
#46:"is_writable_by"   this none this
 1:  return typeof(this.writers) != LIST || $perm_utils:controls(who =
args[1], this) || who in this.writers;

Now I noticed that this hasn't changed from previous cores... How do I make
a list publicly writable, if not by this method?

There's another 'bug' that has me baffled.
I @programmer a player, and it gets a quota of 27. I looked at the code of
$wiz_utils:set_programmer...

24:    victim.ownership_quota = oldquota + ($prog.ownership_quota -
$player_class.ownership_quota);

$prog.ownership_quota == 20.
$player_class == $player.
$player.ownership_quota == 0.
But a new programmer gets 27, consistently.
With one even-more-baffling exception. One character was created by
self-create, not by @make-player. When I progged him, he received a quota
of 20.
But I can't see any difference between him and the other players...!
This isn't happening in our dbase only. I was progged on another 1.7.5 MOO
and got 27 quota.
Any ideas..?




From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Fri Sep 24 15:50:45 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "15:37:51" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "19" "Re: 1.7.5 bug?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 15:37:51 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.7.5 bug?

 
@verb list:"is_writable_by" tnt
@prog list:is_writable_by
"let everyone read the list";
return 1;
..
 
That'd work.
 
--
 
As for the @prog thing, check out $builder's quota.  It's sandwiched between $player and $prog and has a default quota of 7.
The fix to this 'bug' would be to subtract $builder.ownership_quota from that running total as well.
 
$wiz_utils:set_programmer...
 
24:    victim.ownership_quota = oldquota + ($prog.ownership_quota - $player_class.ownership_quota - $builder.ownership_quota);
 
-quinn

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Fri Sep 24 16:00:36 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "15:47:44" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "10" "Re: spelling musings" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 15:47:44 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	dvb@antares.ias.fr, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: spelling musings

I guess the problem with excluding Mr.Spell from the core is that if
 it ain't there, you probably ain't gonna get it.  Porting that beast
 with all its properties would be a Herculean task to say the least.

Not that I care for Mr.Spell.  I've never made much use of it, and when
 I tried (a Scrabble dictionary), it verified nonsense words as true.

I'm of the o_n_c() -> dictionary-server school as well.

-quinn

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Fri Sep 24 16:02:46 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "15:51:57" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "34" "Re: 1.7.5 bug?" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 15:51:57 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.7.5 bug?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> 
>@verb list:"is_writable_by" tnt
>@prog list:is_writable_by
>"let everyone read the list";
>return 1;
>..
> 
>That'd work.
Right, but why add a verb to every publicly-writable mailing list, when we
can just change a property? (if the generic:is_writable_by is changed as I
proposed)
I changed it in our dbase, and it works fine.


>As for the @prog thing, check out $builder's quota.  It's sandwiched between
>$player and $prog and has a default quota of 7.
>The fix to this 'bug' would be to subtract $builder.ownership_quota from that
>running total as well.
> 
>$wiz_utils:set_programmer...
> 
>24:    victim.ownership_quota = oldquota + ($prog.ownership_quota -
>$player_class.ownership_quota - $builder.ownership_quota);

The only problem with this is that $builder.ownership_quota isn't checked
at all in this verb. It isn't added. So subtracting it would be a patch
without any justification... I could as well just subtract 7. I guess.

I also guess that the best isn't to subtract $player_class.ownership_quota,
but the default .ownership_quota of the class of the player, before it was
chparented to $prog. The code to do this right is in MediaMOO.




From antares.ias.fr!dvb Fri Sep 24 16:07:47 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "15:36:05" "-0700" "David Van Buren" "dvb@antares.ias.fr" nil "21" "spelling musings" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 15:36:05 -0700
From:	David Van Buren <dvb@antares.ias.fr>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: spelling musings

Luckily, my core came without Mr. Spell (sorry waffle) and I could put the
thing in my pocket without it making a hole and falling out.  

But, spelling checking is maybe not the right thing for a moo to be doing,
how about setting up a spell server and connecting with onc, shuffling the
text to and from.  I have the feeling notify() and read() are a lot less
tick intensive than lookups in the spelling db.  Once you pay the overhead
for the connection that is.

If you want to do it from the client side, you can just run spell on the
region of interest in mud.el + variants.  Setting up the hooks would even
be fun.

On the other hand, Mr. Spell prolly doesn't get too much of a workout since
deep down he's just a building/creativity tool, not something that's being
used alla time.  

Or actually, you could imagine a spelling fascist moo that had Mr. Spell 
running all the time, scanning text for incorrectnesses, or even hooked into
say and pose.  Hey, how about that lag on Lambda.  Naaah, couldn't be.


From delphi.com!WANDERERP Fri Sep 24 16:41:10 1993
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 16:26:55 -0700
From:	WANDERERP@delphi.com
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Macintosh MOOs
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Has anyone successfully compile LambdaMOO for the Mac? If so, are there
any modifications to the server code required and what compiler did you
use?

Thanks,
Jon Wanderer - Spaz



From quickmail.apple.com!bob_monsen Fri Sep 24 16:41:40 1993
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Date:	Fri, 24 Sep 1993 17:23:13 -0700
From:	"Bob Monsen" <bob_monsen@quickmail.apple.com>
To:	"Judy Anderson" <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Multiple Databases

                                                             Reply from the
desk of
                                                             Bob Monsen
 Subject:   RE>Multiple Databases
From: Judy Anderson
> I don't know enough about how the server communicates with the
> database to know whether your scheme would be workable: what would you
> do about object numbers?  

The object number problem is a real one... One way to deal with it is to make
sure that different packages have big holes in the object number space
allocated to them. That would enable objects in packages to always have the
same number, even if the core changed. You could use the high 16 bits in a word
as the 'package number', which was allocated at package load time, and stored
in other databases by package name, or something like that...

All of this presupposes that the 'package' databases don't change around once
they are created; they can get added to, but moving object IDs around would
obviously screw things up.

> How would you save your objects out if you wanted to make a local 
> change to the core database?  

You wouldn't want to make local changes to the core, because you would be able
to patch things on top of the core with the local package. The advantage of
this is that you wouldn't lose those changes when you updated your core.

> How would you specify which database a newly created object went in?

All new objects would go into the local database by default. If you wanted to
create a package, you would have to collect up all the objects, and move them
manually into the new package, using the wizardly verb I alluded to in the
prior message. I don't know how this would interact with object numbers.
Another way you could do it would be a verb that put you into 'package creation
mode', making all new creates be in the 'current' package. Or, you could have a
new create verb that would set the package as well as do a create. Dump the
package, and you have a db file that can then be loaded by another moo...

> Could you move objects from database to database?

Yes, that would be a nice feature of doing this. You could create packages that
would contain sets of objects which could be loaded on any moo that supported
the prerequisite packages.

This started out as a proposal to separate the core and local databases, so
that I could update to new cores without dumping all my objects and
reinstalling them. However, packages have lots of advantages, such as
portability, factoring of the core (the Mr Spell syndrome), and the ability to
produce releases of sets of MOO objects. (Version 1.3 of Mr Spell...). Another
advantage is that checkpointing would be much faster, owing to not having to
dump the core every time. (Unless you have fork(), it blocks your users for two
minutes each time)

The first part is really simple. The second part may take a little more work
than I first thought, but I don't see any insurmountable problems at this
point.

Thanks,
  Bob Monsen


--------------------------------------
Date: 9/24/93 15:05
To: Bob Monsen
From: Judy Anderson
Ah, the "scheme for separating the core objects from the local objects
for creating core databases" is quite destructive: it recycle()s all
non-core objects, and then uses renumber() on all the remaining
objects to compact things, finally ending with a reset_max_object().
This is done to a separate copy of the LambdaMOO database, producing a
much smaller core database.  Quite a bit of massaging of the objects
is done also, to prevent recycled object references, messages on
mailing lists, etc. from escaping into the resulting core.  Usually we
screw up and someone has to tell us what they found in the core so we
can fix the code for the future.

I don't know enough about how the server communicates with the
database to know whether your scheme would be workable: what would you
do about object numbers?  How would you save your objects out if you
wanted to make a local change to the core database?  How would you
specify which database a newly created object went in?  Could you move
objects from database to database?

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In-Reply-To: "Bob Monsen"'s message of Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:46:10 PDT
<9309242042.AA27511@jumbo.apple.com>
Subject: Multiple Databases





From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Fri Sep 24 16:54:01 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "24" "September" "1993" "16:45:01" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "22" "Player quotas" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Player quotas
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Found it...
When a player is created by @make-player, the verb actually doing the work
is $wiz_utils:make_player.
15:  new.ownership_quota = $wiz_utils.default_player_quota;

;$wiz_utils.default_player_quota
=> 7

On the other hand, auto-creation uses $login:create
40:    new.ownership_quota = new.ownership_quota;

(that is, $player_class.ownership_quota)

Is there any reason for $wiz_utils.default_player_quota == 7 ?
As $player_class in Lambda is $builder, I guess this is one of those little
things that weren't cleared when creating the core...


Thanks for your attention, and for the help.




From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Sat Sep 25 09:05:58 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "25" "September" "1993" "08:53:43" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "5" "Removing verb." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Sat, 25 Sep 1993 08:53:43 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Removing verb.

How do I remove a verb form an object?
Say I have an object "foo", which defines the verb "bar". Now I want
to create a child of "foo", without the verb "bar". I tried createing
a verb "child_of_foo:bar", but that didn't seem to work.
Any ideas out there?

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Sat Sep 25 09:12:58 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "25" "September" "1993" "08:59:41" "-0700" "Billy Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " nil "3" "Removing verbs, pt. 2" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Sat, 25 Sep 1993 08:59:41 -0700
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (Billy Chambless)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Removing verbs, pt. 2

Sorry. The sun was in my eyes...I tried agin, just adding the new verb, and 
it worked fine.
Sorry about the wasted bandwidth.

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Sep 26 04:37:45 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "04:23:11" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "67" "Yet more onc() woes..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309261123.AA02717@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 04:23:11 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com, Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
Subject: Yet more onc() woes...



Ok, here's the problem:


              +------------+                   +-----------+
              |            |                   |           |
              | CardiffMOO |<----------------->| LambdaMOO |
              |            |                   |           |
              +------------+                   +-----------+

a)  CardiffMOO opens an onc() to LambdaMOO, connects to the player
    CardiffMOO@LambdaMOO and waits for an ACK which is read() back
    from the connection.

b)  CardiffMOO@LambdaMOO:confunc is triggered and sends back the ACK,
    in order to ensure that the NEXT thing it sends will get to CardiffMOO's
    server rather than to the read()ing code which set up the connection
    in a.

c)  The next thing LambdaMOO sends is a string of the form
    'connect LambdaMOO <somepwd>', which CardiffMOO's server sees and processes
    as for an ordinary player's login.

d)  So you end up with a Link player logged in on both ends of the same onc()
    The players are back-to-back, what one 'types' the other 'says' etc.  And
    that's basically how MOO-net gets to communicate between MOOs. [yawn]

The hassle starts when (for some reason I'm not sure about), CardiffMOO
momentarily looses its side of the onc().  The CardiffMOO server thinks that
the link to LambdaMOO has been dropped (it goes as far as calling the :disfunc
on the CardiffMOO side of the connection) and then automatically attempts to
reestablish the connection by doing the whole a-d sequence detailed above.

Now normally this is an ok thing to do.  Let's say LambdaMOO crashes or
gets a brown-out or something.  In that case LambdaMOO's server would also
have lost its hold on the connection and CardiffMOO's attempts to reestablish
the link would meet with success when LambdaMOO came back 'on-line'.

BUT, there are instances when LambdaMOO's server doesn't detect the dropped
connection.  As far as it is concerned, CardiffMOO is still there (albeit
rather quiet).  In this case, when CardiffMOO attempts a reconnection it
connects to a player, CardiffMOO@LambdaMOO which is STILL logged in and viable
as far as the LambdaMOO server is concerned.  So LambdaMOO's server does a:

	*** Redirecting old connection to this port ***

fails to call CardiffMOO@LambdaMOO:confunc, and so the whole a-d thing falls
flat on its face.  ie. LambdaMOO never tries to connect BACK to CardiffMOO
to fix both ends of the onc().  And, as you might imagine, under these
circumstances MOO-net breaks.


So, some questions:

1)  Anyone have any idea why a broken onc() on CardiffMOO's side is not
    reflected by a break in the connection on LambdaMOO's side.

2)  Any Astro-VR Jupiter types with a better way of maintaining onc()
    connections between MOOs wanna let me in on the secret.

[There are some EXTREMELY cludgey work-arounds to this problem, but I'd like
things to be simple if possible.  Really its down to, how come LambdaMOO
didn't see CardiffMOO drop?  Spooky.]

Andyworker.


From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Sun Sep 26 05:05:58 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "04:59:05" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "41" "Re: Yet more onc() woes..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 04:59:05 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Yet more onc() woes...
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>The hassle starts when (for some reason I'm not sure about), CardiffMOO
>momentarily looses its side of the onc().  The CardiffMOO server thinks that
>the link to LambdaMOO has been dropped (it goes as far as calling the :disfunc
>on the CardiffMOO side of the connection) and then automatically attempts to
>reestablish the connection by doing the whole a-d sequence detailed above.
Well, I can add another instance of the same event.
To put it simple: let's say I'm connected to the MOO by the client MUDDweller.
Suddenly, my Mac crashes. I reboot it. Obviously, my Mac 'lost it's side of
the onc()'. It does a call to my patience:disfunc(), too.


>BUT, there are instances when LambdaMOO's server doesn't detect the dropped
>connection.  As far as it is concerned, CardiffMOO is still there (albeit
>rather quiet).  In this case, when CardiffMOO attempts a reconnection it
>connects to a player, CardiffMOO@LambdaMOO which is STILL logged in and viable
>as far as the LambdaMOO server is concerned.  So LambdaMOO's server does a:
>
>        *** Redirecting old connection to this port ***
>
Similarly, there are lots of instances (I think almost every time, but
can't say for sure) when the MOO server doesn't detect the crash. I'm still
there, and quiet, too. People keep talking to me, and I ignore them rudely.
Then, after startup, I connect again, and get the *** Redirecting... message.
And now it's my turn to start explaining to the other players that 'I just
had to reconnect, I wasn't here all the time'.
If I don't reconnect, I am booted after some time.


>1)  Anyone have any idea why a broken onc() on CardiffMOO's side is not
>    reflected by a break in the connection on LambdaMOO's side.

Is there any way for the MOO server to know that my client isn't there anymore?
Are packets being sent all the time, even if there is no activity in either
direction?
When does the server decide to boot me?
If the server can detect that I'm not responding anymore for some time,
could a new built-in function be implemented, some idlefunc()? (I mean, in
the likeness of player:confunc() and player:disfunc().)




From antares.ias.fr!dvb Sun Sep 26 09:49:43 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "09:41:09" "-0700" "David Van Buren" "dvb@antares.ias.fr" nil "41" "Re: Yet more onc() woes..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9309261123.AA02717@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>; from \"Andrew Wilson\" at Sep 26, 93 4:23 am <01H3D"
Message-ID: <93Sep26.094201pdt.12210(4)@alpha.xerox.com>
Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 09:41:09 -0700
From:	David Van Buren <dvb@antares.ias.fr>
To:	<@ipac.caltech.edu:Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk> (Andrew Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Yet more onc() woes...

> 
> Ok, here's the problem:
>
     [see a previous post from Andrew Wilson for the problem]
>
>

If your "client" never sends a disconnect message to the moo how will
it ever know you disconnected?  The server just waits for input and
processes it, it doesn't go hunting for it.  If you have warning a
disconnect is going to happen you should send a messge to the other
moo so it can disconnect you gracefully.  The problem is that when you
kill, for example, a telnet connection it does that for you.  But onc
connections between moos don't, unless its a normal shutdown.

Here's what you can do.  Maintain a random number that both sides
agree is the "connection number".  This number is generated by the
"client" end whenever it starts a new connection and is set to zero
upon normal disconnects on the "server" end.  The "server" end can
tell the "client" what it thinks this number is.  If they are non-zero
and disagree a funky disconnect happened.  Just disconnect gracefully,
reconnect and synchronize the connection numbers.  If you are really
worried, you can test every now and then to see if the connection has
maintained integrity.

But what is really the problem if confunc() isn't run?  You will still
have the context of your last connection.  This last question merely
displays my ignorance of the details of your moonet code.  It would be
nice to see in more detail how it all works.

For example, I had the horrible idea a few weeks ago to make a client
that was just another moo.  Then you could program the client end in
moo-code too.  It would work like this: connect to your client moo, it
then connects to lambda (or whatevermoo).  I tried it and it works, if
you're willing to have a whole moo sitting in your computer doing
mostly nothing.  Obviosly, the problem you are having would occur here
too.  Anyone interested in this idea should grep back a month or so to
find the messages about 'stalk', a very interesting client with a
moo-like programming language.

Cheers - DVB

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Sep 26 11:49:29 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "11:40:38" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "27" "Re: Yet more onc() woes..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309261123.AA02717@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 11:40:38 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Yet more onc() woes...

> 1)  Anyone have any idea why a broken onc() on CardiffMOO's side is not
>     reflected by a break in the connection on LambdaMOO's side.

This is a fundamental property of the network itself.  TCP connection closure
is, inherently, unreliable; the packets attempting an orderly connection
shutdown can simply be lost in the ether and the other end will have no way of
knowing that the connection is dead, other than waiting for a timeout on the
receipt of a packet acknowledgement.  These timeouts are commonly on the scale
of several minutes, though.  Note that this issue is resolved well below the
level of the LambdaMOO server code, in the operating system.

> 2)  Any Astro-VR Jupiter types with a better way of maintaining onc()
>     connections between MOOs wanna let me in on the secret.

We don't do any MOO/MOO connections in any of our current work, so we don't
have any experience to offer you.

One workaround that comes to mind is to look for the `*** Redirecting ...'
message when you reconnect to a peer and, if found, shut down the connection
and try again.  Each time you repeat, there's a good chance of the normal,
orderly shutdown proceeding according to naive expectation.

Of course, another big help would be for the server to let the MOO-code know
when a redirect happens, analogously to the current :confunc/:disfunc
mechanisms.  Look for something along these lines in release 1.8.0 (don't ask).

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Sep 26 11:57:59 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "11:48:01" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "37" "Re: Yet more onc() woes..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309261056.AA10001@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>
Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 11:48:01 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Yet more onc() woes...

> Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 04:59:05 -0700
> From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
> 
> Is there any way for the MOO server to know that my client isn't there
> anymore?

Not unless the TCP orderly shutdown proceeds normally (not guaranteed) or the
operating system's TCP code times out on the receipt of an acknowledgement
packet from your site (usually on the scale of several minutes).  In short,
there isn't any timely and reliable way for the server to know this given the
current standard Telnet-like basic client protocol.

> Are packets being sent all the time, even if there is no activity
> in either direction?

At the abstraction level of the server and client, no data is sent unless
there's some actual user-visible input or output.  Below that, at the operating
system TCP implementation layer, `keep-alive' packets are sent every several
minutes that are supposed to be acknowledged by the peer; failure to do so
within a certain timeout period and with a certain number of retries signals a
disorderly connection shutdown.

> When does the server decide to boot me?

When the operating system decides that the TCP connection has dropped, in
either an orderly or disorderly fashion.

> If the server can detect that I'm not responding anymore for some time, could
> a new built-in function be implemented, some idlefunc()? (I mean, in the
> likeness of player:confunc() and player:disfunc().)

The server could detect when you haven't sent any input for a certain period of
time, but it's not really possible for it to tell whether or not you're seeing
the output it's sending to you.  I don't understand precisely what you're
asking for here.

	Pavel

From cheetah.math.oxy.edu!t_pascal Sun Sep 26 13:18:57 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "13:11:03" "-0700" "C. Regis Wilson" "t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu " nil "114" "New version of the $scheduler" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 13:11:03 -0700
From:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu (C. Regis Wilson)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: New version of the $scheduler


Hello, Gustavo (bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il) and I have been
working on the latest version of the $scheduler.  It's not ready yet
for a full release, but we are looking for some "beta" testers.  I would
like to get a response from current users of the $scheduler that is on
parcftp:/pub/MOO/contrib/moocode, or any users who run code based
on, or close to the $scheduler there.  Please mail me if you are
interested.


For those who don't know what the scheduler is, I include part of a help
file: 

---------------------
Premise:  Sometimes, it is necessary to have moo-tasks (processes) which execute with a long period, say once a day, every month,  
etc.  Sometimes, it is necessary to have verbs execute repetitively, over and over and over again.  Sometimes, it is necessary to  
have verbs which need to be executed at a particular time.  And, sometimes, a combination of the above needs to occur:  A verb  
that runs every hour on the hour, for example.  Assuming the premises are true, these processes must stay in the task queue, often  
forming clutter which must be weeded through by the wizards.  Thus, the scheduler is born.

Scheduler:  The scheduler is designed as a process storage chamber.  Verbs which execute with a long period (an hour, a day, etc.)  
can be stored on the scheduler, without filling up the queued task list.  Verbs which need to happen with a certain number of  
iterations, or infinitely, can be handled by code in the scheduler, reducing the burden on the programmer.  The scheduler also  
accounts for drift in lag, allowing a verb to run at a certain time, every time.

Building Blocks:

:schedule       (rel_time,obj,verb[,args])
:schedule_at    (abs_time,obj,verb[,args])
:schedule_every (rel_time,obj,verb[,args])

  "rel_time" indicates a time interval from the present moment, that is: a relative time, or "x seconds from now"
  "abs_time" indicates an absolute time, for example: 749069038
  "obj" indicates the object on which the verb you will call resides
  "verb" is the verb you will be calling
  "args" is/are the argument(s) you will use in the verb call.

  The "rel_time" is a number, given in seconds.  The "obj" is an object number, like #1, the verb is a string, like "tell".  The  
"args" is a list of arguments to be passed, and may be left off.  If left off, the null list {} will be used as argument.

Examples:

:schedule(35,#11,"announce_all",{"I am here!"})

  which is equivalent to:

  ;fork(35) #11:announce_all("I am here!"); endfork

:schedule_at(749069497,$fountain,"start")

  equals:

  ;fork(time()+6*24*3600) $fountain:start(); endfork

:schedule_every(15,$puppet,"action",{"move","eat","walk"})

  is fairly close in meaning to:

  [verb code on $puppet]
      ...
  fork (15)
    this:(verb)("move","eat","walk");
  endfork


Stuff on top of building blocks:

  Naturally, you may build neat nestings on the scheduler.  You could do a ":schedule_at(time,$scheduler,"schedule_every",{..."  
etc.  However, this is messy, and not easy for beginners.  Hence, the scheduler now has an english-like parser.  Wouldn't it be  
great if you could tell the scheduler to do things "every 5 minutes", "6 times every 3 minutes starting in 5 hours", or "Sun Sep 26  
12:01:29 1993"?  Well you can!

:schedule_english(english_string,obj,verb,args)

"english_string" is of the following form, each part optional, anything not in <brackets> is a string literal:

[<number> times] [every [<number>] <interval>] [starting] [in [<number>] <interval>] [<time>]

  <number> is an integer: positive, of course.
  <interval> is a time interval, recognized by being in the .intervals property.  The lenght of the interval (in seconds) should be in  
the same position in the .intervaltimes property list.  Examples include "6 seconds", "5 minutes", etc., and linked with the key  
word "and".  Other intevals include a digital readout form like ":30" (30 seconds), "1:00:00" (1 hour)
  <time> is an abolute time, same as the output from time() or ctime().  You can also specify a relative time from now, like "12:30  
pm", or "11:30" (defaults to a.m.)

Short List of Examples:

"" (once, now)
"now" (same as above)
"6 times every 5 seconds starting at 12:30 pm"
"every 1:30 starting in 5 minutes"
"every 1 minute and 30 seconds starting in 5:00" (same as above)
"every minute and 30 seconds starting in 0:5:0" (same as above)
"at Sun Sep 26 13:01:29 1993"
"Sun Sep 26 13:01:29 1993" (same as above)
"in 1 hour and 15 minutes and 12 seconds"
"in 1:15:12" (same as above)
"at 1:15:12 am"  (NOT the same as above)
"at 11:30 a.m."
"at 11:30:00" (same as above)
"every 15 minutes and 1 second starting next tuesday" (at midnight)
"starting next month" (not advisable, since a "month" is 4 weeks, NOT today's date next month)
"next july at 12:30" (begins 12:30 am on July 1)


More Stuff on top of Building Blocks:

Beside "hiding" tasks on the scheduler from the queued task list, one may categorize tasks.  For example, tasks which deal with  
clocks can be grouped on one scheduler called "Clock Tasks".  However, each scheduler uses a process itself.  Thus, if you have  
many schedulers, your queued task list can be cluttered with scheduler tasks.  To fix this, you can have master schedulers.  Set  
the .master property of a scheduler to the object number of some other scheduler.  The master will then be in charge of running  
its subordinate.  The child scheduler will register its task on the master, without creating another entry in the queued tasks list.   
Any scheduler can be the master of another, and you can create tree structures of master schedulers.  BUT!  There is no code to  
look for circular references.  Be smart.

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Sep 26 14:56:37 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "14:49:23" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" "<9309262149.AA03118@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>" "20" "onc()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-ID: <9309262149.AA03118@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 14:49:23 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: onc()


Mmm, when onc() got rehashed for version .5 recently was it changed
in any way such that:

	conn = onc(foo);
	boot_player(conn);

left the other side of the conn not knowing that you'd dropped the link?

Do I have to do something like:

	conn = onc(foo);
	notify(conn, "HANGUP");
	boot_player(conn);

I guess so, but how come it's only now that I notice the problems I'm having.

Whenever.

A.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Sep 26 17:50:23 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "26" "September" "1993" "17:44:09" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: onc()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309262149.AA03118@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 17:44:09 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: onc()

> Date:	Sun, 26 Sep 1993 14:49:23 -0700
> From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> 
> Mmm, when onc() got rehashed for version .5 recently was it changed
> in any way such that:
> 
> 	conn = onc(foo);
> 	boot_player(conn);
> 
> left the other side of the conn not knowing that you'd dropped the link?

No; the server does a normal close on the connection, which should in most
cases (see my previous messages today) arrange for an orderly shutdown in which
the far side of the connection gets notified of the closure.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!frederic Mon Sep 27 12:17:30 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "27" "September" "1993" "12:03:55" "-0700" "Ron Frederick" "frederic@parc.xerox.com" nil "29" "Re: Yet more onc() woes..." "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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References: <9309261123.AA02717@aquamarine.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:03:55 -0700
From:	Ron Frederick <frederic@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Yet more onc() woes...

> BUT, there are instances when LambdaMOO's server doesn't detect the
> dropped connection.  As far as it is concerned, CardiffMOO is still there
> (albeit rather quiet).  In this case, when CardiffMOO attempts a
> reconnection it connects to a player, CardiffMOO@LambdaMOO
> which is STILL logged in and viable as far as the LambdaMOO server is
> concerned.  So LambdaMOO's server does a:
>
>	*** Redirecting old connection to this port ***

At the very least, there's a race condition here. If CardiffMOO does this
reconnect as _soon_ as it executes the :disfunc that goes along with the
TCP connection shutdown, there's some chance that LambdaMOO has
simply been busy and hasn't had a chance to shut down its side of the
connection yet.

Since the problem here appears to be that :confunc isn't run in the
redirect case, why not just avoid using it? Have CardiffMOO not only
send the "connect LambdaMOO ****" down the network connection, but
also a second line of "init_moonet" or something similar which is a verb
on the LambdaMOO player which runs the stuff currently being run out
of :confunc.

The advantage to this approach is that the verb will be run both in the
normal case and in the case where you are redirected. If the verb is
written such that it resets things back to the state where you're just
doing the initial handshake, things should work great.
--
Ron Frederick
frederick@parc.xerox.com

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Mon Sep 27 21:30:59 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "27" "September" "1993" "21:07:41" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "<9309280407.AA14407@sun4.math.uah.edu>" "18" "onc() and idle_seconds()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7097	 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
															^-illegal special character in phrase
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Date:	Mon, 27 Sep 1993 21:07:41 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: onc() and idle_seconds()

I was wondering, what EXACTLY it is that resets a player's idle_seconds()?
I'm doing a little MOO networking experimentation of my own. I have two
network players, connected back to back in the traditional fashion, and to
monitor the connection status, I start an extra while loop, parallel to
the read loop, that says, "If I've been idle more than two minutes, send
command x (basically a call to a do_nothing verb) over the net."  Both 
network players are equipped with this loop, and the initiating player
has an additional "If I've been idle more than ten minutes, boot me and
start trying to reestablish the connection." 

I had thought it was activity on the connection line that reset 
idle_seconds(), but I'm providing activity, and the players still wind
up idle... I think my general methodology may be flawed, though, because
the connection also doesn't shut down when they reach ten minutes idle
time.

Anyone have any suggestions?
====Rob (CF/Gelfin)

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Mon Sep 27 21:43:40 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "27" "September" "1993" "21:17:38" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" nil "8" "for want of a nail" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7097	 Mathematical Sciences Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
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Date:	Mon, 27 Sep 1993 21:17:38 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: for want of a nail

Looks like I spoke WAAAY too soon.. No sooner had my little fingers hit
^D, than some little imp appeared on my keyboard, clubbed me with a rolled
up copy of the LambdaMOO Programmers Manual, and said "Hey, you idiot,
you're not suspending the stupid loops!" And lo and behold he was right.
The idle checking now works fine...

Sorry for the spam,
====Rob.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Sep 28 15:08:11 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "28" "September" "1993" "14:53:31" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "6" "Re: onc() and idle_seconds()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Tue, 28 Sep 1993 14:53:31 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: onc() and idle_seconds()

> I was wondering, what EXACTLY it is that resets a player's idle_seconds()?

The idle_seconds() function returns the difference between the current time and
the last time at which the server read some data from the specified connection.

	Pavel

From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Wed Sep 29 15:42:56 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Wed" "29" "September" "1993" "14:24:19" "-0700" "Byron Montgomerie" "byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca" nil "19" "Callers()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 1993 14:24:19 -0700
From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
Sender: PARC.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Callers()

The main use I see out of callers is to see what the name of the first verb was
or the last verb, would it be a good idea to include in the server builtin
variables something like first_caller and last_caller with values equal to the
first and last entries in callers()?

ie. callers()[length(callers())][2] can become first_caller[2];
    callers()[1][2] can become last_caller[2];

The benefit of this would be more readily understood code. Drawbacks 
include existing variables with the name last_caller or first_caller that would
have to be renamed.

Byron...
 __________________________________________________________________________
| __  ///    "Byron Montgomerie"  Internet: byron@odie.cs.mun.ca   __  /// |
| \\\///      "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?               \\\///  |
|  \XX/        How she said that we would meet again,               \XX/   |
|  Amiga       some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd --                 Amiga   |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Sep 29 17:46:59 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "29" "September" "1993" "17:31:30" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "15" "Re: Callers()" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 1993 17:31:30 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Callers()

> Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 1993 14:24:19 -0700
> From:	Byron Montgomerie <byron@saturn.cs.mun.ca>
> 
> The main use I see out of callers is to see what the name of the first verb
> was or the last verb, would it be a good idea to include in the server
> builtin variables something like first_caller and last_caller with values
> equal to the first and last entries in callers()?

I'm not at all convinced that this is a sufficiently common usage to justify
the addition of new built-in variables.  In fact, I'm not convinced that there
are *any* sufficiently common usages for this; I wouldn't mind cutting down on
the number of these variables, since they're really kind of gross from a
language design standpoint.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Sep 29 17:49:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "29" "September" "1993" "17:48:40" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "9" "#0:do_login_command and 'argstr'" "^Date:" nil nil "9"])
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Message-Id: <9309300048.AA29637@nova.decio.nd.edu>
In-Reply-To:  
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22]
Content-Length: 409       
Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 1993 17:48:40 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Cc:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: #0:do_login_command and 'argstr'
Reply-To: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

Pavel, why isn't 'argstr' defined in #0:do_login_command?

It returns an empty string.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key fingerprint is:  EA 16 1B 5D 5D 94 6B 06  58 FD E6 E9 52 F3 6E 11 
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Sep 30 12:19:00 1993
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References: <9309300048.AA29637@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Thu, 30 Sep 1993 12:06:48 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: #0:do_login_command and 'argstr'

> Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 1993 17:48:40 -0700
> From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> 
> Pavel, why isn't 'argstr' defined in #0:do_login_command?
> 
> It returns an empty string.

The reason is that argstr == "" in all `server tasks', of which this is
considered one.  I don't claim that that's a good idea, just that it's so.

	Pavel

From bigdog.engr.arizona.edu!ece_0494 Fri Oct  1 11:25:45 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "1" "October" "1993" "11:10:42" "-0700" "Wayne E. Bouchard" "ece_0494@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu " nil "138" "Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 1 Oct 1993 11:10:42 -0700
From:	ece_0494@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Wayne E. Bouchard)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)

[Last updated September 9, 1993]

Database and Programming:
------------------------
1) Q: I want to start my own MOO. Where do I get the source?

   A: The standard MOO archive is parcftp.xerox.com in the directory pub/MOO.

      The file `LambdaMOO-X.Y.Z.tar.Z' (for a current server version of
      X.Y.Z) is a compressed tar file containing the complete source code,
      installation instructions, and a copy of the `Minimal' LambdaMOO
      database.

      The file `LambdaCore-DDMMMYY.db' (for some date DDMMMYY) is a
      LambdaMOO database file containing the `core' of the running LambdaMOO
      database as of the specified date.  This is almost certainly the
      easiest place for you to start from in creating your own MOO, since
      this includes such useful things as the various generics (room,
      player, exit, thing, container, note, etc.), the MOO text editors, the
      MOO mail system, etc.

      The `binaries' subdirectory contains already-compiled executables of
      the current release for various machines.

2) Q: What is this programmer's manual everybody talks about and where
      can I get it?

   A: The "LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual" is a complete reference for all
      database-independent aspects of the LambdaMOO system, including the
      programming language, built-in functions, and command parser.

      The Programmer's Manual is availible via anonymous FTP at
      parcftp.xerox.com in the directory /pub/MOO/. The file name is
      `ProgrammersManual.*' where `*' is the format tag. It is availible in
      DVI, PostScript, TeXInfo, and plain text formats.

3) Q: Is there a way to incorporate new features of LambdaCore into my
      MOO's DB?

   A: There is no easy way to merge databases. The easiest thing to do is
      just snag the code from LambdaMOO or somewhere and build the objects
      by hand. (For information on how to do so, see `help @dump' on
      LambdaMOO.)

4) Q: How do I do execute a verb automatically each time the server starts?

   A: When the server starts, it calls the verb #0:server_started.
      Create/alter that verb to have it call the verb you want to execute.
      
      (NOTE: If a task has suspended or forked, and its execution is
      still pending when the server checkpoints or is shutdown, that
      task is saved along with the rest of the database. Thus, when
      the server is restarted, that task will be resumed.)

5) Q: How can I make an object in a room "listen" to everything that's
      being said?

   A: When something is said in a room, each object in that room is sent
      that text via :tell. You can hack this verb to do whatever you want it
      to whenever anything is said or done in a room.

6) Q: My MOO checkpoints every hour. I want to change this but I don't
      know where to look.

   A: Change the value of the property #0.dump_interval to the desired
      number of seconds between dumps; the change will take effect after the
      next checkpoint.

      This is documented in the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, section 4.2.2,
      Database Checkpointing Frequency.


Server Related:
--------------

1) Q: What are the minimum requirements for running a MOO?

   A: The LambdaCore database is approximately 2 megabytes in size. The
      source and executable for MOO will likely occupy another 1-2 Megs. In
      its current state, MOO resides entirely in resident memory when
      running. The process size is going to be roughly 2-3 times the
      size of the database file on disk.

2) Q: I'm running a MOO on a NeXT but every once in a while it crashes
      with a 'vm_allocate failed' error. What's wrong?

   A: This is a bug in the NeXT's operating system and not in the MOO
      server.  The current best guess as to the cause is massive
      fragmentation in either the virtual memory system or in the memory
      managed by malloc() and free().

3) Q: I've heard a lot about the next release. When is it due out?

   A: It is unpredictable when each new version of the server will be
      released. Pavel Curtis (The developer of LambdaMOO) has
      estimated that 1.8.0 might well be out sometime in the fall of this
      year (1993), but no specific date can confidently be relied upon.

Miscellaneous:
-------------

1) Q: What are some good clients to use with MOO?

   A: Most people prefer to use TinyFugue or the emacs client, mud.el.
      mud.el is availible at parcftp.xerox.com in the directory
      pub/MOO/clients/. As for other clients, you might try poking around at
      ftp.math.okstate.edu in the directory pub/mud/clients/.

2) Q: What are all the MOOs currently out there?

   A: Its hard to keep an accurate list of all known MOOs, but here's
      my best info:

	Name             Address                 Numeric Address Port
	-------------------------------------------------------------
	LambdaMOO        lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36     8888
         (The original)
	ZenMOO           cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253    7777
	ScrabbleMOO      next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   7777
	OpalMOO          cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1     7777
	PMC-MOO          dewey.lib.ncsu.edu      152.1.24.90     7777
	VampireMOO       pluto.cs.trinity.edu    131.194.131.20  7777
	TechMOOseum      whyanext.com            156.151.253.1   8888
	MagicMOO         dougal.aston.ac.uk      134.151.36.1    7777
	JanusMOO         sun10.sep.bnl.gov       130.199.50.6    8888

      [ EDITOR'S NOTE: Some MOOs have been purposely omitted at the request
        of their administrators. If you wish to add _your_ MOO to this list,
        please send mail to the address listed below. ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "MOO Frequently Asked Question List" is maintained by
Wayne E. Bouchard (web@HACKS.Arizona.EDU).  Direct all questions or
comments concerning this list to him.  Submissions and questions are
welcome and appreciated.  This list will be posted again on the first
of next month.


From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Sun Oct  3 15:30:58 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "3" "October" "1993" "15:20:23" "-0700" "schlake@minos.nmt.edu" "schlake@minos.nmt.edu" nil "19" "LAG!" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Sun, 3 Oct 1993 15:20:23 -0700
From:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
Sender: schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LAG!


>This meter takes a rough measurement of the server lag, that is, how much
>delay the MOO game itself is causing because of everything that's
>happening.
>Type 'about meter' for instructions. The meter is adjusted to report the
>average lag over 360 seconds by taking 40 samples, one each 9 seconds.
>The lag is about -4.4 seconds. It is holding nearly even.

WOW!  I knew the upcoming crays could execute the intfinite busy loop in
only a few hours, but I didn't know Xerox was so far along!  Now that my
commands happen before I type them I don't need to think, just guess which
command it was that caused the action on my screen!

BTW :)


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);



From parc.xerox.com!kerch Sun Oct  3 18:58:37 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "3" "October" "1993" "18:47:02" "-0700" "Berry Kercheval" "kerch@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "LAG!" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <9310032220.AA29101@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Sun, 3 Oct 1993 18:47:02 -0700
From:	Berry Kercheval <kerch@parc.xerox.com>
To:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: LAG!
Reply-to: kerch@parc.xerox.com

schlake@minos.nmt.edu writes:
 > >The lag is about -4.4 seconds. It is holding nearly even.
 > 
 > WOW!  I knew the upcoming crays could execute the intfinite busy loop in
 > only a few hours, but I didn't know Xerox was so far along!  Now that my
 > commands happen before I type them I don't need to think, just guess which
 > command it was that caused the action on my screen!


No! No! You MUST type the correct command after you see the result, or
the MOO data structures will be corrupted horribly and everything will
crash!  And if you see a traceback, be sure to type a command with the
correct error.  (Correct error???)

The new hardware for Lambda is much faster, but there is a price...

  --berry

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Mon Oct  4 22:59:16 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "4" "October" "1993" "08:00:30" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "88" "HELP!!!" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <9310041500.AB06370@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>
Date:	Mon, 4 Oct 1993 08:00:30 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: HELP!!!

Ok, so I've been hacking 14 hours now, and my eyes are blurry...but can
anyone explain why I'm getting this output:

[Direct cut and paste except for lines added enlosed by |xxx|]

list 1-$
  1: person = 0;
  2: length_ok = (length(args) == 2);
  3: arg1_ok = (length_ok && (typeof(args[1]) == OBJ));
  4: valid = (arg1_ok && valid(args[1]));
  5: arg2_ok = (valid && (typeof(args[2]) == STR));
  6: player:tell("length_ok ", length_ok, " arg1_ok ", arg1_ok, " valid ",
 valid, " arg2_ok ", arg2_ok);
  7: if (arg2_ok)
  8:   product = args[1];
  9:   feature = args[2];
 10: elseif (length(args) != 4)
 11:   player:tell("Invalid number of arguments.");
|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|
 12:   player:tell("Usage: remove_feature product feature from supplier");
 13:   player:tell("product must inherit from $product.");
 14:   player:tell("feature must be in features list of product.");
 15:   player:tell("feature may enclosed in quotes for multi-word
features.");
 16:   return E_ARGS;
 17: else
 18:   product = $string_utils:match_object(args[1], player.location);
 19:   feature = args[2];
 20:   person = 1;
 21: endif
 22: valid = valid(product);
 23: product_ok = (valid && $object_utils:isa(product, $g.product));
 24: feature_ok = (product_ok && (feature in product.features));
 25: player:tell("valid ", valid, " product_ok ", product_ok, " feature_ok
",
 feature_ok);
 26: if (feature_ok)
 27:   price = this:feature_cost(product, feature);
 28:   this.feature_prices = setremove(this.feature_prices, {product,
feature,
 price});
 29:   if (person)
 30:     this:product_info();
 31:   endif
 32: else
 33:   player:tell("Invalid type of arguments.");
|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^|
 34:   player:tell("Usage: remove_feature product feature from supplier");
 35:   player:tell("product must inherit from $product.");
 36:   player:tell("feature must be in features list of product.");
 37:   player:tell("feature may enclosed in quotes for multi-word
features.");
 38:   return E_INVARG;
_39_ endif
^^^^
com
#206:4 successfully compiled.
q
Wizard's Castle

You see game, company, game_room, intro, level_utils, You are on a hill
 over-looking Anytown, USA., intersection, store, office, office_door,
 store_front, game_container, cabinet, trash, Prairie, game_exit, Main
Street,
 autotown, staff_utils, supplier, cash_utils, game_thing, bicycle, and
product
 here.
remove_feature bicycle "rugged tires" from dave
length_ok 0 arg1_ok 0 valid 0 arg2_ok 0
valid 1 product_ok 1 feature_ok 2

|>>  *NEITHER* of the ^^^^^ lines came out <<|
|>> not to mention that none of the following 4 *SHOULD* come out <<|

Usage: remove_feature product feature from supplier
product must inherit from $product.
feature must be in features list of product.
feature may enclosed in quotes for multi-word features.
bicycle         $100 for orders up to 10
bicycle          $90 for orders up to 20
     rugged tires        $3
     smooth tires        $2
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Oct  5 11:19:26 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "5" "October" "1993" "10:22:26" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: HELP!!!" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <9310041500.AB06370@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>
Date:	Tue, 5 Oct 1993 10:22:26 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: HELP!!!

It looks to me like neither of the underlined lines *should* be executed and
that probably your `this:product_info()' verb is printing the four lines you
say shouldn't be printed out.

	Pavel

PS- By the way, it is usually better to show people the results of an @list
command instead of the output of the editor's `list' command, since you might
have made some indentation errors in the editor that might mislead the reader.
Since the @list command only prints code that has been formatted by the server,
it cannot mislead anyone in this way.

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Oct  5 11:24:27 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "5" "October" "1993" "09:58:23" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "15" "HELP!!!" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "lynch@ils.nwu.edu's message of Mon, 4 Oct 1993 08:00:30 PDT <9310041500.AB06370@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>"
Message-ID: <9310051658.AA13947@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 5 Oct 1993 09:58:23 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: HELP!!!

It looks to me like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how
arguments work to command line functions.  They're all strings...  use
dobj and iobj if you want to get pre-parsed objects.
$string_utils:explode(dobjstr) or iobjstr can be useful too, calling
match on those results.  Typically what I do when I have a command
that wants more than one argument is call it "frob foo with mumble
frotz as baz" making my arglist any with any, and parse iobjstr for
the "as", then parse the leftover bits.  This enables you to avoid the
ugly construction frob foo "mumble frotz" as baz---it is more user
friendly, and really isn't that much more work.  Anyway, I didn't try
to figure out exactly what your problem was, but checking
typeof(args[1]==OBJ) rang a little bell for me...  If you're intending
this to be called either from command line or from code, the thing to
do is make two verbs, one that does the work, and one that parses the
stuff.  This enables you to separate parsing from doing.

From starbase.mitre.org!jcc Tue Oct  5 18:01:35 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "5" "October" "1993" "17:50:33" "-0700" "J. Chris Coppick" "jcc@starbase.mitre.org " "<199310060050.AA06783@mungo.mitre.org>" "33" "Re: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "Wayne E. Bouchard's message dated Oct  1, 11:10am."
Message-ID: <199310060050.AA06783@mungo.mitre.org>
Date:	Tue, 5 Oct 1993 17:50:33 -0700
From:	jcc@starbase.mitre.org (J. Chris Coppick)
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)

On Oct 1, at 11:10am, Wayne E. Bouchard, inscribed the
following little ditty:
>
> Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)
> [Last updated September 9, 1993]
> 
> ...
> 
> 3) Q: Is there a way to incorporate new features of LambdaCore into my
>       MOO's DB?
> 
>    A: There is no easy way to merge databases. The easiest thing to do is
>       just snag the code from LambdaMOO or somewhere and build the objects
>       by hand. (For information on how to do so, see `help @dump' on
>       LambdaMOO.)
> 
>
> -- End of excerpt from Wayne E. Bouchard

I can't get the @dump command to work for me on LambdaMoo, since my
character is not a programmer.  I don't expect to be a programmer
on LambdaMoo, but my Moo really needs an elevator...  So, in the fine
tradition of object reusability, how (or where) can I snarf code?

	-- Chris

===================================================================
== J. Chris Coppick - The Mitre Corporation - jcoppick@mitre.org ==
===================================================================
Actual Person-to-Person Classified: (I'm still not making these up)

     "Oooo eeee oooo ah ah.  Ting tang wallah wallah
     bing bang."

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Oct  5 18:40:59 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "5" "October" "1993" "18:29:21" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <199310060050.AA06783@mungo.mitre.org>
Date:	Tue, 5 Oct 1993 18:29:21 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	jcc@starbase.mitre.org
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions. (FAQ)

> Date:	Tue, 5 Oct 1993 17:50:33 -0700
> From:	jcc@starbase.mitre.org (J. Chris Coppick)
> 
> I can't get the @dump command to work for me on LambdaMoo, since my
> character is not a programmer.  I don't expect to be a programmer
> on LambdaMoo, but my Moo really needs an elevator... 

The right thing to do is simply to request a programmer bit on LambdaMOO, by
sending mail to *Wizards.

	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Wed Oct  6 00:46:11 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "6" "October" "1993" "00:33:57" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " "<9310060631.AA22737@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>" "14" "A bug in the 1.7.5 **server**?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 6 Oct 1993 00:33:57 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: A bug in the 1.7.5 **server**?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello.
I think we found a bug in the server (not the core dbase) release 1.7.5.
The built-in function connection_name() gives erroneous values.
The typical error is: my connection_name() isn't really the place where I
am calling from, but the place of the last player that disconnected before
I log in.
The error is erratical (sounds weird, right?), and happened first
yesterday, as far as I can notice.
I have a log with all the symptoms, in case it'll help.

(puzzled)




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct  7 10:41:00 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "7" "October" "1993" "10:29:55" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "7" "Re: won't compile" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 10:29:55 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: won't compile

> Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 09:50:05 -0700
> From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)

Please send me a copy of your config.h and options.h files and I'll try to
figure out what's up.

	Pavel, who didn't know VAXen still existed...

From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Thu Oct  7 10:07:34 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "7" "October" "1993" "09:50:05" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " "<9310071650.AA02822@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU>" "87" "won't compile" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 09:50:05 -0700
From:	crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: won't compile
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System Specs:
   VAX 11/785
   - 32Mb RAM
   - 40Mb free disk space
   - BSD Unix Reno 4.3

Changes made:
  enabled outbound_network

Log file of make:
[ raw_config.h : config.status ]
./config.status
creating Makefile
creating raw_config.h
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c ast.c
In file included from ast.c:18:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c db.c
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c db_property.c
In file included from unparse.h:22, from db_property.c:23:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c db_verb.c
In file included from unparse.h:22, from db_verb.c:28:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c eval_env.c
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c eval_vm.c
In file included from unparse.h:22, from eval_vm.c:25:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c exceptions.c
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c execute.c
In file included from unparse.h:22, from execute.c:35:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c functions.c
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c list.c
In file included from list.c:18:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c log.c
In file included from log.c:21:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c malloc.c
gnu-malloc.c: In function `morecore':
In file included from malloc.c:28:
gnu-malloc.c:347: warning: implicit declaration of function `sigsetmask'
gnu-malloc.c: In function `get_lim_data':
gnu-malloc.c:818: warning: implicit declaration of function `getrlimit'
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c match.c
In file included from match.c:19:
my-string.h:56: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcpy'
my-string.h:57: warning: conflicting types for built-in function `memcmp'
touch net_single.o
touch net_multi.o
touch net_mp_selct.o
touch net_mp_poll.o
touch net_mp_fake.o
touch net_bsd_tcp.o
touch net_bsd_lcl.o
touch net_sysv_tcp.o
touch net_sysv_lcl.o
gcc -g -Wall -Wwrite-strings  -O -DMOO -c network.c
In file included from my-fcntl.h:20, from net_multi.c:20, from network.c:26:
/usr/include/fcntl.h:65: warning: `/*' within comment
/usr/include/fcntl.h:75: warning: `/*' within comment
/usr/include/fcntl.h:81: warning: `/*' within comment
/usr/include/fcntl.h:86: warning: `/*' within comment
In file included from net_mp_poll.c:20, from network.c:51:
my-poll.h:20: poll.h: No such file or directory
*** Error code 1

Stop.

Much thanx for any responses.

- Chad Wilson
 wilson@lambda, opal, scrabble, etc...

/* May the schwartz be vith you */
-----------------------------------
while (1) fork();
-----------------------------------


From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Thu Oct  7 11:47:42 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "7" "October" "1993" "11:26:58" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "<9310071826.AA12064@sun4.math.uah.edu>" "29" "MOO inter-process communication?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in From: address found on alpha.xerox.com:
	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7097 Mathematical Sciences	Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
														       ^-illegal special character in phrase
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 11:26:58 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO inter-process communication?

Here's a programming feature I'd really like to see.
And here's how I envision it implemented:

A new server command that suspends a task indefinitely if no argument, or
for a maximum of args[1] seconds. Another function which unsuspends the
indefinitely suspended task, also passing it a value. EG:

me:isusp_test this none this
player:tell(task_id());
return_value=isuspend();
return return_value

Well, I forgot a semicolon, but you get the idea... Anyhow, it runs
thusly:

;me:isusp_test()
> 2345678901

;unsuspend(2345678901, "Fred")
> => "Fred"
> => 0

In reality, I don't know which value would be returned first (though I tend
now to think it would be the other way round from what I have here) but
"Fred" is the value passed from the evalled (hypothetical) unsuspend()
function and thus returned by me:isusp_test. Thus, event-sensitive applications could be programmed without frequent polling, and tasks could actually pass
values between them. I think it would be neat and useful, anyway...

====Rob.

From antares.ias.fr!dvb Thu Oct  7 13:24:33 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "7" "October" "1993" "13:16:48" "-0700" "David Van Buren" "dvb@antares.ias.fr" nil "8" "Re: MOO inter-process communication?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 13:16:48 -0700
From:	David Van Buren <dvb@antares.ias.fr>
To:	<@ipac.caltech.edu:thomas@sun4.math.uah.EDU>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO inter-process communication?

I believe this will be in version 1.8 of the server.  Pavel and I have
also implemented a prototype in moo-code on astrovr as a few verbs and
properties on $command_utils.  I can put a file on parcftp if I get
some messoges of interest via direct email.  Warning - our prototype
is not too smart about processes that crash, so needs an unimplememented
cleanup verb.

						- DVB

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct  7 14:00:47 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "7" "October" "1993" "13:51:59" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "30" "Re: MOO inter-process communication?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 13:51:59 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO inter-process communication?

> Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 11:26:58 -0700
> From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
> 
> A new server command that suspends a task indefinitely if no argument, or
> for a maximum of args[1] seconds. Another function which unsuspends the
> indefinitely suspended task, also passing it a value. EG:

In 1.8.0, these are called `suspend()' (the same old one, but with new behavior
given no arguments) and `resume()' and they work just as you said, except that
the second argument to `resume()' (the one that will be returned by the
corresponding `suspend()' call) is optional.

You're right, by the way: it's quite a handy little primitive.

> ;me:isusp_test()
> > 2345678901
> 
> ;unsuspend(2345678901, "Fred")
> > => "Fred"
> > => 0
> 
> In reality, I don't know which value would be returned first (though I tend
> now to think it would be the other way round from what I have here)

Quite so, since the resume()ing task gets to stay atomic, of course.

	Pavel

PS- Don't ask when 1.8.0 will be released.  I'm still aiming for sometime this
    calendar year ... or so.

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Thu Oct  7 16:35:13 1993
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 15:56:18 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: parsing option prep in dobjstr

Newbie question #147:

How does one handle a situation where the preferred English syntax is:

verb object1 [WITH features] ON THIS

The optional prepositional phrase describing object1 is really messing me
up.
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Thu Oct  7 16:52:58 1993
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 16:33:52 -0700
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: parsing option prep in dobjstr
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Newbie question #147:

>How does one handle a situation where the preferred English syntax is:
>
>verb object1 [WITH features] ON THIS
>
>The optional prepositional phrase describing object1 is really messing me
>up.

Either you can get the player to always type that dobjstr surrounded by
 quotes or you can put the verb on the dobj so that it is:

dobj:verb THIS WITH ANY

and then parse iobjstr for reference to whatever `THIS' was in the
 earlier example.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct  7 16:59:08 1993
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References: <9310072256.AA00805@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>
Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 16:45:32 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: parsing option prep in dobjstr

> Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 15:56:18 -0700
> From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
> 
> How does one handle a situation where the preferred English syntax is:
> 
> verb object1 [WITH features] ON THIS

My approach would be to give the verb args as

		any on this

and then do extra parsing of the `dobjstr' to find the `with' if any, etc.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct  7 18:03:44 1993
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References: <9310072256.AA00805@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>
	<93Oct7.164542pdt.58375@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 17:55:24 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com, lynch@ils.nwu.edu
Subject: Re: parsing option prep in dobjstr

> Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 16:45:32 -0700
> From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
>
> > Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 15:56:18 -0700
> > From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
> > 
> > How does one handle a situation where the preferred English syntax is:
> > 
> > verb object1 [WITH features] ON THIS
> 
> My approach would be to give the verb args as
> 
> 		any on this
> 
> and then do extra parsing of the `dobjstr' to find the `with' if any, etc.

This is, of course, complete garbage, because when the WITH part is given, the
server will decide that WITH is the main preposition and fail to find my `any
on this' verb.  You either have to have the verb be on `object1' twice (once
with `with' as the prep and once with `ON', both presumably calling into a
third verb which does the actual work) or else put the verb either on the
player or the room, either using the same double-definition idea or simply
using `any any any' and doing the parsing manually.

Nobody ever said that the MOO parser was a good thing.

	Pavel

From apple.com!strata Fri Oct  8 02:56:40 1993
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Date:	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 02:36:43 -0700
From:	Strata Rose <strata@apple.com>
To:	strata@virtual.net
Subject: Virtual City (tm) Network FAQ 1.0

		
		VIRTUAL CITY (TM) NETWORK FAQ, REV 1.0



SO WHAT EXACTLY IS THE VIRTUAL CITY (tm) NETWORK?

The Virtual City(tm) Network is an ambitious Networked Virtual Reality
Infrastructure which will link current Internet information technology
with the emerging capabilities of on-line virtual reality
environments.  Using existing software which implements shared,
interactive virtual spaces we will extend the paradigm of the FreeNet
community into virtual reality by creating online cities and
communities in which people may share text, graphics, and multimedia
in a cooperative real-time environment.  These online communities will
be able to make use of cutting edge tools such as network
conferencing, collaboration & visualization tools, multimedia
electronic mail, online access to government data, networked library
catalogs & facilities, electronic books online and Internet-accessible
public data repositories.  The Virtual City(tm) Network will also be a
proving ground for privacy technologies such as public key
cryptography, PGP, and Digital Cash(tm).


DIDN'T YOU RUN AN AD IN _WIRED_ RECENTLY?

NO.  And again, No.  The Virtual City (tm) Network is the brainchild
of one M. Strata Rose, longtime net.lurker and sometime visionary, who
has been developing the concept since roughly June 1992.  I started
serious feasibility exploration in December of '92 and have been on
track on a timeline which formally started in May '93.  The folks who
put an ad in _WIRED_ are Objective Communications of Illinois.
Virtual City (tm) is a trademark of M. Strata Rose and VirtualNet
(currently undergoing formal incorporation).  We are registered with
the NIC as VIRTUAL.NET and VIRTUAL-CITY.COM.


OH, COME ON-- TRADEMARKING THE PHRASE "VIRTUAL CITY"?

The concept of creating virtual communities in a Mush/MUD/MOO
environment has been kicking around for many years, and quite a bit of
work has been done by a great many people.  However, there is a
particular on-line public access service concept which I call the
Virtual City (tm) Network.  As it says in the terrifying amount of
paperwork required to file a trademark, "this application in no way
attempts to restrict the usage of the terms 'virtual' or 'city',
merely their usage in conjunction where applicable to services in this
class".  Or something highly similar but in stricter legalese, as per
professional advice.



WELL, HOW IS YOUR "VIRTUAL CITY (tm) NETWORK" DIFFERENT 
FROM THEIR "VIRTUAL CITY"?

Obviously there is a limit to the extent to which I can comment, as
both of our offerings seem to be in a pre-release state.  However, a
brief telephone conversation with an individual at Objective
Communications indicated some important differences:


1) The Virtual City (tm) Network will be free for individuals to
access; charges will only be levied on entities attempting to conduct
profitable business activities.  My understanding is that Objective
plans to charge fees at all levels of participation in their service.

2) The Virtual City (tm) Network has been designed for multimedia and
information service access from the ground up.  My understanding is
that Objective's service is text-only and the gentleman on the phone
indicated that they had no current plans to expand it to multimedia.

3) VirtualNet incorporates both a for-profit corporation and a 
not-for-profit research arm.  One of our primary goals for the Virtual
City(tm) Network is to take the Cleveland FreeNet model into virtual
space.  The Virtual City (tm) Metropolitan Transit Authority, VCMTA,
is being designed concurrently as an object transport model between
instantiations of various Virtual City (tm) Sites.  We will be
offering templates for instantiations of our city model to be used by
communities and organizations, with a true distributed model allowing
users and information to flow freely throughout the Virtual City (tm)
Network.

We are attempting to build an expandable, scalable piece of Internet
infrastructure that will support a rich model of growth and
self-determination as well as support research on virtual communities
and cyberspaces in general.  Look for abstracts, research papers,
RFC's and API's from us in the coming year.


NO KIDDING.  TELL ME MORE.

One of my design goals in building the Virtual City(tm) Network is to
challenge people's assumptions about "the real world" versus "the
virtual world"; many if not most of people's interactions today
take place in a virtual world which has been largely co-opted by the
real world.  Newspapers, television, and radio are all prime
examples-- most of these rely on mental constructions based on
primarily verbal input or on finely crafted presentations which have
little to do with "reality", yet few people consider to what degree
these omnipresent factors constitute much of their information flow.

A wonderful example is the Android Sisters' "Money" (radioplay "Ruby",
ZBS Productions).  The Sisters hold up two items, described as two
pieces of paper, to a "viewer" and ask for her description.  Her
reply, "well, one is a piece of paper, but the other is money" elicits
the ruefully exasperated reply "two pieces of paper!".  The well-made
point is that people's cognitive mappings have become so rigidly
codified that they view their world through highly constrained filters
to the point of shutting out other options.

In the Virtual City(tm) Network, the line between the real and the
virtual has the inherent ability to be deliberately blurred.
Information from "the real world" can be presented as often as
possible in a matter of fact way.  I hope to feature several space
station designs from the cutting edge of the aerospace industry, and
the reported weather in the outdoor sections of the city will come
from weather data live from local feeds, updated to the San Mateo
Bridge area, the putative location of the site.  Our virtual
coffeehouses will tie into Internet game servers of various sorts and
we are investigating links to real-world coffeehouses via terminals
in the field.  Imagine chatting on a virtual terminal via the Internet
to folks on real terminals in coffeehouses.  Now who's real and who's
virtual?


OKAY, WHAT'S YOUR TECHNOLOGY BASE?

We are currently using LambdaMOO, an object-oriented virtual
environment designed at Xerox PARC.  Instantiations of LambdaMOO are
already being used to provide virtual spaces in which researchers,
educators, and interested folks can meet and interact online, such as
MIT Media Lab's "MediaMOO", "JaysHouseMOO". the original "LambdaMOO"
and a growing plethora of others.  Various university and individual
projects are adding the capability to access certain Internet
information resources such as the "archie" FTP search engine and
University of Minnesota's Internet Gopher browser [JaysHouse MOO].
Xerox PARC is working on a project called "AstroVR" in which
extensions to the text-based MOO software allow astrophysicists to
share graphical images and data.  The PARC team is also working on
MBONE extensions to LambdaMOO; these extensions will allow LambdaMOO
users to use the Multicast Backbone to do real-time audio and video
conferencing using tools which are being developed concurrently by the
greater networking community.  We are working on extensions which will
combine the functionality of NCSA's Mosaic information browser with
the virtual environment capabilities of LambdaMOO.

Mosaic is a hypertext browser through which individuals may access
various Internet services such as World Wide Web, Gopher, WAIS, and
archie.  The World Wide Web in particular uses a format called HTML
(HyperText Markup Language) to create documents which can access other
documents with a single mouse click from the browser.  We are adding
the ability for SGML or HTML documents to be valid MOO objects; this
single extension opens up a significant range of possibilities which
represent needed interconnectivity between the MOO environment and the
wider world of Internet information.  Virtual spaces in the MOO can
then lead directly to an information cache, and information browsers
on the Internet can interact with MOO spaces as well.

This is just the beginning.  In particular, the Virtual City (tm)
Network is being designed to allow encapsulation of other information
formats and explicit handoff to both public and proprietary
information servers.  Our model is very similar to the one which NCSA
developed with Mosaic.  You interact with our virtual spaces using
custom clients or browsers which can invoke various service handlers
or interaction programs on your host machine.  Just as Mosaic will
bring up a GIF viewer when you reference a GIF file, the Virtual City
(tm) browser could invoke Virtus Walkthrough (tm Virtus) or the BRL-CAD
environment on a virtual space.  You might enter a virtual space with
encapsulated or referenced data available in several formats that your
client or browser could handle.


WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Ah, this is one of the really great parts-- if we can hand you off to
some other viewer or program or even another server, then the Virtual
City (tm) Network is truly expandable and extensible.  We will be able
to offer services that no one has even thought of yet as long as they
run over the Internet infrastructure (ie, TCP/IP or something that can
encapsulate itself in it).  The Virtual City (tm) Network will grow
along with virtual reality and internet information technology, since
new services can be accessed in a plug-and-play fashion.  What we're
trying to do here is essentially spawn a meta-infrastructure context
in which to tie together highly varied services.  This is also where
VCMTA comes in.


WHAT'S VCMTA?


VCMTA, the Virtual City(tm) Metropolitan Transit Authority, will be
developed concurrently.  This facility will provide authentication
services for moving database objects between servers on different
hosts, as well as implementing state-of-the-art privacy enhancements
for secure communication & transactions.  VCMTA will allow us to
network instances of the Virtual City (tm) Template together and allow
people to "move" between them in one ever-growing virtual space.

We realize that there are hard problems to solve in building any sort
of object transport facility; however, our philosophy is that we can't
work miracles but can make something that works, is customizable and
configurable, and will make most people happy.

Obviously you can't "move" objects, however you can build objects
which rely on a core object library, are "registered" with VCMTA, and
follow certain rules as to their behavior on other servers and in
other conditions.  The nature of our distributed architecture already
means that resources you access are not necessarily on the VC server,
this is the logical next step.


WELL THIS IS ALL VERY NICE, BUT I DON'T PROGRAM AT ALL SO I 
PROBABLY WON'T BE ABLE TO USE IT MUCH.

Current implementations of MOOs and MUDS require that users be able to
program at a fairly sophisticated level in order to enjoy the full
power of MOO/MUD environments, especially in constructing new objects.
We feel that this encourages "second-class citizen" status for those
virtual citizens who cannot or will not learn to program proficiently.

Accordingly, the Virtual City(tm) Network is being designed with
virtual storehouses of objects which can be drawn from and user
friendly front-ends with which to customize those objects to create
personalized and useful virtual spaces.  The full power of the MOO
internal programming language will still be available to those who
care to use it, but those who have neither the time nor desire to do
so will be able to interact as fully as the programming hoi-polloi.

As part of this effort, we are designing interactive front-ends to
interface with the storehouses of objects and handle simple
customization.  Certain "city services" such as phones, chat lines,
radios, gopher slates, etc will be available as well as common objects
(and unusual ones!) from various individuals.  By the way, if you
register an object for public use and it passes the Virtual City (tm)
Architectural Board (no Trojan horses or duds, please!), it no longer
counts against your quota.  Keen, eh?


THIS IS STARTING TO SOUND PRETTY COOL.  ARE YOU SURE IT'S 
FREE?

There will be no charge for private individuals to access the Network
and to engage in building and programming activities (up to a generous
initial quota, as in most other MOOs or MUDs).  Non- profit and
government organizations will be allocated space at no charge in the
Virtual City(tm) Marketplace, Business District, and other public
areas.  Cultural attractions such as art galleries, museums, and music
halls are placed throughout the Virtual City(tm) Network; space in
these attractions will be donated to artists and community projects to
publicize their work.  The several museums will feature examples of
the growing number of online exhibits such as the Library of Congress'
current Vatican Project.

Corporations and other for-profit entities may be charged membership
fees on a monthly basis, as well as rent for virtual spaces in which
to transact business.  Our basic paradigm is that if you're in the
Virtual City (tm) Network to generate professional profitable activity
then you should pay a fee to do so.  Ie., the customary net.forsale or
net.jobs type of stuff is just fine, whereas setting up a virtual
office in which to run a real-time on-line consulting business would
require paying rent.  Arrangements can be made on a rental or
percentage basis, or both.

We are very interested in supporting subscription-based services where
subscribers are allowed access to custom objects or facilities.  This
can be a very economical way to do rich text or multimedia electronic
publishing in a small-press model, or provide specialized databases or
services at a modest cost to subscribers.  


WHAT SORT OF FACILITIES ARE YOU PLANNING?

In addition to those mentioned above, we will have all the standard
amenities-- Alexandria, the Virtual Library, a business district,
arcade and game areas, residential streets, a campus area where
several interesting projects are being designed, transit facilities,
and so on.  We're choosing to leave MBONE facilities out on this pass
due to bandwidth considerations; however, we plan on supporting such
diverse applications and protocols as Netjam MIDI, CUSeeMe network
video conferencing, various whiteboard tools, IRC with local client
enhancements, connections to other MOOs/MUDS, NCSA & BRL-CAD
visualization environments, group collaboration tools, interactive
game servers, Internet Talk Radio, etc.  We're exploring support for
proprietary and vendor environments as well, such as Autodesk, Virtus,
SGI, and other virtual reality software interfaces.

We also have several original-design projects up our virtual sleeves
such as the Virtual Coffeehouses, the Twilight Lands where
storytellers roam the campfires, the UpAbove and DownBelow space and
marine research station simulators, a Virtual Physics Lab, and so on.

Not to mention the Virtual City (tm) Marketplace, Information Center,
and On-Line Technical Support Center where you can sell your products
or services with minimal overhead and rely on our expertise to deliver
your information to the Internet community.  


WOW, I'M CONVINCED.  HOW DO I LOG ON? 

We're terribly sorry, but you can't log in quite yet.  We will be
opening the database to key implementors once we finish the C
modifications to the LambdaMOO server and to the LambdaCore.  We had
planned a general announcement in mid to late November, but
circumstances required otherwise.  We are taking lists of pre-
registrants, though.  Send email to "vcreg@virtual.net" with pertinent
info: your name, your requested character name, and a short blurb
which will become your initial description.  Oh yes, and your Public
Key.

Don't have one?  Tsk, tsk, they're a good thing to have in general; go
out and connect to a public key server and get yourself a key-- we'll
send out your initial password encrypted to you, and you can decipher
it with our public key.  Fun, eh?  If you're a sufficiently
enthusiastic cyberspace denizen to pre-reg, you probably already have
a public key...

We are planning a Virtual New Year's Party at the very least, even if
all net services are not on-line yet.  The HTML/SGML capability is
really the critical factor-- we will open as soon as that is reliably
running and add other services as our range of interfaces expands.
Even if our (free) custom browser is not finished by then you will
still be able to use standard MUD/MOO clients in conjunction with
Mosaic or similar HTML browsers to enjoy the multimedia capabilities.


WELL, DO YOU NEED ANY HELP?  HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?

I'm glad you asked that question.  :-) Since a critical aspect of our
project is free public access, we need volunteers!  Our schedule has
been accelerated fairly rapidly at this point and we could use a hand
fairly soon.  Send email to "vcbuild@virtual.net" with some brief
notes about what you're interested in implementing and your level of
familiarity with MOO coding.  If you have experience with server and
core-level mods, there may be funding in it as well, though we are
primarily looking for volunteers at this time.


ISN'T THIS GETTING PRETTY LONG FOR A "FAQ" FOR SOMETHING 
NEW THAT NOT MANY FOLKS OUTSIDE OF THE BAY AREA HAVE 
EVEN HEARD OF?

Totally correct.  Send questions, suggestions, pointers, flames, and
so on to "vc@virtual.net".  If you'd like to be on a mailing list for
discussion of virtual communities, network services, and other Virtual
City (tm) Network related themes, send mail to
"virtual-citizens@virtual.net".  There's plenty more where this came
from, look for technology updates, facility updates, and GIF &
Postscript (tm Adobe) maps.  See you in cyberspace!


Virtual City (tm) Network FAQ 1.0 copyright 1993 M. Strata Rose &
VirtualNet; permission to distribute in its entirety, including this
notice, freely granted.

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Fri Oct  8 05:09:30 1993
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Date:	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 05:03:04 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: PARCFTP



Where'd /pub/MOO go to anyway, all my ftptool sees is '..'.  Are we storing
things somewhere else nowadays?


A.


From actlab.rtf.utexas.edu!chiphead Thu Oct  7 18:09:54 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "7" "October" "1993" "17:51:55" "-0700" "Allan Alford" "chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu" nil "25" "Replacing the .db" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 7 Oct 1993 17:51:55 -0700
From:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
To:	MOOcows <moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com>
Subject: Replacing the .db
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

We are running Solaris, and have our MOO set on a port.
For reasons I don't care to go into :) we need
to replace the existing .db.

I ftp'd the newest version from the site, deleted ALL the old .db's,
including the .log, .old, and .new files.

for some reason, even after doing "restart" with the new .db's name
(same port), the system recreates the old .db name (with a .new
extension, I believe), and when I go in, it's still all the same.

Does "moo" encapsulate and contain the .db, or reference it somehow?

I tried using "moo" by hand with the input-db as the new release
of the .db and the dump-db as the new .db file name I wanted...
The system loaded the new stuff, but then just waited and waited
and waited and waited...

I'm o.k. with MOO, but I'm lousy with UNIX! 

Thoroughly confused, and desparate to get this fixed,
Chiphead




From sun10.sep.bnl.gov!sailer Fri Oct  8 05:46:33 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "8" "October" "1993" "05:39:09" "-0700" "Tim Sailer" "sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov " nil "33" "Re: Replacing the .db" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <9310081239.AA26612@sun10.sep.bnl.gov.sep>
Date:	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 05:39:09 -0700
From:	sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov (Tim Sailer)
To:	chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu (Allan Alford)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Replacing the .db
Content-Type: text

> 
> We are running Solaris, and have our MOO set on a port.
> For reasons I don't care to go into :) we need
> to replace the existing .db.
> 
> I ftp'd the newest version from the site, deleted ALL the old .db's,
> including the .log, .old, and .new files.
> 
> for some reason, even after doing "restart" with the new .db's name
> (same port), the system recreates the old .db name (with a .new
> extension, I believe), and when I go in, it's still all the same.
> 
> Does "moo" encapsulate and contain the .db, or reference it somehow?
> 
> I tried using "moo" by hand with the input-db as the new release
> of the .db and the dump-db as the new .db file name I wanted...
> The system loaded the new stuff, but then just waited and waited
> and waited and waited...
> 
> I'm o.k. with MOO, but I'm lousy with UNIX! 
> 
> Thoroughly confused, and desparate to get this fixed,
> Chiphead

Look in 'restart'. Its a script file. Thats where the db name is
hardcoded.

Tim

-- 
                            Tim Sailer
                      sailer@sun10.sep.bnl.gov
             "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Oct  8 09:45:09 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "8" "October" "1993" "09:33:49" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "9" "Re: PARCFTP" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <9310081203.AA08944@emerald.cm.cf.ac.uk>
Date:	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 09:33:49 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: PARCFTP

> Date:	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 05:03:04 -0700
> From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> 
> Where'd /pub/MOO go to anyway, all my ftptool sees is '..'.  Are we storing
> things somewhere else nowadays?

It looks to me like it's still there, same as before...

	Pavel

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Fri Oct  8 12:32:21 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "8" "October" "1993" "12:16:38" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "13" "@rename" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 12:16:38 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: @rename

How come it's

@copy foo:bar to foo:baz

but

@rename foo:bar to foo:baz --> foo:"foo:baz"

Icky.
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Oct 11 17:33:29 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "October" "1993" "17:21:50" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "88" "Release 1.7.6 of the LambdaMOO server" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Mon, 11 Oct 1993 17:21:50 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Release 1.7.6 of the LambdaMOO server

I have just made available release 1.7.6 of the LambdaMOO server.  This is a
`small features' release, containing some things that I found necessary for my
own work and some easy things that other folks have asked for, along with a
couple of bug fixes.

As usual, you can FTP the new server from

	parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/LambdaMOO-1.7.6.tar.Z

I hope to get new versions of the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual and the
LambdaCore database out within the next day or so, to match this server
release.

			      *****************
			      *** NOTE WELL ***
			      *****************

		This release of the LambdaMOO server includes
		an incompatible change, in which the server no
		longer makes any calls to :confunc or :disfunc
		verbs on players or rooms.  PLEASE read the
		ChangeLog entries below and follow the
		directions there before using this server on
		any existing database.

Here's the ChangeLog entry for this release:

Version 1.7.6, 11 October 1993
-- The built-in command parser now matches the (in)direct object string against
   the names of objects as well as their aliases.
-- The server no longer calls :confunc or :disfunc directly when users connect
   or disconnect; instead, it calls the following verbs on #0 in the
   appropriate circumstances:
	:user_created(USER)
		When #0:do_login_command() returns USER, a valid player object
		whose number is greater than the value max_object() returned
		before the server called #0:do_login_command().  That is, when
		a new user has been created.
	:user_connected(USER)
		When #0:do_login_command() returns USER, a previously-existing
		valid player object for which no active connection already
		existed.
	:user_reconnected(USER)
		When #0:do_login_command() returns USER, a previously-existing
		valid player object for which there was already an active
		connection.
	:user_disconnected(USER)
		After the end of a task that called either boot_player(USER) or
		set_player_flag(USER, 0).
	:user_client_disconnected(USER)
		When USER's client unilaterally closes its connection to the
		server.
   ******** Before upgrading an existing MOO to use this version of the server,
   * NOTE * you should install the following verbs on #0 in order to remain
   ******** compatible with existing code; NOTE WELL that they should be
   installed with the `d' permissions bit UNSET:
	#0:"user_created user_connected"
   		user = args[1];
		fork (0)
		  user:confunc();
		endfork
		user.location:confunc(user);
	#0:"user_disconnected user_client_disconnected"
   		user = args[1];
		fork (0)
		  user.location:disfunc(user);
		endfork
		user:disfunc();
-- Non-wizard users can now use the read() built-in function when they give a
   connected object they own as an argument.  Thus, it is possible, for
   example, for a non-wizard to prompt itself for input.
-- The match() and rmatch() built-in functions now cache some number of the
   most recently used patterns, somewhat speeding up the matching process.
-- The server now calls #0:checkpoint_started() whenever it starts to dump a
   checkpoint of the database and #0:checkpoint_finished(SUCCESS) whenever the
   dump finishes, where SUCCESS is true iff and only if the checkpoint was
   successful.
-- Fixed a bug (!) in the built-in command parser whereby in the command
	="This is in quotes" and this is not
   the variable `verb' would correctly be set to "=This is in quotes" but the
   variable `argstr' would be "is in quotes\" and this is not" instead of the
   correct "and this is not".  (Reported by Shirgall.)
-- Fixed some compilation problems with the SYSV/TCP configuration on Solaris
   machines.
-- The value of `argstr' when the server calls either #0:do_login_command() or
   #0:do_out_of_band_command() is now the raw command line as received from the
   connection, as opposed to the empty string.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Oct 11 18:47:35 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "October" "1993" "18:39:07" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "14" "New LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual released" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <93Oct11.183909pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 11 Oct 1993 18:39:07 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: New LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual released

I have just made available a new edition of the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual,
revised to take into account the changes made in release 1.7.6 of the server.

As an added bonus, I have finally given in to the many requests I've received
for a version of the manual usable with the Emacs Info subsystem.  The node
structuring in the new manual was generously provided by Mark-Jason Dominus.

As usual, the manual is available for FTP from

		parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/ProgrammersManual.*

The new, info-ized version is in the file with extension `.info'.

	Pavel

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Mon Oct 11 19:29:41 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "October" "1993" "19:08:36" "-0700" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" nil "46" "Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in From: address found on alpha.xerox.com:
	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7097 Mathematical Sciences	Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
														       ^-illegal special character in phrase
X-NS-Transport-ID: 08002008D0FD00573E24
Message-ID: <9310120208.AA19760@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Mon, 11 Oct 1993 19:08:36 -0700
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Bug in 1.7.6?

Okay, I've changed ForeMOO over to 1.7.6, and this verb is
giving me problems:
 
#34:"verify*_email_address"   this none this
 1:  if (!caller_perms().wizard)
 2:    return E_PERM;
 3:  endif
 4:  address = args[1];
 5:  parsed = $network:parse_address(address);
 6:  username = parsed[1];
 7:  hostname = parsed[2];
 8:  conn = open_network_connection(hostname, 25);
 9:  fork (0)
10:    while (1)
11:      line = read(conn);
12:      if (line[1..3] == "250")
13:        boot_player(conn);
14:        return E_NONE;
15:      elseif (line[1..3] == "550")
16:        player:tell("E-mail address is NOT valid.");
17:        return E_INVARG;
18:      endif
19:    endwhile
20:  endfork
21:  vrfycmd = "VRFY " + username;
22:  notify(conn, vrfycmd);
 
=======================================================
Here's what I get when I used the verb:
 
;$network:verify("thomas@math.uah.edu")
=> 0
 
;$network:verify("fred@math.uah.edu")
=> 0
E-mail address is NOT valid.
 
Now, I KNOW there's nothing in the code that could return a 0
value. And I also know that this verb worked under, well, 1.7.0
anyway, and I'm pretty sure under 1.7.5, though I don't really
know when and if it was used under 1.7.5. Is this a bug? Or
is it a new feature whose effects I have not extrapolated to
this result?
 
Just wondering,
====Rob.

From uoguelph.ca!searle Mon Oct 11 20:17:16 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "11" "October" "1993" "20:02:00" "-0700" "\"Gregory L. Searle\"" "searle@uoguelph.ca" nil "245" "Compiling LambdaMOO-1.7.6" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Mon, 11 Oct 1993 20:02:00 -0700
From:	"Gregory L. Searle" <searle@uoguelph.ca>
To:	Moo-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Compiling LambdaMOO-1.7.6
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hi there.
I have been trying relentlessly to compile Lambda. I am working with an
HP-UX running System V with BSD extentsions.
We don't have gcc. I related this to Pavel and he indicated that the
absence of gcc shouldn't make a difference.

Here are the error codes I get when I attempt to make with the BSD (in
options.h) default. I don't get as far with SYSV (in options.h)

ANy ideas? Do I really need gcc?

make
	grep -v '^#undef' raw_config.h > config.h
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c ast.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c db.c
cc: "db.c", line 96: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "result".
cc: "db.c", line 96: error 1588: "pid_t" undefined.
cc: "db.c", line 98: error 1588: "result" undefined.
cc: "db.c", line 98: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
cc: "db.c", line 101: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
TinkerTime --> make
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c db_property.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c db_verb.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c eval_env.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c eval_vm.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c exceptions.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c execute.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c functions.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c list.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c log.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c malloc.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c match.c
	touch net_single.o
	touch net_multi.o
	touch net_mp_selct.o
	touch net_mp_poll.o
	touch net_mp_fake.o
	touch net_bsd_tcp.o
	touch net_bsd_lcl.o
	touch net_sysv_tcp.o
	touch net_sysv_lcl.o
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c network.c
cc: "net_multi.c", line 109: error 1588: "F_GETFL" undefined.
cc: "net_multi.c", line 110: error 1588: "F_SETFL" undefined.
cc: "net_multi.c", line 110: error 1588: "O_NDELAY" undefined.
cc: "net_multi.c", line 310: error 1588: "SIGPIPE" undefined.
cc: "net_multi.c", line 310: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "net_multi.c", line 310: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "net_multi.c", line 310: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "/usr/include/netinet/in.h", line 69: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "u_long".
cc: "/usr/include/netinet/in.h", line 127: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "u_short".
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 92: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "0x00000000".
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 80: error 1588: "AF_INET" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 80: error 1588: "SOCK_STREAM" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 85: error 1588: "SOL_SOCKET" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 85: error 1588: "SO_REUSEADDR" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 92: error 1588: "u_long" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 140: error 1588: "EMFILE" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 140: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 151: error 1588: "AF_INET" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 149: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 157: error 1530: Undefined struct or union.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 220: error 1588: "AF_INET" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 227: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 234: error 1530: Undefined struct or union.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 234: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 234: error 1530: Undefined struct or union.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 234: warning 563: Argument #3 is not the correct type.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 245: error 1588: "SOCK_STREAM" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 247: error 1588: "EMFILE" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 247: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 258: error 1588: "ETIMEDOUT" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 264: error 1588: "EADDRNOTAVAIL" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 265: error 1588: "ECONNREFUSED" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 266: error 1588: "ENETUNREACH" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 267: error 1588: "ETIMEDOUT" undefined.
cc: "net_bsd_tcp.c", line 264: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 28: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "input".
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 34: error 1588: "input" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 34: error 1527: Incompatible types in cast.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 34: error 1554: Indirection must be through a pointer.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 34: error 1594: Unknown size.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 35: error 1588: "output" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 35: error 1527: Incompatible types in cast.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 35: error 1554: Indirection must be through a pointer.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 35: error 1594: Unknown size.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 42: error 1588: "input" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 42: error 1532: Reference through a non-pointer.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 42: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment operator.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 50: error 1588: "output" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 50: error 1532: Reference through a non-pointer.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 50: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment operator.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 58: error 1574: Unknown size for "tv".
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 61: error 1530: Undefined struct or union.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 62: error 1530: Undefined struct or union.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 64: error 1588: "input" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 64: error 1527: Incompatible types in cast.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 64: error 1588: "output" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 64: error 1527: Incompatible types in cast.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 67: error 1588: "EINTR" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 67: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 77: error 1588: "input" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 77: error 1532: Reference through a non-pointer.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 83: error 1588: "output" undefined.
cc: "net_mp_selct.c", line 83: error 1532: Reference through a non-pointer.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
TinkerTime --> make
	touch net_single.o
	touch net_multi.o
	touch net_mp_selct.o
	touch net_mp_poll.o
	touch net_bsd_tcp.o
	touch net_bsd_lcl.o
	touch net_sysv_tcp.o
	touch net_sysv_lcl.o
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c numbers.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c objects.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c parse_cmd.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c program.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c property.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c quota.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c ref_count.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c regex.c
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c server.c
cc: "server.c", line 45: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "parent_pid".
cc: "server.c", line 101: error 1588: "SIGHUP" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 101: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 101: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 101: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 103: error 1588: "SIGQUIT" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 103: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 103: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 103: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 108: error 1588: "SIGUSR1" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 108: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 108: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 108: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 109: error 1588: "SIGUSR2" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 109: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 109: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 109: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 110: error 1588: "SIGCLD" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 110: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 110: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 110: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 131: error 1588: "parent_pid" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 131: error 1588: "SIGUSR1" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 182: error 1588: "WNOHANG" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 207: error 1588: "SIGHUP" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 207: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 207: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 207: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 209: error 1588: "SIGQUIT" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 209: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 209: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 209: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 217: error 1588: "SIGUSR1" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 217: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 217: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 217: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 218: error 1588: "SIGUSR2" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 218: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 218: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 218: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 220: error 1588: "SIGCLD" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 220: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 220: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 220: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 508: error 1588: "parent_pid" undefined.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
TinkerTime --> make
	touch net_single.o
	touch net_multi.o
	touch net_mp_selct.o
	touch net_mp_poll.o
	touch net_bsd_tcp.o
	touch net_bsd_lcl.o
	touch net_sysv_tcp.o
	touch net_sysv_lcl.o
	cc -Aa -O -DMOO -c server.c
cc: "server.c", line 45: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "parent_pid".
cc: "server.c", line 101: error 1588: "SIGHUP" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 101: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 101: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 101: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 103: error 1588: "SIGQUIT" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 103: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 103: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 103: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 108: error 1588: "SIGUSR1" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 108: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 108: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 108: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 109: error 1588: "SIGUSR2" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 109: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 109: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 109: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 110: error 1588: "SIGCLD" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 110: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 110: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 110: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 131: error 1588: "parent_pid" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 131: error 1588: "SIGUSR1" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 182: error 1588: "WNOHANG" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 207: error 1588: "SIGHUP" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 207: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 207: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 207: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 209: error 1588: "SIGQUIT" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 209: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 209: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 209: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 217: error 1588: "SIGUSR1" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 217: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 217: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 217: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 218: error 1588: "SIGUSR2" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 218: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 218: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 218: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 220: error 1588: "SIGCLD" undefined.
cc: "server.c", line 220: warning 563: Argument #1 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 220: warning 608: Illegal integer-pointer combination in assignment.
cc: "server.c", line 220: warning 563: Argument #2 is not the correct type.
cc: "server.c", line 508: error 1588: "parent_pid" undefined.
*** Error code 1

Stop.

   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  [DUBIOUS DISCLAIMER tm]
   :              Gregory L. Searle              :  Any heresy, iconoclasm,
   :    Computing and Communications Services    :  or subversion expressed
   :             Political Studies               :  above is my own, and is
   :       University of Guelph, CANADA          :  not to be confused with
   : searle@uoguelph.ca  gsearle@ccs.uoguelph.ca :  that of my employer(s).
   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  ||||_CopyLeft_1993_||||



From parc.xerox.com!masinter Mon Oct 11 21:03:10 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Mon" "11" "October" "1993" "20:52:37" "-0700" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "18" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <93Oct11.205243pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 11 Oct 1993 20:52:37 -0700
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

Your code isn't doing what you expect: return inside a 'fork', can
only return from that fork, since otherwise, the task has already
returned.

You cannot simply verify email addresses of the form 'user@host' by
connecting to 'host' and ask it about 'user'. I know of no simple,
efficient and accurate way to verify email addresses from MOO; thus,
LambdaCore's $network:invalid_email_address merely tests for valid
form of email addresses by comparing the user and host against regular
expressions.

If this used to print messages to you and no longer does, I'd suspect
that the open_network_connection is failing, and your 'while' loop is
running endlessly.





From virtual.net!strata Tue Oct 12 11:54:29 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "11:23:06" "-0700" "\"M. Strata Rose\"" "strata@virtual-city.virtual.net" nil "29" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Mon, 11 Oct 1993 19:08:36 PDT"
Message-ID: <CMM.0.90.2.750450186.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 11:23:06 -0700
From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Sender: strata@virtual.net
To:	thomas%sun4.math.uah.edu@apple.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC%xerox.com@apple.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?
Reply-to: strata@hybrid.com


Thomas, I don't know the new server so I can't speak to that portion of
your posting, but I do know that if you are using that code to validate
email addresses, people with a valid email address using an MX record (Mail
eXchanger) will be denied access. MX records transparently funnel mail
to another system which receives it in lieu of the actual address, but
this is done "inside" an MX-compatible/configured sendmail and a straight
telnet to the alleged host will always fail.  

MX-ing all mail for a given commercial site to a single firewall machine 
is a standard practice these days, so you might want to consider a 
different method of verifying email addresses.  I would suggest either 
parsing the address to see if it meets RFC-822 or setting up some kind
of listserv agent which attempts to send mail of the form: 
myagent%myaddress@theiraddress  and looks for a reply, showing that mail
was routed through their system back to you.  Of course, this may still
fail with UUCP sites that connect only every few hours, weird fidomail 
gateways, misconfigured mailers, etc.  Depends on how strongly you want
to make sure the person has an email address.

Cheers,

_Strata


M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City Project
strata@virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@apple.com | strata@eddie.mit.edu

From aero.org!obrien Tue Oct 12 15:26:59 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "15:12:49" "-0700" "obrien@aero.org" "obrien@aero.org" nil "12" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Posted-Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 15:12:49 PDT
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Wx-Message-Id: obrien.2927891568
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In-Reply-to: "\"M. Strata Rose\" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>'s message of: 12 October 1993m
	vpne"
Message-ID: <199310122213.AA14317@aerospace.aero.org>
References: <CMM.0.90.2.750450186.strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 15:12:49 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
cc:	obrien@aero.org
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

	I do have to wonder if the folks who've complained about Thomas'
code to verify a mail address noticed that he was using the VRFY
option of SMTP.  This sure as heck ought to verify an email address -
that's what it's there for - except in cases where the other end has
intentionally or unintentionally subverted the process.

	I'd say that if you want to verify an email address, this is your
best shot.  It's not perfect but it's the best you can do right now.

	This doesn't speak to any other problems with the code.

Mike O'Brien

From ai.mit.edu!cstacy Tue Oct 12 16:07:26 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "15:58:29" "-0700" "Christopher C. Stacy" "cstacy@ai.mit.edu " nil "44" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 15:58:29 -0700
From:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)
To:	obrien@aero.org
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

   Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 15:12:49 PDT
   From: obrien@aero.org

   I do have to wonder if the folks who've complained about Thomas'
   code to verify a mail address noticed that he was using the VRFY
   option of SMTP.  This sure as heck ought to verify an email address -
   that's what it's there for - except in cases where the other end has
   intentionally or unintentionally subverted the process.

   I'd say that if you want to verify an email address, this is your
   best shot.  It's not perfect but it's the best you can do right now.

   This doesn't speak to any other problems with the code.

Mike,

The problem is that this approach presupposes that the righthand part
of the address (eg., "aero.org") is the name of a host connected
to the Internet, and further that said host is where the user
named in the lefthand part ("obrien") is to receive their mail.

Neither of those assumptions are correct in many cases.

The algorithm for verifying a mail address would be as follows.
Search the distributed domain database (DNS) for an MX record matching
righthand part.  If found, use that as the host, and use DNS to resolve 
this new host name.  Otherwise, use DNS to resolve the righthand part
itself, since it must really be a mail host.  (At this point, you have
either failed, or you have the address from an A record.)
Now connect to that host, and use the VRFY command.

Your next problem is that some hosts will accept any properly formed
(or maybe even ill formed) address in the VRFY command, because their
mailer back-end will try to forward anything handed to it, and the
front-end can't know if an address will turn out to work or not.
This is why sometimes you send mail to a host, and get back a receipt
message saying "No such user".  The foreign host accepted the recipient
that your host specified, but then it was later discovered not to be valid.

The net is really in some sense "too distributed" to do the kind of
verification you're asking for.

Cheers,
Chris

From aero.org!obrien Tue Oct 12 16:14:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "16:06:42" "-0700" "obrien@aero.org" "obrien@aero.org" nil "13" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)'s message of: 12 October 1993"
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References: <9310122258.AA02817@corn-pops>
Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 16:06:42 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy), moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
cc:	obrien@aero.org
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

	You are quite right; I knew this; how embarassing.

	To be correct the code must first get the MX record from the
local DNS resolver, and then try the VRFY operation on the resulting
host.

	The second point you raise, about over-enthusiastic gateway
hosts, is in fact a problem with the gateway.  VRFY should return
a correct result and it is not the enquirer's responsibility if the
gateway decides to lie about it.  I have seen such gateways which
accept all legal addresses, then send failed-mail messages back for
the ones which are no good.  What a crock.  This one's legitimate
grounds for dinging the postmaster.

From ai.mit.edu!cstacy Tue Oct 12 16:25:17 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "16:09:18" "-0700" "Christopher C. Stacy" "cstacy@ai.mit.edu " nil "1" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "<199310122307.AA15700@aerospace.aero.org> (obrien@aero.org)"
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Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 16:09:18 -0700
From:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)
To:	obrien@aero.org
cc:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com, obrien@aero.org
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

Be conservative in what you send, liberal in what you accept.

From aero.org!obrien Tue Oct 12 16:26:18 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "16:15:40" "-0700" "obrien@aero.org" "obrien@aero.org" nil "19" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 16:15:40 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)
cc:	obrien@aero.org, cstacy@ai.mit.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?


>>Be conservative in what you send, liberal in what you accept.

	True; Mr. Protocol has stated this often.  When applied to mail
gateways, the gateway is accepting an address and should be
able to perform miraculous de-manglings upon it, in an ideal world.

	What it is sending is assurance that it knows how to deliver to
that address.  Boy howdy do I think it should be conservative here.
This is one of the major bonehead areas of the current Internet, to my
mind, and is going to lead to a world of hurt.

	This whole track is probably way off what moo-cows should
be discussing but it does serve to demonstrate what kind of awful
pain the MOO community is in for as it attempts to make use of
established Internet services through construction of what amounts
to a whole new generation of clients.

Mike

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Oct 12 23:10:35 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "22:54:31" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "106" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <9310120208.AA19760@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 22:54:31 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

> Date:	Mon, 11 Oct 1993 19:08:36 -0700
> From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
>  
> #34:"verify*_email_address"   this none this
>  1:  if (!caller_perms().wizard)
>  2:    return E_PERM;
>  3:  endif
>  4:  address = args[1];
>  5:  parsed = $network:parse_address(address);
>  6:  username = parsed[1];
>  7:  hostname = parsed[2];
>  8:  conn = open_network_connection(hostname, 25);
>  9:  fork (0)
> 10:    while (1)
> 11:      line = read(conn);
> 12:      if (line[1..3] == "250")
> 13:        boot_player(conn);
> 14:        return E_NONE;
> 15:      elseif (line[1..3] == "550")
> 16:        player:tell("E-mail address is NOT valid.");
> 17:        return E_INVARG;
> 18:      endif
> 19:    endwhile
> 20:  endfork
> 21:  vrfycmd = "VRFY " + username;
> 22:  notify(conn, vrfycmd);
>  
> ;$network:verify("thomas@math.uah.edu")
> => 0
>  
> ;$network:verify("fred@math.uah.edu")
> => 0
> E-mail address is NOT valid.
>  
> Now, I KNOW there's nothing in the code that could return a 0
> value.

Knowledge is a funny thing, really, since what we know and what is true are
such different things... :-)

This verb will *always* return zero unless it returns E_PERM on line 2.  The
reason is that it always lets control fall off the end of the verb and that
always results in a returned value of 0.

The MOO bug in this code (as opposed to the various SMTP/DNS bugs pointed out
by others) is that, contrary to the explicit and strenuous recommendations of
the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, it does not do all of the read()ing from the
opened network connection in the *same task* that did the call to onc().  This
is necessary because otherwise it is possible (and usually likely) for some of
the output from the connection to get treated as normal command input by the
server.  To keep this from happening in 1.7.*, you *must* do all of your
read()s in the very task that called onc().  In any other situation, it is
possible for input to arrive in the task queue without a waiting read()ing task
to gobble it up and from there to find its way into the built-in command
parser.

Thus, instead of this pattern from above:

	...
	x = open_network_connection(...)
	...
	fork (..)
	  ...
	  while (read(x) ...)
	  ...
	  endwhile
 	  ...
	endfork
	...
	notify(x, ...);
	...

one should use this pattern:

	...
	x = open_network_connection(...)
	...
	notify(x, ...);
	...
	while (read(x) ...)
	  ...
	endwhile

===============================================================================

Now, that was the truth, but *should* it be so?  I propose in version 1.8.0 to
eliminate the possibility of output from an open_network_connection() being
treated as normal MOO commands.  Outbound network connections would be
completely distinguished from inbound ones and only read() would drain the
received output from the connection.

I am aware that such a change would be incompatible with the way some onc()
applications are currently written, notably at least one of the various MOO-net
implementations.  I believe, however, that such a change would (1) make it
easier to write reliable onc() applications, and (2) be much easier to explain
to people.

Since I am going to resume full-time work on 1.8.0 within the next week or so,
now is the time to speak up about this proposed change.  Absent any persuasive
arguments in favor of the status quo (and more persuasive than "but I'd have to
rewrite parts of MOO-net"), I will implement the proposal.

Please let me hear from you (preferably in mail sent to MOO-Cows, so that
others can respond) if you have major problems with this change.

	Pavel

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Tue Oct 12 23:37:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "12" "October" "1993" "23:25:51" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "33" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "<93Oct12.225443pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> from \"Pavel Curtis\" at Oct 12, 93 10:54:31 pm'2C-cn as it "
Message-ID: <9310130625.AA12930@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 23:25:51 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
cc:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

As I working on a method for interacting with an IMAP mail server from the
MOO I disliked having a process sitting in a read() loop since information
could be sent at any time from the IMAP server (new mail etc) I would
run forever while the connection was valid. So I tried something. I
had $network.pipes {}, along with a '$network:create_pipe' verb. The
$network:close() automaticly removed any references in both
.open_connections and .pipes. 

#0:do_login_command was modified to do a check:

if (data = $list_utils:iassoc($network.pipes, player))
  data[2]:(data[3])(argstr);
  return;
endif;

Well, you get the idea. Basically, I was saying 'if this connection sends
any data to the moo, go run this verb' [yes, I know argstr does not work
in server verbs up until 1.7.6 <grin>]

Anyway, it works quite well. The negative side is that it creates a new
process for each line of data but the forked() reads did that too. 

Anyway, its an idea that can be improved upon and maybe a server mod would
improve it. I welcome ideas. It means I don't have a bunch of suspended
programs sitting around anymore waiting for data.

Comments? Suggestions?

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key fingerprint is:  EA 16 1B 5D 5D 94 6B 06  58 FD E6 E9 52 F3 6E 11 
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Wed Oct 13 00:25:53 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "00:13:35" "-0700" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "54" "1.8.0 onc() change (was: Bug in 1.7.6?)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 00:13:35 -0700
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: 1.8.0 onc() change (was: Bug in 1.7.6?)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Pavel writes:
>Now, that was the truth, but *should* it be so?  I propose in version 1.8.0 to
>eliminate the possibility of output from an open_network_connection() being
>treated as normal MOO commands.  Outbound network connections would be
>completely distinguished from inbound ones and only read() would drain the
>received output from the connection.
>
>I am aware that such a change would be incompatible with the way some onc()
>applications are currently written, notably at least one of the various MOO-net
>implementations.  I believe, however, that such a change would (1) make it
>easier to write reliable onc() applications, and (2) be much easier to explain
>to people.
>
>Since I am going to resume full-time work on 1.8.0 within the next week or so,
>now is the time to speak up about this proposed change.  Absent any persuasive
>arguments in favor of the status quo (and more persuasive than "but I'd have to
>rewrite parts of MOO-net"), I will implement the proposal.

I want to stress the phrase 'eliminate the possibility'.
IMHO, this is what you would be doing. Eliminating possibilities. I think
there is no improvement in this.
After all, all applications running read()'s would continue working, and
those relying on the parser would break down. It's not that you're now
enabling read()'s. (Get my idea? We're only losing possibilities with this
change.)

'Make it easier to write reliable onc() applications'... True, if you coded
your read()ing task wrongly, it would now work. This is appliable to many
common errors... and you don't plan to change the server for each of them,
right?
On the other hand, we *are* losing the powerful possibility of piping info
through the parser, which is currently the *only* way (as far as I know) of
activating command-line-only verbs (!x).
So some onc() applications would be made more reliable... if you think that
implementing a safety net is making a buggy program more reliable. I think
that if you don't have the safety net, the bugs eventually pop up, and this
is a good thing. See the example that started this thread...
But, while these apps would be more reliable, it would be *much* more
difficult to write onc() apps that need to call !x verbs. This is a big
loss, IMO.

'...much easier to explain to people.' Again, the onc() apps that would be
writable in 1.8.0 are writable now, but need only some task control. Once
they work, there's no difference in the difficulty of explaining them.

I have still not used the parser possibility (though I planned to do so
eventually). This means, I won't have to rewrite code if you implement the
change. But I still think I'm losing some possibilities... and some nice
ones at that.

Thanks for your attention.




From inmos.co.uk!bob Wed Oct 13 03:12:57 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "02:37:18" "-0700" "Bob Green" "bob@inmos.co.uk" nil "49" "Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 02:37:18 -0700
From:	Bob Green <bob@inmos.co.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com (MOO mailing list)
Subject: Suggestion for 1.8.0
Content-Type: text

Hi, 

I've been playing MOOs for some time and in order to improve my coding
skills I compiled up a server for my Linux box (386SX-25 8Mb memory).
With the LamdaCore DB, it hogs all the memory on the system, and if I
forget the server's running and do anything else, the system just about 
drops dead :( In the past I've tried various other servers on my Linux box
and none of them hog memory in the way that MOO does. I know there are
good reasons for reading the entire DB into memory, but I find myself
asking if those reasons are good enough. Many people now run unix-like
systems on 386 and 486 PCs. Here are a few pros and cons for an object
cache.

Pros for an object cache:

   o  Allows the admin to control the memory usage of the server better.

   o  On slower machines, the server will start much quicker.

   o  Could be used to obtain statistics about what objects are
      used, and how much. (I suppose we could do that with the current
      arrangement).

Cons for an object cache:

   o  When an object is not in the cache, it takes a small amount of time
      to retrieve it. Hopefully this would be negligable.

   o  Someone has to write it !

   o  Not entirely necessary on a fast machine with loads of memory.

There are probably other pros and cons as well...

I've heard the argument that its the OSs job to handle memory, but I feel 
we should at least try to help it a bit :)

Oh, I'd be happy to have a go at writing the beast if its felt to be a 
good idea. In fact, I'll probably have a go anyway, since I'll have to
take it off my Linux box otherwise, and I really don't want to do that !

Anyone have any thoughts about this ?

-Bob

| Bob Green          Inmos Ltd, Bristol       bob@inmos.co.uk
|                                         or  bob@inmos.com        
|The opinions above are the rantings of a madman and therefore could
|not possibly reflect Inmos policy.     

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Wed Oct 13 06:13:22 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "05:47:39" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "57" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 05:47:39 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?


> From pavel@parc.xerox.com Wed Oct 13 07:10:07 1993
> Fake-Sender: pavel@parc.xerox.com
> X-NS-Transport-ID: 08002008D0FD00575E61
> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 22:54:31 PDT
> From: Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
> Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?
> To: thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
> cc: moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
> Content-Length: 3597
> 

[use of onc() related stuff deleted]

> ===============================================================================
> 
> Now, that was the truth, but *should* it be so?  I propose in version 1.8.0 to
> eliminate the possibility of output from an open_network_connection() being
> treated as normal MOO commands.  Outbound network connections would be
> completely distinguished from inbound ones and only read() would drain the
> received output from the connection.
> 
> I am aware that such a change would be incompatible with the way some onc()
> applications are currently written, notably at least one of the various MOO-net
> implementations.  I believe, however, that such a change would (1) make it
> easier to write reliable onc() applications, and (2) be much easier to explain
> to people.
> 
> Since I am going to resume full-time work on 1.8.0 within the next week or so,
> now is the time to speak up about this proposed change.  Absent any persuasive
> arguments in favor of the status quo (and more persuasive than "but I'd have to
> rewrite parts of MOO-net"), I will implement the proposal.
> 
> Please let me hear from you (preferably in mail sent to MOO-Cows, so that
> others can respond) if you have major problems with this change.
> 
> 	Pavel
> 

Preventing the server parser from EVER seeing onc() derived text would make
MOO-net (the Networker thing) much easier to handle.  I've had to put some
pretty nasty code into the otherwise neat MOO-net sw just to prevent the server
grabbing hold of text when it shouldn't.

At present onc() is a mess.  There are two ways of processing incoming text,
either let the server have it all or mess with it yourself.  onc()-oriented
programs are notoriously difficult to debug and frankly ANYTHING that makes
the beast more stable will be a bonus.

By 'sheer coincidence' MOO-net is entering a difficult transitional phase; my
own server ate its .db a while ago and I've stalled any further development of
the system till onc()'s design is finalised and changes have filtered through
to $network and the like.  Basically, when I get round to it I'll be rewriting
the thing again from scratch anyway ;)

Cool, go for it, etc,
	A.

From pscuxb.psc.edu!behrmann Wed Oct 13 08:25:05 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "08:08:11" "-0700" "Joseph Behrmann" "behrmann@pscuxb.psc.edu " nil "19" "What I'd like to see in the next version" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 08:08:11 -0700
From:	behrmann@pscuxb.psc.edu (Joseph Behrmann)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	behrmann@pscuxb.psc.edu
Subject: What I'd like to see in the next version


	One useful thing that I'd like to see in the next version is either
a server command to call the server parser and calling procedures or have
all parsing be done in the db.

	So:  server_parse(<object>, <string>);

	would call the in server parser with <string> as if <object> had
typed it.  Exactly as if <object> had typed it.

	Also, another useful additoin might to have the in server's parser
check recursively on the calling object's location to match for verbs, instead
of just the current location and no further.  So if an object is inside of
another object, inside of a room, then the object types in a verb, the server
checks to match on the object its in and the room that the object is in.

						Joe
						behrmann@psc.edu


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 10:02:26 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "09:44:55" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: Bug in 1.7.6?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <9310130625.AA12930@nova.decio.nd.edu>
	<93Oct12.225443pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:44:55 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

> Date:	Tue, 12 Oct 1993 23:25:51 -0700
> From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> 
> As I working on a method for interacting with an IMAP mail server from the
> MOO I disliked having a process sitting in a read() loop since information
> could be sent at any time from the IMAP server (new mail etc) I would
> run forever while the connection was valid.

But a read() task that's just waiting for input is cheap; it doesn't use much
memory and it doesn't cost any time anywhere else in the server.  I'd say it's
the cheapest, simplest, and most reliable technique for handling the input.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 10:11:48 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "09:56:43" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "46" "Re: 1.8.0 onc() change (was: Bug in 1.7.6?)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:56:43 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.8.0 onc() change (was: Bug in 1.7.6?)

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 00:13:35 -0700
> From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
> 
> I want to stress the phrase 'eliminate the possibility'.
> IMHO, this is what you would be doing. Eliminating possibilities. I think
> there is no improvement in this.
> After all, all applications running read()'s would continue working, and
> those relying on the parser would break down. It's not that you're now
> enabling read()'s. (Get my idea? We're only losing possibilities with this
> change.)

This is not true, because it would make it so much less difficult to write
onc() applications.  The current set-up, as Andrew Wilson has attested to, is
very vulnerable to bugs and imposes an onerous regimen on the application
writer for very little gain.  The applications that would work under the new
set-up and not in 1.7.6 are not buggy; they're simpler to reason about and they
ought to be made to work.

> On the other hand, we *are* losing the powerful possibility of piping info
> through the parser, which is currently the *only* way (as far as I know) of
> activating command-line-only verbs (!x).

There are two answers to this.  First, it is possible, though gross, for either
the owner of a !x verb or a wizard to invoke it.  Let OBJECT:VNAME(@ARGS) be a
call we'd like to make to a !x verb; the following code in 1.7.6 would
accomplish the task:

	new_info = info = verb_info(OBJECT, VNAME);
	new_info[2] = new_info[2] + "x";
	set_verb_info(OBJECT, VNAME, new_info);
	new_code = verb_code(OBJECT, VNAME);
	new_code[1..0] =
	   {tostr("set_verb_info(", OBJECT, ", ", VNAME, ", ",
	          $string_utils:print(info), ");"),
	    tostr("set_verb_code(", OBJECT, ", ", VNAME, ", ",
	          "code = verb_code(", OBJECT, ", ", VNAME,
		  ")[3..length(code)]);")};
	OBJECT:(VNAME)(@ARGS);

As I said, this is gross but it is possible.  In 1.8.0, I intend to change the
semantics of the `x' bit to always allow calls from code running with the
permissions of either a wizard or the verb owner.  Thus, the `x' bit would work
analogously to the `r' and `w' bits, controlling only the abilities of
non-wizard non-owners.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 10:21:20 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "10:05:01" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "25" "Another approach to the onc() issue" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:05:01 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Another approach to the onc() issue

It has been pointed out to me, in private mail, that one of the other ideas I
would like to implement for 1.8.0 has a bearing on the onc() debate.

The idea relates to the known kluginess of the current way that
#0:do_login_connection() must use in order to connect a network connection to a
particular player.  Since the verb must return, without ever suspending or
read()ing, a valid player object, a certain class of useful operations (such as
prompting for information, performing various onc() tasks, etc.) cannot be
included in the login process.

A better solution would involve the provision of a new wiz-only built-in
function for attaching a specified network connection to a specified valid
object.  The returned value of #0:do_login_command would no longer be relevant
and the server would no longer care whether or not such tasks suspended or
called read().

Of course, with such a mechanism, an onc() application could presumably arrange
to attach an outbound connection to a specified object and then use the verbs
on that object to respond to the output on the connection, if it so chose.

I am likely to implement such a facility in 1.8.0 (though I admit that the
design is not yet entirely clear to me), so that may also sway the onc()
debate.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 10:29:41 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "10:13:22" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "26" "Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:13:22 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bob@inmos.co.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 02:37:18 -0700
> From:	Bob Green <bob@inmos.co.uk>
> 
> ... pros and cons of an `object cache' ...

As long-time readers of this list are aware, release 1.9.0 of the server will
maintain the database on disk.  The code to implement this well for a system
with the programming generality of MOO is much more complex, though, than most
people appreciate; it is certainly not something one might toss off in a
weekend or two.  The performance of a MOO system that, for example, used whole
objects as the finest grain of disk access would not be acceptable, even though
such an approach has been used successfully in several much simpler systems,
such as TinyMUCK (I think).  We use the data structuring capabilities of MOO
far too heavily for this to work out well; there are many cases of single
properties that are 10s, 100s, or even 1000s of kilobytes in size and the
disk-basing system should support their use properly.  There are also objects
like Mr. Spell and the player-name database that include many hundreds or
thousands of modest-sized properties; swapping all of them into memory whenever
the object is touched would be counterproductive.

I guess my points here are two: disk-basing is coming and it isn't simple to do
a good job of it.  Remember, the disk-basing implementation must support
databases and user demands like LambdaMOO's, not just the much smaller MOOs
that several other folks are running.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 10:41:42 1993
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:19:33 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	behrmann@pscuxb.psc.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: What I'd like to see in the next version

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 08:08:11 -0700
> From:	behrmann@pscuxb.psc.edu (Joseph Behrmann)
> 
> 	One useful thing that I'd like to see in the next version is either
> a server command to call the server parser and calling procedures or have
> all parsing be done in the db.

There's no pressing need for a way to allow MOO code to invoke the built-in
parser, since what it does can already be implemented in MOO code, and has been
at least once on LambdaMOO.  In fact, I seem to recall that there's a verb to
do this included in LambdaCore, but I don't remember where.

Given the change to the semantics of the `x' bit that I've already described as
coming in 1.8.0, there isn't even much use for a way to get the server to
invoke commands for you.

What would still be useful, though, is some way to override the server's
invocation of the built-in parser, to allow either full or partial in-DB
parsing.  I am still thinking about what a good design for this might look
like.  The chief issues are achieving sufficiently high performance and keeping
easy things at least as easy as they are now.  Of course, there's also always
the issue of backwards compatibility, too... :-)

	Pavel

From virtual.net!strata Wed Oct 13 10:47:53 1993
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:25:30 -0700
From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
Sender: strata@virtual.net
To:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@apple.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?
Reply-to: strata@hybrid.com


Pavel sez:
Now, that was the truth, but *should* it be so?  I propose in version 1.8.0
to
eliminate the possibility of output from an open_network_connection() being
treated as normal MOO commands.  Outbound network connections would be
completely distinguished from inbound ones and only read() would drain the
received output from the connection.


YES!!!  An unqualified yes.  This is in fact a mod which I am in the process
of making to the latest server, so if you're going to do it for 1.8.0 could I
get the diffs so that I'll be maximally compatible with it when it comes out?
Virtual City (tm) Network and VCMTA make critical use of this feature and
some related ones which I am adding in.

_Strata

M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City Project
strata@virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@apple.com | strata@eddie.mit.edu

From mit.edu!ghudson Wed Oct 13 12:06:34 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "12:05:48" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "85" "In-database parsing" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:19:33 -0700.
             <93Oct13.102059pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 12:05:48 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: In-database parsing


> I am still thinking about what a good design for [in-db parsing]
> might look like.

For what it's worth, here's what I've gone with in Coldmud:

Each connection has a handler object (analagous to the player object
in MOO).  When a line of text arrives from the client, the server
sends a `parse' message to the handler object, with a single argument,
the string to parse.

Two primitives help with parsing, match_template() and
match_pattern().  match_template() matches strings against patterns
like the following:

	@desc?ribe * as *
	turn * to channel|station *

match_pattern() matching strings against simple wildcard patterns
containing asterixes.  It's useful for commands like `"*' or `:*',
which don't fit into the template model.

That's all the server does for you, and it can't get much fancier than
that without imposing ideas of topology, naming, etc., on the
database.

The Cold World database divides parsing up into three stages:
commands, verbs, and exit names.  Commands are arbitrary templates or
patterns stored on the player object, the room object, or their
ancestors.  Matching against them is reasonably cheap, since you're
only dealing with two objects and a limited number of ancestors.

Verbs are templates containing the word `%this' exactly once, and not
at the beginning.  For instance, `@desc?ribe %this as *' is a valid
verb template.  To match against a verb template, you simply
substitute "*" for "%this" in the verb template and use
match_template().  If the match succeeds, assume that this is the verb
the player wanted to match, check the text matching the "%this"
against the objects in the player's environment, and go from there.

Matching against verbs is expensive; I could be in a room with a
thousand other objects, for instance, and the straightforward approach
would result in a thousand calls of say, `match_template("@desc?ribe
%this as *", str)' when one would do.  To speed things up, i keep a
cache of possible verb templates on player objects corresponding to
connected players, which gets invalidated at the obvious times (when
an object adds or removes a verb definition in the current room, when
an object anywhere with children adds or removes a verb definition,
when an object moves in or out of the player's room, when the player
moves).  When it's necessary to build the cache, I union together the
ancestors of all the objects in the player's environment, and then
union together the verb templates on that list of objects.

The Cold World database also keeps a global list of remotely-
accessible verbs, on the system object, thus allowing for global
verbs.

My parser is somewhat more ambitious than MOO's, and the costs
associated with it may make it untenable for a server as active as
LambdaMOO.  On the other hand, in some cases, it may be faster--if
there are a thousand described objects in the room with my player
object, I still wind up matching against "@desc?ribe * as *" only
once, and only ask for the verb templates on Generic Described Object
once when I build the verb template cache.

It's also a rather complex system, and takes advantage of
non-overridable methods and private data to ensure consistency.  Since
MOO doesn't have private data (that is, all ancestors of an object use
the same variable namespace when referring to variables) and doesn't
have non-overridable verbs, such an elaborate system may be difficult
to use within the database.

I suppose I should give a vaporware software update for those who
haven't heard of Coldmud: Coldmud is an object-oriented server with a
somewhat different approach than that of MOO.  Version 0.5.1 of
Coldmud and version 0.2.1 of the Cold World core database are
available on ftp.ccs.neu.edu in pub/mud/incoming.  A few features and
a lot of testing are still between me and a 1.0 release, which should
hopefully be usable in production.  To join the coldmud discussion
list, send mail to coldstuff-request@mit.edu.  Coldmud documentation
is available on the web at
"http://www.mit.edu:8001/afs/sipb/project/coldmud/html/Top.html".

--GBH


From nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu!crwilson Wed Oct 13 12:49:00 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "12:55:57" "-0700" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu " nil "24" "pocket fluff and black holes" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 12:55:57 -0700
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Subject: pocket fluff and black holes
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The world according to me...

Disk-based LMS
--------------
I think the whole object should be used at the basis for swapping, but add
a server prop to each object, no_swap, that will tell the server it isn't
allowed to swap that object for any reason. Am I thinking too
simplisticly, here?  correct me of my errors if so.

Language Extensions
--------------------
someone had mentioned some LISP-like functions that i liked...
 last()
  any()

these would be far too handy to leave out...

Until i decide to type 'elm' again...
- wilson
  @scrabblemoo, @lambdamoo, @opalmoo, @mediamoo, @etc...

/* Zero doesn't exist, it's just a thoery still.  the fact you don't
measure  anything does not mean there isn't something there */


From leland.stanford.edu!snarflrd Wed Oct 13 13:15:03 1993
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To:	ghudson@mit.edu (Greg Hudson)
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Subject: Re: In-database parsing
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> > I am still thinking about what a good design for [in-db parsing]
> > might look like.

my first version of parsing looked similar (well, uglier syntax, same effect)
to Greg's:

> 	@desc?ribe * as *
> 	turn * to channel|station *

this works very well for actually determining which verb/method is to be
invoked, although it doesn't provide a 'near-miss' default to allow you to
return something more helpful than "I don't understand that" ... that's a
problem i still can't resolve.
adding a second command "@desc?ribe *" to catch illformed input totally
destroys everything you've gained from a full line match.... *sigh*

anyway...
the biggest problem my users had with this matching that all of the information
that the parser uses to cut up the input line is lost after matching:
extracting the arguments becomes a manual chore left to the users, where
in Moo/Cool (with their imposed syntax structure) the arguments are handed
to the method neatly sliced.

so i tried to provide a mechanism whereby in matching the input line to the
command, you'd be creating the list of appropriate arguments ...
a way to say:  match "whisper X to Y" and get a divided list of
  {"whisper" "X" "to" "Y"}
if the match is found

to do this, a command is structured as a sentece of tokens, such that each
token will match part of the input string and separate its match from the
rest of the input line.  the simplest token would be a string.  more complex
symbols would be provided by the system to match certain regular expressions:
  {"push" "button" NUMBER}
would match the input line  "push button 1234"  and tell you that the list
for that is  {"push" "button" "1234")

to expand the power, two in-depth functional tokens will allow you to
match alternative strings, or match all of the material BEFORE a string:
  {"@desc" (or "ribe" " ") (before " as ") "as" REST}
would match:
  "@desc me as big and ugly"   -->  {"@desc" " " "me" "as" "big and ugly"}
  "@describe me as silly"      -->  {"@desc" "ribe" "me" "as" "silly"}

that way, the object argument is always the third element of the list, the
other argument is always the fifth.

this provides much more versatility than Moo:
  {"@set" WORD " on " (before " to ") "to" REST}
will match:
  "@set pi on comfy chair to 3.1415"
      -->   {"@set" "pi" "on" "comfy chair" "to" "3.1415"}

  {"whisper" (or (before " to ") (before "=")) (or "to" "=") REST}
will match:
  "whisper something important to trauma"
      -->   {"whisper" "something important" "to" "trauma"}
  "whisper trauma=something important"
      -->   {"whisper" "trauma" "=" "something important"}
[by checking the third argument, you can easily support both Tiny- and ghond-
 style syntax.]


ah, well... just a long 2cents to support Greg in saying that _general_
parsing is possible in the DB to avoid hard-coded server syntaxes.

-dave

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 15:11:38 1993
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Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 14:57:23 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	strata@hybrid.com
cc:	moo-cows%parc.xerox.com@apple.com
Subject: Re: Bug in 1.7.6?

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:25:30 -0700
> From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@virtual-city.virtual.net>
> 
> YES!!!  An unqualified yes.  This is in fact a mod which I am in the process
> of making to the latest server, so if you're going to do it for 1.8.0 could I
> get the diffs so that I'll be maximally compatible with it when it comes out?

If the change goes in, it's straightforward; in server.c:make_new_connection(),
there's already an `outbound' boolean argument.  That would get passed on to
tasks.c:new_task_queue() and remembered on the task queue.  Input lines on such
queues would never be considered as commands.

	Pavel

From ccs.neu.edu!nop Wed Oct 13 16:13:43 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "16:13:00" "-0700" "Jay Carlson" "nop@ccs.neu.edu" nil "70" "Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-To: <93Oct13.101323pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> (message from Pavel Curtis on Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:13:22 PDT)
Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:13:00 -0700
From:	Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	bob@inmos.co.uk, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0

> As long-time readers of this list are aware, release 1.9.0 of the
> server will maintain the database on disk.

Long-time readers may remember a different number for this too... :-)

> The code to implement this well for a system with the programming
> generality of MOO is much more complex, though, than most people
> appreciate; it is certainly not something one might toss off in a
> weekend or two.

> The performance of a MOO system that, for example, used whole
> objects as the finest grain of disk access would not be acceptable,
> even though such an approach has been used successfully in several
> much simpler systems, such as TinyMUCK (I think).  We use the data
> structuring capabilities of MOO far too heavily for this to work out
> well; there are many cases of single properties that are 10s, 100s,
> or even 1000s of kilobytes in size and the disk-basing system should
> support their use properly.  There are also objects like Mr. Spell
> and the player-name database that include many hundreds or thousands
> of modest-sized properties; swapping all of them into memory
> whenever the object is touched would be counterproductive.

MOO programmers have been rather good at designing objects and data
structures that fit well into the operating model of the server.
$generic_db is a wonderful example of this; it moves much of the task
of lookup from verbs into the server's (hopefully) more efficient C
code.  When the server copied values on reference, parts of the core
were designed to make as few references to lists as possible,  and
instead use primitives like `in' and for-loops to make the server do
as much work as possible for each reference.

One particular constraint we've had for a while is limited creation of
objects (raise your hand if you've refered to 13.2.116.36:8888 as
QuotaMOO).  This led to a culture where the number of objects in a
project was far more important than the actual resource usage, or more
importantly, the reusability and encapsulation of information.  I
would argue that building huge properties is NOT using the data
structuring capabilities of an object-oriented MUD.

If the server changed the costs of certain kinds of operations,
$player_db and $spell would adapt.  If the server was diskbased at an
object-grained level, this would be further encouragement for
object-oriented MOO systems (I'm thinking of object-intensive mail and
features specifically) to grow.

This is assuming we can deal with the quota problem.

> I guess my points here are two: disk-basing is coming and it isn't
> simple to do a good job of it.  

Granted.  But people have counted on diskbasing showing up in the
short-term before, made plans based on this, and they've lost big.

> Remember, the disk-basing implementation must support databases and
> user demands like LambdaMOO's, not just the much smaller MOOs that
> several other folks are running.

Um, no, it doesn't.  There's a fairly large user community out there
that doesn't have control of a state-of-the-art machine to run on.  I
don't see how supporting these people is a loss.

I'll take this as a statement of one of your design goals for your
implementation of diskbasing: must serve the LambdaMOO database.  This
sounds reasonable, except people have been discouraged from doing
their own work on the server to aid `the other MOO community'.

Jay Carlson
nop@io.com    nop@ccs.neu.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From gac.edu!eostrom Wed Oct 13 17:12:49 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "12:11:19" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "11" "x bit and in-db parsing" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
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Subject: x bit and in-db parsing
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> As I said, this is gross but it is possible.  In 1.8.0, I intend to
> change the semantics of the `x' bit to always allow calls from code
> running with the permissions of either a wizard or the verb owner.
> Thus, the `x' bit would work analogously to the `r' and `w' bits,
> controlling only the abilities of non-wizard non-owners.

Will it also be possible to call different verbs with the same name
programmatically?  At the moment, even with gross hacks for calling !x
verbs, it's impossible to replicate the built-in parser; given a verb
"take any from this" and another verb "take this none none" on the
same object, one of them can't be called.

From xerox.com!jonathan.PARC Wed Oct 13 17:53:55 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "16:37:43" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova " "<9310132337.AA21269@nova.decio.nd.edu>" "18" "Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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From:	jonathan@nova (Jonathan Bradshaw)
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To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

> As long-time readers of this list are aware, release 1.9.0 of the
> server will maintain the database on disk.

Actually, long time readers would be aware 1.8.0 was meant to be the version
with disk basing. <grin> And that was last estimated this year. 

<sigh> I guess we wait longer for disk basing. Maybe the next presidential
election?

For me, disk basing has one VERY needed feature. The bug in the NeXT that
causes malloc() panics is a LARGE problem. Its one which would be solved
by disk basing (or so Pavel says).

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key fingerprint is:  EA 16 1B 5D 5D 94 6B 06  58 FD E6 E9 52 F3 6E 11
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From cis.ohio-state.edu!weiler Wed Oct 13 18:23:59 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "18:10:10" "-0700" "Jerry Weiler" "weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu" nil "41" "1.9.0 (was Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "Jonathan Bradshaw's message of Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:37:43 PDT <9310132337.AA21269@nova.decio.nd.edu>"
Message-ID: <9310140110.AA13158@shawnee.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 18:10:10 -0700
From:	Jerry Weiler <weiler@cis.ohio-state.edu>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: 1.9.0 (was Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0)

   > As long-time readers of this list are aware, release 1.9.0 of the
   > server will maintain the database on disk.

   Actually, long time readers would be aware 1.8.0 was meant to be the version
   with disk basing. <grin> And that was last estimated this year. 

well, here's the relevent part of a message Pavel sent a few months ago:

  [ ...some headers deleted... ]
  Date:   Tue, 6 Jul 1993 10:52:29 -0700
  From:   Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
  To:     crwilson@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu
  cc:     moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
  Subject: Re: Breaking the silence

  [ ...network and NeXT vm discussion deleted... ]

  >   When will the next release of the MOO server be out?  And when is
  > disk-basing going to be an option?

  Version 1.8.0 of the server, including error signalling and handling,
  significantly improved network support (probably including support for
  running network *servers* from MOO code), many bug fixes and
  substantial cleanup of some key internal interfaces (including the one
  to the DB storage method), will be probably be released sometime this
  fall.

  Version 1.9.0, including support for disk-based DB storage, will
  probably come out sometime in the early winter.

  Please note the word `probably' in the above time estimates.  I have
  way too many demands on my time right now and can't commit to anything
  more than vague estimates; in particular, it's possible that there
  won't be any new server releases anytime this year.  The above
  estimates, though, are my current best guesses.

          Pavel


- Jerry
(Lynx@LambdaMOO)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 18:55:31 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "18:45:10" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "63" "Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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	<93Oct13.101323pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 18:45:10 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	nop@ccs.neu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:13:00 -0700
> From:	Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>
> 
> > As long-time readers of this list are aware, release 1.9.0 of the
> > server will maintain the database on disk.
> 
> Long-time readers may remember a different number for this too... :-)

No comment... :-)

> One particular constraint we've had for a while is limited creation of
> objects (raise your hand if you've refered to 13.2.116.36:8888 as
> QuotaMOO).  This led to a culture where the number of objects in a
> project was far more important than the actual resource usage, or more
> importantly, the reusability and encapsulation of information.  I
> would argue that building huge properties is NOT using the data
> structuring capabilities of an object-oriented MUD.

I would agree with you, but I would disagree about the true level of
object-orientation in MOO.  Objects aren't scarce because they're expensive, I
claim, but instead because they are the root-set for persistence; if you don't
recycle an object explicitly, it won't go away.  That makes them harder to use
than, say, lists, in many applications, just as C is harder to use in some ways
than a language with a garbage-collected heap.

Objects are also not anonymous; because of the toobj() function's ability to
create handles on objects out of whole cloth, you can't just create an object
and know, because of how carefully you've controlled who you gave its pointer
(or `name') to, that access to that object is restricted.  MOO Objects thus
cannot be used as what OS guys call `capabilities'.

> If the server changed the costs of certain kinds of operations,
> $player_db and $spell would adapt.  If the server was diskbased at an
> object-grained level, this would be further encouragement for
> object-oriented MOO systems (I'm thinking of object-intensive mail and
> features specifically) to grow.

Or, put another way, it might leave MOO programmers stuck between a rock and a
hard place.

> > Remember, the disk-basing implementation must support databases and
> > user demands like LambdaMOO's, not just the much smaller MOOs that
> > several other folks are running.
> 
> Um, no, it doesn't.  There's a fairly large user community out there
> that doesn't have control of a state-of-the-art machine to run on.  I
> don't see how supporting these people is a loss.

It is not that supporting them is a loss; it's that supporting *only* them is.

> I'll take this as a statement of one of your design goals for your
> implementation of diskbasing: must serve the LambdaMOO database.  This
> sounds reasonable, except people have been discouraged from doing
> their own work on the server to aid `the other MOO community'.

I don't know what to do about this without irreparably branching the MOO
version tree, with two forked versions that never come together again.  For the
needs of LambdaMOO, Jupiter, and Astro-VR, I'm making certain changes and, in
the limit anyway, those changes also help, I hope, the general MOO community.
Given that I'm not being paid to provide a service to the Internet, I have to
give *some* priority to my own personal needs and pressures, don't I?

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 13 19:04:42 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "18:48:48" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "18" "Re: x bit and in-db parsing" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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	<93Oct13.095656pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 18:48:48 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	eostrom@gac.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: x bit and in-db parsing

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 12:11:19 -0700
> From:	eostrom@gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
> 
> Will it also be possible to call different verbs with the same name
> programmatically?  At the moment, even with gross hacks for calling !x
> verbs, it's impossible to replicate the built-in parser; given a verb
> "take any from this" and another verb "take this none none" on the
> same object, one of them can't be called.

I refer to this general problem as the `verb-naming tar pit'.  I will at least
put something in 1.8.0 like Rog's verb-numbering idea, including support for
calling verbs by number.  It is possible that something much heavier will be
provided in addition, to allow one to get a handle on a verb that stays
meaningful even in the face of renamings and renumberings.  We already want
something like this for solving some basic security issues in the Jupiter
window system.

	Pavel

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Oct 13 20:45:26 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "13" "October" "1993" "20:44:45" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "66" "Re: Another approach to the onc() issue " "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-Id: <9310140344.AA09077@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:05:01 PDT."
             <93Oct13.100714pdt.58374@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 20:44:45 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Another approach to the onc() issue 

There are actually two problems with using a while loop to read from
an outbound connection.  Divorcing the command parser from the
situation would only solves one of them (i.e., that of input being
stolen by the command parser if the reader dies).  The other is that
you actually have to go to some effort to keep a reader task running.
If something in your while loop bombs or run out of ticks, the
connection starves as pending input NEVER gets read.  Now you could
have some other task periodically checking that your while loop is
still alive, but of course *that* task could die, too... 

This is why I like the notion of being able to transfer the connection
to a valid object that defines its own command structure.  The whole
problem of keeping a reader alive is left in the scheduler where it
belongs.

Moreover, I think this is rather inextricably tied to the question 
of how a PLAYER object can define ITS own command structure, since it 
would be simplest if the two situations were made as similar as possible.

Anyway, here's a proposal:

At any given time, 
(1) each connection is attached to exactly one object #n.
(2) each connection may be "held" by some task.

"held" means that it's an error for task other from the holder to
attempt to read() from the connection.  A connection is "free" if
it is not held.

Calling read() on a free connection makes it a held connection.
A connection that starts a command task (see below) is held by that task.
onc() creates a connection held by the current task.

Any held connection remains so until the holding task either 
 (1) finishes
 (2) suspends
 (3) reads from a different connection.

Just to be specific about what a "command task" is:
    Whenever queued input exists on a free connection #n, the server can,
    at the scheduler's discretion, 

      call #n:do_command(...)      if #n is valid and that verb exists
      call $do_login_command(...)  if #n is invalid

    These calls are made with player=#n and argstr=<command line> and
    the resulting task is a "command task".

Note that if #n is valid but has no :do_command verb, 
then only read() can retrieve input from that connection.
Thus, those who want to write their own while loops would still be
able to do so.

Clearly, $player:do_command() is that in-db parser everybody wants.
If wizard code can call -x verbs and verbs may be called by number, then
there really isn't any further obstacle to ditching the built-in parser.
Of course, now you REALLY get screwed when you chparent to #-1, but hey...

With a transfer_connection() primitive, $do_login_command() can now read()
with impunity, though there will be trouble if it suspends since the user 
could get another instance going during that interval.
--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From mailhost.unidata.com!uso01 Thu Oct 14 07:17:15 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "07:06:19" "-0700" "Steven Owens" "uso01@mailhost.unidata.com" nil "28" "Passwords" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <199310141406.AA21889@mailhost.unidata.com>
Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 07:06:19 -0700
From:	Steven Owens <uso01@mailhost.unidata.com>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Passwords


Somebody I know is trying to figure out a secure way to handle passwords
in a MOO-to-MOO connection system.  The idea is to set it up so players
can "walk" from MOO to MOO without worrying that their passwords are
compromised.

Something that occurred to me is that perhaps the first MOO could take
the already-encrypted password of the player, and pass it to the second
MOO.  Then a simple comparison to see if the encrypted passwords match.

Does this work?

Assuming this works, you could use it one of three ways:

1) Your password at the first MOO is the same as your password at
other MOOs accessible via "walk" (simplest, obviously has minor
security problems).

2) You have multiple password properties created via a variant of
the @password command, containing passwords to other MOOs in
encrypted form (still somewhat simple, but you have to trust the
variant @password command).

3) You e-mail or otherwise upload an already-encrypted version of
the password (best, but not all players are competent to do so).

Steven J. Owens
uso01@unidata.com

From mailhost.unidata.com!uso01 Thu Oct 14 08:11:20 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "08:03:21" "-0700" "Steven Owens" "uso01@mailhost.unidata.com" nil "20" "Passwords again" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <199310141503.AA22774@mailhost.unidata.com>
Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 08:03:21 -0700
From:	Steven Owens <uso01@mailhost.unidata.com>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Passwords again


Uhm, hm...

	I just realized the flaw in the approach I described last message
(and I feel fairly stupid because I didn't see it to begin with). 

	If you set up software on the second MOO which allows people
to log on with the encrypted version of the password, you're back to
square one in terms of risk, if not worse.  Now anybody who can manage
to get a copy of your encrypted password can log on as you.  Argh.

	Well, back to square one.  Hm...  Damn, the only thing I can
see is either a) trusting the wizards of the MOO involved, or set up
something in the player's client program that automatically opens a
separate connection and tells the server to expect a connection from
the originating MOO - in which case it might as well be handling the
whole thing.  Drat.

Steven J. Owens
uso01@unidata.com

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct 14 08:23:31 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "08:10:54" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "13" "Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 08:10:54 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0

> Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:37:43 -0700
> From:	jonathan@nova (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> 
> For me, disk basing has one VERY needed feature. The bug in the NeXT that
> causes malloc() panics is a LARGE problem. Its one which would be solved
> by disk basing (or so Pavel says).

Um, I don't recall saying that disk-basing would necessarily solve this
problem, though it might very well partially ameliorate it.  As far as I can
tell, the NeXT bug would infect any sufficiently long-running allocating
program.

	Pavel

From media.mit.edu!foner Thu Oct 14 08:30:52 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "08:15:27" "-0700" "foner@media.mit.edu" "foner@media.mit.edu" nil "8" "Passwords again" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in From: address found on alpha.xerox.com:
	From:	Leonard N.Foner <foner@media.mit.edu>
		^	 ^-illegal period in phrase
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Message-ID: <9310141515.AA08565@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 08:15:27 -0700
From:	foner@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
cc:	foner@media.mit.edu
Subject: Passwords again

How about something like a zero-knowledge proof?  (This is a proof in which
you prove that you know something, without revealing what it is that you
know.)

Or some sort of symmetric handshake using a public-key system?

Unfortunately, both of these are rather computationally expensive.
Surely there's a better way, that's secure enough for your purposes.

From aristotle.ils.nwu.edu!dbora Thu Oct 14 09:05:25 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "08:50:18" "-0700" "Donald Bora" "dbora@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu " nil "23" "Passwords" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 08:50:18 -0700
From:	dbora@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Donald Bora)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Passwords

What about a different kind of an interface between MUDS?  Maybe the first
time you enter another MUD you must do so as guest and apply for an 
Identification card of some sort.  This way when you walk from one mud
to another:

	1.  If you have the ID card it is checked with the local DB
	    of ID cards.  If there is a match, you get in...

	2.  If you don't have an ID card you are welcomed as guest and
            have to go through the process of getting an ID card.

The ID card could have some special information on it such as an encrypted
password.  This way you could have different passwords to different MUDS
without having to remember them.  Does this sound like a good idea?

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Donald F. Bora                            |                    |     | 
The Institute for the Learning Sciences   |                    |  O  |
Northwestern University                   |                    (--|--)
Evanston, Ill                             |                       | 
e-mail: dbora@ils.nwu.edu                 |                      / \
work:   (708) 467-1972                    |  
             --------Be excellent to each other--------

From eris.enet.dec.com!callas Thu Oct 14 09:20:57 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "09:07:31" "-0700" "Off-path travel kills plants 14-Oct-1993 1122" "callas@eris.enet.dec.com" nil "89" "RE: Passwords" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 09:07:31 -0700
From:	Off-path travel kills plants 14-Oct-1993 1122 <callas@eris.enet.dec.com>
To:	"uso01@mailhost.unidata.com"@us2rmc.enet.dec.com
Apparently-To: moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Passwords

    Somebody I know is trying to figure out a secure way to handle passwords in
    a MOO-to-MOO connection system.  The idea is to set it up so players can
    "walk" from MOO to MOO without worrying that their passwords are
    compromised.

    Something that occurred to me is that perhaps the first MOO could take the
    already-encrypted password of the player, and pass it to the second MOO. 
    Then a simple comparison to see if the encrypted passwords match.

    Does this work?

No!!!! It does not work, and as a matter of fact, it is worse than sending a
plaintext password.

The reason is that not only is your plaintext password a piece of valuable
information, but the encrypted password is, too. Possibly more valuable.

If you *merely* send the encrypted password, and then merely compare it against
what's in the database on the other side, then what you've done is manage to
reduce the problem of encrypted passwords to the previously solved problem of
plaintext passwords. All you're doing with the "encryption" is transforming the
plaintext password "alacazam" into "p9&5kgwqp%$3=l" which is less human
readable, but once snarfed off the net by an interloper, all they have to do is
hack up a client to send MOO2 a connect that says, "Hi, I'm an inter-MOO
connection, here's the encrypted password for Soandso." Poof, they're in.

If you want to have a secure login system you have to go to a little more work.
I'll describe a mechanism that is actually in place in a business oriented MUD
called "Meeting Space" today.

(1) Get yourself a 1-way hash algorithm. MD5 is good one. If you need MD5, send
me mail, I'll dredge it up for you. It's stuffed on my cognitive prosthesis
somewhere.

(2) The client to your MOO sends the server a message. The message says, "Hi, I
want to log in as Soandso."

(3) The server has in its database Soandso's password. The password has been
munched up with MD5 and also some random stuff, called "salt" in the trade.
It's there to simply make it harder for someone to grind up /etc/passwd and do
simple comparisons. The server sends back a message to the client that says,
"Cool. Do this for me. take the salt characters "fnord" and the string
"172355555" and grind them all up together, and send me back the answer. The
latter string is a quasi-random, non-repeating message. The easiest way to get
one of those is to call time() and turn it into a string. If you want to get
fancy, toss in some things like the number of pagefaults the system has done,
concatenated with the number of times that you've authenticated someone today,
and so on. The time is really good enough as it is, though tossing in the
number of times you've played this game makes it foolproof. The real point is
that you can't *ever* use this query again. How you construct such a message is
up to you. What you're doing is making a "one-time pad" in the lingo. 

(4) The client does all of this, using MD5 to grind up the plaintext password,
and the extra stuff (the client doesn't really need to know what the meaning of
the extra stuff is, it just has to grind it all up), and sends the server back
the result.

(5) The server mixes up the extra stuff with its already-hashed password and
compares the result to what the client sent. If they match, the client gets in.
If not, the server sends back a message that says, "No, sorry."

There are many other possible algorithms. The trick in thinking about them is
to assume that there are other people are listening. In our case, assume
there's an eavesdropper, with total knowledge of the algorithm. What have they
learned? Well, they learned what the system time on the server was. No harm in
that. They learned the client's password's salt. This is mildly irksome, but
only mildly. This potentially makes it easier for them to use a dictionary-
attack on the password, but not really. For anything that's really useful, it's
*far* easier for them to figure out how to hijack the whole database. All they
really know is that every time you log in, the magic question is going to have
a constant in it. Big deal.

Note that while not perfect, all forms of attack on this system involve both
hacking up a client and stealing the server's database. While not an
unattainable task, an authentication system like this is *more* secure than the
authentication system used to let you log into a privileged account on the host
operating system, even ones as reasonably secure as unix and VMS.

How's this, clear as mud?


Unsolved problems (left as an exercise to the reader):

(1) Securely changing Soandso's password in the presence of eavesdroppers.
	(very hard without a pubic-key crypto system)
(2) Managing the plaintext password on the client system (which is required
	here) so that it isn't compromised. (rather easy)

	Jon

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Thu Oct 14 12:27:04 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "14" "October" "1993" "12:10:14" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "21" "Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <9310141910.AA00544@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 12:10:14 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
cc:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu, moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text


> > Date:	Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:37:43 -0700
> > From:	jonathan@nova (Jonathan Bradshaw)
> > 
> > For me, disk basing has one VERY needed feature. The bug in the NeXT that
> > causes malloc() panics is a LARGE problem. Its one which would be solved
> > by disk basing (or so Pavel says).

> Um, I don't recall saying that disk-basing would necessarily solve this
> problem, though it might very well partially ameliorate it.  As far as I
can > tell, the NeXT bug would infect any sufficiently long-running
allocating > program. 

True, but I would not lose data each time it crashed (or at least, little)
rather than an hour of change.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key fingerprint is:  EA 16 1B 5D 5D 94 6B 06  58 FD E6 E9 52 F3 6E 11
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct 14 13:56:33 1993
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References: <9310141910.AA00544@nova.decio.nd.edu>
	<93Oct14.081108pdt.58386@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 14 Oct 1993 13:46:13 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suggestion for 1.8.0

> True, but I would not lose data each time it crashed (or at least, little)
> rather than an hour of change.

Actually, that's no different for the disk-based case than it is now, except
that since the equivalent of `checkpointing' will be so much cheaper, people
will be more willing to do it more frequently.

Even in the new system, the server will occasionally make everything consistent
on disk, fork a process to copy the disk file to another, forever stable, copy,
and treat the DB file as read-only until that forked copier completes.  Absent
a log-based full-blown database file implementation (which I don't propose to
write), this is the only way I can think of to have there be a consistent image
on disk both for backup purposes and in case of a server crash.

My measurements on LambdaMOO on the old hardware (SPARCstation 2) showed that
that forked copier would run for only about a minute and a half, even for a DB
of that size.  Further, there was no perceptible lag on the MOO while that copy
was being made.

	Pavel

From pittslug.sug.org!player Fri Oct 15 00:18:52 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "00:06:12" "-0700" "Sean Owens" "player@pittslug.sug.org" nil "23" "Passwords" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "Steven Owens's message of Thu, 14 Oct 1993 07:06:19 PDT <199310141406.AA21889@mailhost.unidata.com>"
Message-ID: <9310150706.AA00533@pittslug.sug.org>
Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 00:06:12 -0700
From:	Sean Owens <player@pittslug.sug.org>
To:	uso01@mailhost.unidata.com
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Passwords
Reply-to: player@pittslug.sug.org


Steven> Somebody I know is trying to figure out a secure way to handle passwords
Steven> in a MOO-to-MOO connection system.  The idea is to set it up so players
Steven> can "walk" from MOO to MOO without worrying that their passwords are
Steven> compromised.

I don't have time to look at this fully.  I'll try to before I log off but if I
don't, heres a short suggestion.  Try Kerberos.  Kerberso is a zero knowledge
transfer system.   Basically it works like

1) Server knows your password
2) You know your password
3) Server sends you a random string (changes every time - usually its the
	current time or something
4) Your end (usually a program on your workstation, i.e. the login program)
	uses the password you gave it to encrypt the string and sends the
	encrypted version back to the server
5) The server encrypts the same string it sent you with what it KNOWS is your
	password and checks what you give it against its own version.  If 
	they match then you're you
Note, at no time did your password travel across the net.

Sean

From cs.princeton.edu!don Fri Oct 15 01:23:27 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "01:05:03" "-0700" "Don Mitchell" "don@cs.princeton.edu" nil "7" "re: Passwords" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 01:05:03 -0700
From:	Don Mitchell <don@cs.princeton.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: re: Passwords

Kerberos is not a zero-knowledge protocol.  An evesdropper sees a
string and the string encrypted by the users password, and that reviews
information about the password.  True zero-knowledge protocols obey a
stronger condition.

With regard to Kerberos, check out "Limitations of the Kerberos
Authentication System" by Bellovin and Merritt in USENIX Winter '91.

From crl.com!arthurc Fri Oct 15 11:07:25 1993
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 10:32:06 -0700
From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	Sean Owens <player@pittslug.sug.org>
cc:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Passwords
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


   This suggestion is so patent that I'm sure I'm overlooking a flaw in my
proposal. But here it is:
   If you want to go from MOO to MOO, why lug along encryption systems and
put the burden on the MOOs? Why not just write a script that shells you
out of MOO#1 then shuttles you over to MOO#2? That way the whole login
procedure is governed by your own communications software. There are folks
already who "multiMOO" in this way, whether by scripting or just by
manually shelling in and out of MOOs.  MultiMOOing, though, usually leaves
your presence in each MOO -- that is, you don't only travel from one MOO
to another: you remain logged in to all the MOOs, though you're only
active in one at a time. However, if you want to leave MOO#1 and walk to
MOO#2, thereby leaving MOO#1 as you would leave a place IRL, then your
script could just include an @quit instead of a ^] and ^Z (the shellout
commands on the VAX I use).
  Does this make sense as a method for inter-MOO travel? Or am I missing
something else that folks have in mind when they worry about passport
transfer and encryption?



From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Fri Oct 15 12:58:37 1993
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 12:44:32 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Passwords


> From arthurc@crl.com Fri Oct 15 19:06:12 1993
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type> : > TEXT/PLAIN> ; > charset=US-ASCII> 
> X-NS-Transport-ID: 08002008D0FD0057A7CC
> Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 10:32:06 PDT
> From: Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
> Subject: Re: Passwords
> To: Sean Owens <player@pittslug.sug.org>
> cc: moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
> Content-Length: 1094
> 
> 
>    This suggestion is so patent that I'm sure I'm overlooking a flaw in my
> proposal. But here it is:
>    If you want to go from MOO to MOO, why lug along encryption systems and
> put the burden on the MOOs? Why not just write a script that shells you
> out of MOO#1 then shuttles you over to MOO#2? That way the whole login
> procedure is governed by your own communications software. There are folks
> already who "multiMOO" in this way, whether by scripting or just by
> manually shelling in and out of MOOs.  MultiMOOing, though, usually leaves
> your presence in each MOO -- that is, you don't only travel from one MOO
> to another: you remain logged in to all the MOOs, though you're only
> active in one at a time. However, if you want to leave MOO#1 and walk to
> MOO#2, thereby leaving MOO#1 as you would leave a place IRL, then your
> script could just include an @quit instead of a ^] and ^Z (the shellout
> commands on the VAX I use).
>   Does this make sense as a method for inter-MOO travel? Or am I missing
> something else that folks have in mind when they worry about passport
> transfer and encryption?
> 
> 
> 

Don't laugh, it's not fair.

	A.

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Fri Oct 15 14:39:19 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "14:11:20" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" "<Pine.3.05.9310151720.A3063-9100000@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>" "18" "My wish list..." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 14:11:20 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: My wish list...
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 
break    (break outta current loop)
continue (continue to next iteration of current loop)
 
Wouldn't be too hard to add, would they?  Are there stylistic
 programmer objections to these kinds of statements?
 
Also... Any word on if the following (previously discussed) will
 be included in any upcoming versions?
 
list[2..]
last(list)
any(list)
 
-quinn




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Oct 15 17:25:17 1993
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References: <Pine.3.05.9310151720.A3063-9100000@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>
Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:17:34 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list...

> Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 14:11:20 -0700
> From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
>  
> break    (break outta current loop)
> continue (continue to next iteration of current loop)

I will be adding these, but with an optional identifier following the keyword,
identifying the loop involved.  For FOR loops, the loop name is the name of the
loop variable (i.e., the `x' in FOR x IN ...) and for WHILE loops, an optional
identifier can appear between WHILE and the open parenthesis.

Thus, in the following code:

	for x in (some_list)
	  while y (some_condition)
	    ...
	    break x;	/* 1 */
	    ...
	    break y;    /* 2 */
	    ...
	  endwhile
	endfor

statement (1) terminates the outer loop, and statement (2) terminates the inner
one.  If no identifier appears in a BREAK or CONTINUE statement, it is assumed
to refer to the innermost enclosing loop, just like in C.

> list[2..]
> last(list)
> any(list)

These would be written as follows in 1.8.0, according to current plan:

	Quinn		Current MOO		New MOO
	-----		-----------		-------
	x[2..]		x[2..length(x)]		x[2..$]
	last(x)		x[length(x)]		x[$]
	last(x)		x[random(length(x))]	x[random($)]

Essentially, the subscripting bracket will define a pseudo-variable, $, whose
value is the length of the value being subscripted.  You can use that pseudo-
variable in any (enclosed) expression context.  So, to extract the last two
elements of a list (presumed to contain at least two elements), you'd say

		x[$ - 1 .. $]

Just for Rog, here's my favorite gross hack with this new syntactic feature:

		x[len = $];

This statement is more concise way to say this now old-fashioned statement:

		len = length(x);

Comments?

	Pavel

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Fri Oct 15 17:26:07 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "17:16:25" "-0700" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" "<199310160016.AA03369@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>" "5" "Re: My wish list..." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:16:25 -0700
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list...

Will the new $ variable work with strings as well as lists?  iE:

"abc"[$] => "c"

-quinn

From mit.edu!ghudson Fri Oct 15 17:49:43 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "17:48:52" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "30" "Re: My wish list... " "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 15 Oct 93 17:17:34 -0700.
             <93Oct15.171736pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:48:52 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list... 


>		x[len = $];
> This statement is more concise way to say this now old-fashioned
> statement:
>		len = length(x);

More concise, perhaps, but at least I know what the second statement
does at a glance.

Congratulations on reinventing Perl.

I really despise magic variables, especially ones that get initialized
in the middle of your code with no explicit statement to the reader
that anything has happened.

I also don't terribly like how the list[foo..bar] notation handles
boundary cases; for instance, list[2..length(list)] reliably gets "all
the elements but the first", but only because MOO makes an exception
for "a sublist starting one element past the end of the list".  Thus
{0}[2] is invalid, but {0}[2..1] is fine.  Go figure.

In Coldmud, I provide a function sublist(list, start, len) where the
third argument is optional and defaults to (length(list) - start + 1).
The exceptions are now (len < 0) or (start + len - 1 > length(list)),
and there's no confusion between sublisting and indexing and their
error conditions.

--GBH
Feeling militantly minimal


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Oct 15 18:02:05 1993
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:55:13 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list...

> Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:16:25 -0700
> From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
> 
> Will the new $ variable work with strings as well as lists?  iE:
> 
> "abc"[$] => "c"

Yes.

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Oct 15 19:35:24 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "19:35:04" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "44" "Re: My wish list... " "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:17:34 PDT."
             <93Oct15.171736pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 19:35:04 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list... 

>   Just for Rog, here's my favorite gross hack with this new
>   syntactic feature:
>   		x[len = $];
>   ...
>   Comments?

[Rog LOL].  That's really sick.

I'm sufficiently happy about the other stuff that I might even promise
never to use this (an easy promise to keep, given the amount of MOO
coding I do these days; ...but...but... it saves an entire tick!
... must think carefully about this...).

>   Essentially, the subscripting bracket will define a pseudo-variable, 
>   $, whose value is the length of the value being subscripted.

This should include subscripting brackets that appear in FOR statements,
e.g.,

   FOR i in [5..$]
   ...

is a loop starting at 5 that runs forever.

In this case, the value being subscripted is simply {1,2,3,... }
(i.e., all natural numbers).  With this in mind, $ is clearly
+infinity, though 2^32-1 will do for those of us who have to live in
the real world.  I suggest this mainly for consistency's sake, though
there have been a few occasions where being able to do this would have
come in handy (yes, you can write WHILE (1) ... i=i+1 ENDWHILE, but
then you can write *any* FOR loop as a WHILE, and if you forget to put
in the i=i+1, you lose...).

For real hack value, LambdaCore could include the following code in its
$server_started()

   FOR i in [1..$maxint=$]
     BREAK;
   ENDFOR

to set $maxint appropriately for the machine architecture.

	Roger  (militant orthogonalist...)


From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Fri Oct 15 21:15:24 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "19:33:18" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "59" "Help with help" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 19:33:18 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Help with help

Conused newbie strikes again!!!

I'm trying to build a help system.

I've read help $help several times, and maybe what I'm looking for is
there, but I can't seem to see it, so here goes.

Currently help-index yields:

Available Help Indices
----------------------
wiz-index      -- Wizard Help Topics (#25)
prog-index     -- Programmer Help Topics (#24)
builtin-index  -- Server Built-in Functions (#30)
core-index     -- Core Utility Help Topics (#23)
gen-index      -- General Help Topics (#61)

full-index     -- EVERYTHING

I'd like it to show my own help object.

Now, in trying to figure out how those strings got there, I've figured out
that each of the help objects has a property (eg. wiz-index) that evaluates
to something like {"*index*", "XXX Help Topics"}

There are now two things I don't understand [at least two things :-)].

--------------
1.
Why does ;#nnn.XXX-index yeild:
#-1:Input to EVAL, line 1:  Property not found
... called from #59:eval_cmd_string (this == #2), line 18
... called from #59:eval (this == #2), line 9

when ;properties(#nnn)[YYY] ---> XXX-index, and
     ;#nnn.(properties(#nnn)[YYY]) ----> {"*index*", "XXX Help Topics"}

In other words, the property name XXX-index does not seem well-behaved.

My own help-object behaves this way; I don't even know why or how, but it
does.  I suspect that the answer to this question will explain how and why
my help-object behaves this way.

----------------
2.
How can I get my help object to show up in the appropriate fashion when the
user types any one of:

 help index
 help
*help full-index
*help my-index

I got the latter two to work, but I'm not sure why they work and the first
two don't.
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Oct 15 22:48:32 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "15" "October" "1993" "22:48:00" "-0700" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "47" "Re: 1.8.0 onc() change (was: Bug in 1.7.6?) " "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:56:43 PDT."
             <93Oct13.095656pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 22:48:00 -0700
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.8.0 onc() change (was: Bug in 1.7.6?) 

>   In 1.8.0, I intend to change the semantics of the `x' bit to
>   always allow calls from code running with the permissions of
>   either a wizard or the verb owner.  Thus, the `x' bit would work
>   analogously to the `r' and `w' bits, controlling only the
>   abilities of non-wizard non-owners.

I'll also suggest

(1) allowing -x verbs to be called as hooks from server builtins
(2) having server builtins completely IGNORE verbs with satisfiable 
    argspecs (i.e., NOT `this none this') when searching for hook verbs.

By "hook" verbs, I mean :accept, :enterfunc, :exitfunc, :recycle, etc...

The one-line justification for (1) is that if the wizards can do it,
the server should be able to do it, too.  

The real win, however, is that this provides a way to distinguish
between server calls and non-server calls to a hook verb.  Simply put,
if you care that other programmers might be calling your :accept verb
explicitly, you can set it -x to prevent them from doing so, thus
guaranteeing that any call this verb gets is from a bona-fide move()
(or some wizard code that knows what it's doing).  Note that if there
is some functionality in that verb that other programmers need to get
at, it's a simple matter to push that off into another verb
(cf. :acceptable on LambdaMOO) which can then be made +x.

The principle behind (2) is to keep separate the use of a particular
verb name as a server hook (:accept for move()) and as a command verb
("accept money from Joe").

Note that the current situation also loses in that if you
have an "accept" command and there's some reason you *want* to make it
+x (e.g., to allow children to pass() to it), you are then back to solving
move() detection problem...

In any case, if you do (1), then (2) is necessary to prevent the
confusing situation in which a command verb in existing code suddenly
finds itself being called as a server hook.  Since -x command verbs
will necessarily have satisfiable argspecs, (2) will suffice to ward
against this.

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From gac.edu!eostrom Sat Oct 16 09:02:01 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "16" "October" "1993" "03:50:45" "-0700" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "32" "Re: Help with help" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Sat, 16 Oct 1993 03:50:45 -0700
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Subject: Re: Help with help
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> 1.
> Why does ;#nnn.XXX-index yeild:
> #-1:Input to EVAL, line 1:  Property not found
> ... called from #59:eval_cmd_string (this == #2), line 18
> ... called from #59:eval (this == #2), line 9

The simple `object.property' expression doesn't work if the property
name contains a hyphen.  The parser is reading this as "find the value
of the XXX property on #nnn, and then subtract index from that."  You
want

;#nnn.("XXX-index")

> 2.
> How can I get my help object to show up in the appropriate fashion when the
> user types any one of:
> 
>  help index

If there's a readable property on an object in your help db list that
begins with "*index*" and is followed by a one-line description, it
should work fine.  Unless I'm wrong, in which case someone will no
doubt correct me.

>  help

When the "help" command is used with no args, the help system goes
looking for a help topic whose name is the null string.  I'm not sure
how you want your help object to show up in this, but it's just like
any other help text (see `help $help').

--Erik/JF

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Oct 16 15:57:20 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "16" "October" "1993" "15:24:39" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "45" "Re: My wish list..." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: <9310160048.AA07284@podge.MIT.EDU>
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References: <9310160048.AA07284@podge.MIT.EDU>
	<93Oct15.171736pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Sat, 16 Oct 1993 15:24:39 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	ghudson@mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list...

> Date:	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 17:48:52 -0700
> From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
> 
> >		x[len = $];
> > This statement is more concise way to say this now old-fashioned
> > statement:
> >		len = length(x);
> 
> More concise, perhaps, but at least I know what the second statement
> does at a glance.

It would appear that I was insufficiently clearly tongue-in-cheek here; I
apologize.  I do not recommend the writing of such code, of course.

> I really despise magic variables, especially ones that get initialized
> in the middle of your code with no explicit statement to the reader
> that anything has happened.

Um, I think it's pretty easily understandable as a part of the [] notation for
subscripting.

> I also don't terribly like how the list[foo..bar] notation handles
> boundary cases; for instance, list[2..length(list)] reliably gets "all
> the elements but the first", but only because MOO makes an exception
> for "a sublist starting one element past the end of the list".  Thus
> {0}[2] is invalid, but {0}[2..1] is fine.  Go figure.

This is not true.  There is no exception for any boundary cases; rather, there
is a simple rule.  In the expression `x[m..n]', if m > n then the result is the
empty list or string (depending upon the type of x).  If m <= n, then both must
be in the range [1..length(x)] and the obvious subsequence is extracted.

> In Coldmud, I provide a function sublist(list, start, len) where the
> third argument is optional and defaults to (length(list) - start + 1).
> The exceptions are now (len < 0) or (start + len - 1 > length(list)),
> and there's no confusion between sublisting and indexing and their
> error conditions.

I don't see where there's any confusion in MOO over these facilities, either.
I assume in Coldmud that you provide a convenient syntax for indexing, rather
than another function index(list, n), right?  We are simply providing such a
concise and readable syntax for another very common operation: subsequence
extraction.

	Pavel

From aero.org!obrien Mon Oct 18 12:52:16 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "18" "October" "1993" "11:55:12" "-0700" "obrien@aero.org" "obrien@aero.org" nil "15" "Re: My wish list..." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Wx-Message-Id: obrien.2928398110
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In-Reply-to: "Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>'s message of: 15 October 1993"
Message-ID: <199310181855.AA08915@aerospace.aero.org>
References: <93Oct15.171736pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Mon, 18 Oct 1993 11:55:12 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	obrien@aero.org
Subject: Re: My wish list...

>>> break    (break outta current loop)
>>> continue (continue to next iteration of current loop)
>>
>>I will be adding these, but with an optional identifier following the keyword,
>>identifying the loop involved.
>>
>>Comments?

My comment is that it sure sounds a lot like BCPL.  Let's take C
backwards in time! (Just kidding.)

Actually I've always missed these constructs in C and I'm glad to see
them contemplated here.

Mike O'Brien

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Mon Oct 18 15:40:14 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "18" "October" "1993" "15:18:35" "-0700" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "17" "Re: Help with help" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Mon, 18 Oct 1993 15:18:35 -0700
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Help with help

>Conused newbie strikes again!!!
>
>I'm trying to build a help system.
>
>I've read help $help several times, and maybe what I'm looking for is
>there, but I can't seem to see it, so here goes.

Well, after putting some print (err, tell) statements in $help:index_list,
I finally figured it out...

I guess my help objects *should* be publically readable...

Duh.
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From muvms6.wvnet.edu!LAFLAMM1 Thu Oct 21 18:15:18 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "21" "October" "1993" "18:04:06" "-0700" "LAFLAMM1@muvms6.wvnet.edu" "LAFLAMM1@muvms6.wvnet.edu" "<01H4DZFYGAPU0010UH@muvms6.wvnet.edu>" "8" "Ok...." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 21 Oct 1993 18:04:06 -0700
From:	LAFLAMM1@muvms6.wvnet.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Ok....
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT


  I have several major probs.  I just put up a MOO running 1.7.6 andthe
August extraction of the core.  First of all, it's not moving new players to
$player_start.  As a matter of fact, none of the functions using move() seem to
work.  I suspect this is because they belong to hacker and not #2.  I tried
setting a wizbit on $hacker to check this, and there was no change.  HELP!

					Nick

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct 21 19:06:24 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "21" "October" "1993" "18:57:46" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: Ok...." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 21 Oct 1993 18:57:46 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	LAFLAMM1@muvms6.wvnet.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ok....

> Date:	Thu, 21 Oct 1993 18:04:06 -0700
> From:	LAFLAMM1@muvms6.wvnet.edu
> 
>   I have several major probs.  I just put up a MOO running 1.7.6 andthe
> August extraction of the core.  First of all, it's not moving new players to
> $player_start.  As a matter of fact, none of the functions using move() seem
> to work.  I suspect this is because they belong to hacker and not #2.  I
> tried setting a wizbit on $hacker to check this, and there was no change.

First, remove the wizard bit from $hacker; the whole purpose of $hacker is to
be a non-wizard programmer who can own the majority of the verbs in the system.

Second, read the entries in ChangeLog.txt for this release; one of them
explains some things you need to do before using the new server with old
databases.  That should clear up at last most of your problems.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct 21 22:10:50 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "21" "October" "1993" "22:00:37" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "New LambdaCore database released" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Message-ID: <93Oct21.220049pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 21 Oct 1993 22:00:37 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: New LambdaCore database released

A new release of the LambdaCore database, compatible with server release 1.7.6,
has just been extracted from the running LambdaMOO database and made available
for FTP in the usual place:

		parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/LambdaCore-21Oct93.db

In addition to having the changes necessary to work properly under release
1.7.6, this as usual contains a few months' worth of changes, bug-fixes, and
(we hope) improvements from the LambdaMOO database.

Enjoy, and let me know of any problems you encounter using this.

	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon

PS-To answer the question that always comes up, *no*, there isn't any easy way
to upgrade to a new release of the core while keeping all of your local
additions to the database.  We're sorry.

From xerox.com!PARC.xerox.com.PARC Fri Oct 22 05:52:39 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "October" "1993" "05:38:13" "-0700" "vaughaog" "vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk" nil "21" "1.7.6 and logins." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 05:38:13 -0700
From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk>
Sender: PARC.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: 1.7.6 and logins.

X-MOO-Reference: MagicMOO / wales.aston.ac.uk (134.151.17.2) 7777

After upgrading MagicMOO to use version 1.7.6 of the server AND making the
necessary alterations to #0. I find that my login watcher no longer functions.
The code involved is this:

#1080:"login_notify"   this none this
 1:  "login_notify(watcher, player, status)";
 2:  "...Sends a message to WATCHER telling that player PLAYER has...";
 3:  "...connected or disconnected...";
 4:  if (!$perm_utils:controls(callers() ? caller_perms() | player, this))
 5:    return E_PERM;
 6:  endif
 7:  dir = args[3] == "connect" ? "  --=>" | " <=--";
 8:  msg = tostr(dir, " ", args[2].name, " ", args[3], "ed at ", (time = ctime())[12..16], time[25..28], ". ", length(connected_players()), " total.");
 9:  args[1]:tell(msg);

Any ideas as to what is wrong here?

Owain (MagicDragon@MagicMOO)


From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Oct 22 06:26:53 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "October" "1993" "06:11:44" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "19" "Re: 1.7.6 and logins." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 06:11:44 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.7.6 and logins.


> 
> X-MOO-Reference: MagicMOO / wales.aston.ac.uk (134.151.17.2) 7777
> 
> After upgrading MagicMOO to use version 1.7.6 of the server AND making the
> necessary alterations to #0. I find that my login watcher no longer functions.

>  4:  if (!$perm_utils:controls(callers() ? caller_perms() | player, this))

Not sure how your verb is being called but check this line.  We had
a similar problem with the Monitor on MOOns, altho our Monitor code
is part of the player confunc, there's a check in the confunc of #6
that has ' if (valid(caller_perms()) && caller != this)', which promptly
aborts the player confunc verb when called by the #0:user_connected,
since #0 is valid and caller wasnt player.  It could be related to
this; I wouldn't be surprised if this affects quite a few people's code
when they try to upgrade to the new server.

-j.

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Fri Oct 22 06:35:46 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "October" "1993" "06:23:55" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "30" "Re: New LambdaCore database released" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 06:23:55 -0700
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: New LambdaCore database released


> A new release of the LambdaCore database, compatible with server release 1.7.6,
> has just been extracted from the running LambdaMOO database and made available
> for FTP in the usual place:
> 
> 		parcftp.xerox.com:pub/MOO/LambdaCore-21Oct93.db
> 
> In addition to having the changes necessary to work properly under release
> 1.7.6, this as usual contains a few months' worth of changes, bug-fixes, and
> (we hope) improvements from the LambdaMOO database.
> 
> Enjoy, and let me know of any problems you encounter using this.
> 
> 	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon
> 
> PS-To answer the question that always comes up, *no*, there isn't any easy way
> to upgrade to a new release of the core while keeping all of your local
> additions to the database.  We're sorry.

Mmm, well, the just *might* be a way of doing this sort of thing now.  The new
CardiffMOO (new core, old local objects) has a $local (or $porter) object, still under development which allows you to do this sort of thing.  Basically it's an
intelligent @dump command which can dump info on large numbers of interrelated
objects at the same time.  One thing it can't do yet is manage the porting
of old (local) players onto the new database, but, as they say, we're working on
it.  $local, $porter or $whatever should be public domain in a few days, perhaps it'll help people move to new cores.

Luv U more than he does,

	Andy.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Fri Oct 22 11:20:32 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "October" "1993" "11:03:34" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "17" "Re: 1.7.6 and logins." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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References: <199310221311.AA16226@feenix.metronet.com>
	<6629.9310221238@sun.aston.ac.uk>
Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 11:03:34 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kira@feenix.metronet.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 1.7.6 and logins.

> Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 06:11:44 -0700
> From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
> 
> We had a similar problem with the Monitor on MOOns, altho our Monitor code is
> part of the player confunc, there's a check in the confunc of #6 that has '
> if (valid(caller_perms()) && caller != this)', which promptly aborts the
> player confunc verb when called by the #0:user_connected, since #0 is valid
> and caller wasnt player.  It could be related to this; I wouldn't be
> surprised if this affects quite a few people's code when they try to upgrade
> to the new server.

I didn't realize that this change was going to break as much code as it appears
to be doing, else I would have looked for another way to do it.  Hopefully, the
changes to make things work again are relatively easy (e.g., a small change to
a permissions check).  Again, I apologize for the trouble.

	Pavel

From ccs.neu.edu!nop Fri Oct 22 11:38:33 1993
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Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 11:27:18 -0700
From:	Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Cc: pavel@parc.xerox.com, kira@feenix.metronet.com, vaughaog@helio.aston.ac.uk

>> We had a similar problem with the Monitor on MOOns, altho our
>> Monitor code is part of the player confunc, there's a check in the
>> confunc of #6 that has ' if (valid(caller_perms()) && caller !=
>> this)', which promptly aborts the player confunc verb when called
>> by the #0:user_connected, since #0 is valid and caller wasnt
>> player.  It could be related to this; I wouldn't be surprised if
>> this affects quite a few people's code when they try to upgrade to
>> the new server.

> I didn't realize that this change was going to break as much code as
> it appears to be doing, else I would have looked for another way to
> do it.  Hopefully, the changes to make things work again are
> relatively easy (e.g., a small change to a permissions check).
> Again, I apologize for the trouble.

Nah, it's all relatively minor.  Anyway, most of the lossage seems to
be related to login watchers.  Login watchers should be rewritten to
hang directly off #0:user_*, and now do 

  if (caller != #0)
    return E_PERM;
  endif

at their top, which is a much saner way to do login watch permission
checking.

Jay Carlson
nop@io.com    nop@ccs.neu.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

From uoguelph.ca!searle Fri Oct 22 12:54:01 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "October" "1993" "12:42:04" "-0700" "\"Gregory L. Searle\"" "searle@uoguelph.ca" nil "37" "Re: 1.7.6 and logins." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 12:42:04 -0700
From:	"Gregory L. Searle" <searle@uoguelph.ca>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	kira@feenix.metronet.com, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com,
	vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 1.7.6 and logins.
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Fri, 22 Oct 1993, Pavel Curtis wrote:

> I didn't realize that this change was going to break as much code as it appears
> to be doing, else I would have looked for another way to do it.  Hopefully, the
> changes to make things work again are relatively easy (e.g., a small change to
> a permissions check).  Again, I apologize for the trouble.
> 
> 	Pavel

Hm. Now I seem to be experiencing some problems. I use a system of prompts
($command_utils:yes_or_no, $command_utils:read) to promote a BBS-like
startup for players -- that is, they are asked on their first login for a
whack of information, just as you are on a BBS. Another example is my
guest class. When they login they are prompted for their real names and a
short description.

The problem i am experiencing, I *think*, has to do with
#0:user_connected, where it forks and runs user:confunc. I believe that
the fork is conflicting with $command_utils:yes_or_no/read and I need to
know how important it is to have the fork in #0:user_connected. In other
words, what happens if I get rid of the fork -- which is denying
me some powerful options.

Cheers,
Greg Searle

   --==Global Village City Works Dept, Manager==--

   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  [DUBIOUS DISCLAIMER tm]
   :              Gregory L. Searle              :  Any heresy, iconoclasm,
   :    Computing and Communications Services    :  or subversion expressed
   :             Political Studies               :  above is my own, and is
   :       University of Guelph, CANADA          :  not to be confused with
   : searle@uoguelph.ca  gsearle@ccs.uoguelph.ca :  that of my employer(s).
   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  ||||_CopyLeft_1993_||||



From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Oct 22 13:14:42 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "22" "October" "1993" "13:13:08" "-0700" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "3" "1.7.6 and logins." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-To: "Gregory L. Searle"'s message of Fri, 22 Oct 1993 12:42:04 PDT <Pine.3.07.9310221502.A18786-b100000@herman.cs.uoguelph.ca>
Date:	Fri, 22 Oct 1993 13:13:08 -0700
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	searle@uoguelph.ca
Cc:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, kira@feenix.metronet.com,
	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com, vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk
Subject: 1.7.6 and logins.

If you remove the fork, then if the room function crashes, the user
one won't get called at all.  Or vice versa, if you reverse them
temporally (leaving them in the same order in the code).

From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Mon Oct 25 09:18:27 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "25" "October" "1993" "08:52:50" "-0700" "\"R.Mehta\"" "cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "8" "MOO server on ST.?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO server on ST.?
Content-Type: text

Hi..

I was wondering if anyone knows if it is possiable to run the moo
server on an ST (even in a single user operation)? or if anyone knows
there is some existing code?

thanxs
Just Say YO!

From scitsc.wlv.ac.uk!cm5292 Tue Oct 26 11:49:30 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "26" "October" "1993" "11:40:05" "-0700" "\"S.Casey\"" "cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk" nil "12" "1.7.6 ad naseaum." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 11:40:05 -0700
From:	"S.Casey" <cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@beta.xerox.com
Subject: 1.7.6 ad naseaum.

	Ok - I just set up a MOO.  The only Thing I have changed is to patch a exit telling room over the standard $room.....
	The problem is that when someone quits (as anyone who tries to get on will due to @blacklist *) it comes out with the traceback....

quit
#0:user_disconnected user_client_disconnected, line 5:  Invalid indirection
(End of traceback)
*** Disconnected ***

	As I know NOTHING about the server interaction... - I cannot solve/ know the importance of this - Anyone feel up to helping?

		Thanks muchley,
			Steve Casey....

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Tue Oct 26 13:21:00 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "26" "October" "1993" "12:35:37" "-0700" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" "<9310261935.AA00252@turquoise.cm.cf.ac.uk>" "15" "Re: 1.7.6 ad naseaum." "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 12:35:37 -0700
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To:	cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, moo-cows@beta.xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.7.6 ad naseaum.


#0:user_disconnected user_client_disconnected, line 5:  Invalid indirection
(End of traceback)
*** Disconnected ***

Don't sweat it, the LambdaCore release is buggy.  There'll be some
patches along in a while I guess, but for the time being try using
a check for 

	valid(user)

and take short brisk walks in the morning.

A.


From bellcore.com!norman Tue Oct 26 14:41:09 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "26" "October" "1993" "14:30:58" "-0700" "norman@bellcore.com" "norman@bellcore.com" nil "12" "Re: A Dino Speaks out" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 23 Sep 93 16:23:50 PDT.\"
             <9309232324.AA26411@sphinx.nmt.edu>"
Message-ID: <9310262130.AA07767@mailee.bellcore.com>
Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 14:30:58 -0700
From:	norman@bellcore.com
To:	schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: A Dino Speaks out

I'm another TinyMUD relic.  Last did anything serious on Lambda in
summer of 1991.  The dog ate my avatar not long ago.  I, too, haven't
found much joy in MUDville lately, for many of the reasons schlake
describes so eloquently.  Thanks for that post and for bringing back
memories.  I still remember the two lessons I learned from TinyMUD:
  ``it's amazing how much can be done with four strings''
and
  ``we all get the game we deserve''
Both are still true today (even though my hat is off to Frand and a few
others who went well beyond four strings).

Norman

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Tue Oct 26 15:05:01 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "26" "October" "1993" "14:57:19" "-0700" "Lynx" "BRANDON@cc.usu.edu" nil "10" "Mail reader, like the verb editor" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 14:57:19 -0700
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Mail reader, like the verb editor
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I don't know if this has been discussed, but I find the current mail
system...cumbersome.  Has anybody ever thought of creating a mail reader which
works like the editor's (ie pulls you into a seperate room)...this way you
could cut down on a lot of size, and have simply commands like 'next' rather
than '@read next on *social'  or whatever...?

		-Lynx @DarkurtheMOO (Shade Pendragon @LambdaMOO)

(BTW, try to include my email address in your replies, as i'm not on the
moo-cows list again, yet (have to find the drned address))

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Tue Oct 26 15:15:41 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "26" "October" "1993" "15:03:50" "-0700" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" nil "11" "Reply to Mail reader, like the verb editor" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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             <01H4KO5LNG82A9MCIS@cc.usu.edu>sc@R"
Message-ID: <9310262203.AA11271@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 15:03:50 -0700
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Mail reader, like the verb editor

> I don't know if this has been discussed, but I find the current mail
> system...cumbersome.  Has anybody ever thought of creating a mail reader which
> works like the editor's (ie pulls you into a seperate room)...this way you
> could cut down on a lot of size, and have simply commands like 'next' rather
> than '@read next on *social'  or whatever...?

Well, I have been working on a mail system which is a little more
"folder"-based and makes things easy to move around, but it has become
a little object-hungry to some tastes. I'll keep revising.

--JRP [Shirgall@Moons, Shirgall@Lambda, Shirgall@HT]

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Oct 26 15:25:02 1993
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Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 15:04:33 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	cm5292@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk, moo-cows@beta.xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.7.6 ad naseaum.

> Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 12:35:37 -0700
> From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> 
> #0:user_disconnected user_client_disconnected, line 5:  Invalid indirection
> (End of traceback)
> *** Disconnected ***
> 
> Don't sweat it, the LambdaCore release is buggy.

Actually, I think the bug is in the server, where the :user_disconnected verb
(unlike :user_client_disconnected) is called for un-logged-in connections as
well as logged-in ones.  I'll fix this in the next release.

	Pavel

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Tue Oct 26 15:25:42 1993
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 26 Oct 93 15:04:33 PDT"
             <93Oct26.150445pdt.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 15:23:41 -0700
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	moo-cows@cyber.widener.edu
Subject: Reply to 1.7.6 ad naseaum. 

> > From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> > #0:user_disconnected user_client_disconnected, line 5:  Invalid indirection
> > (End of traceback)
> > *** Disconnected ***

> Actually, I think the bug is in the server, where the :user_disconnected verb
> (unlike :user_client_disconnected) is called for un-logged-in connections as
> well as logged-in ones.  I'll fix this in the next release.

On Moons and Harpers Tale I use that connection to track people that
disconnect without logging in. Useful feature and all you need to check
is valid(user) in #0:user_disconnected.

--JRP [Shirgall almost everywhere]

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Tue Oct 26 21:10:06 1993
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Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 21:01:06 -0700
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Tracking Players to Home Sites
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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As a Wizard on OpalMOO, I've run into the problem that a particular
 problematic player's registered email address is not valid.  When
 I run @@who on him, his connect site is completely different from
 his email site.  In fact, his connect site is the OpalMOO site itself
 so I _can't_ lock out his site.  But how can I find out just
 what account he's connection from?  I want to notify the higher
 up sysadmins that he's abusing his access.  Is it possible to trace
 the player back any farther than @@who gives you?

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From xerox.com!parc.xerox.com.PARC Tue Oct 26 09:55:08 1993
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Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:37:42 -0700
From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk>
Sender: parc.xerox.com.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: 1.7.6 (again)


OK - I've made all the alterations....

Every other character sees 'Player has connected/disconnected' in the same
room apart from #2. This is really screwy.
BTW - the login watcher still doesn't work.

????? Owain 

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 27 10:51:10 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "27" "October" "1993" "10:32:40" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "23" "Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:32:40 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites

> Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 21:01:06 -0700
> From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
>  
>  But how can I find out just what account he's connection from?  I want to
>  notify the higher up sysadmins that he's abusing his access.  Is it possible
>  to trace the player back any farther than @@who gives you?

Yes, but not reliably or in general.  The underlying network protocols do not
provide the information you want to know and, lacking any global authentication
system, they really can't in general.  What you can sometimes do is to `finger'
the site they're connecting from and see if there's either only one person
logged in or else only one person unidle.  Alternatively, if you've got an
account on the machine they're connecting from, you could employ such commands
as netstat and lsof (list open files) to try to determine exactly what UNIX
process the packets are coming from and, thus, who's running the command.  If
you're not using UNIX, congratulations, but you'll have to figure out the
equivalents yourself.

Of course, you can always @newt or @toad the offending MOO player and thus keep
them from connecting to it.  You might also consider @blacklist-ing the local
site, which only keeps them from connecting as Guest.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Oct 27 10:54:01 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "27" "October" "1993" "10:34:23" "-0700" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "11" "Re: 1.7.6 (again)" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:34:23 -0700
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: 1.7.6 (again)

> Date:	Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:37:42 -0700
> From:	vaughaog <vaughaog@helios.aston.ac.uk>
> 
> Every other character sees 'Player has connected/disconnected' in the same
> room apart from #2. This is really screwy.
> BTW - the login watcher still doesn't work.

I don't know that there's anything we can do for you without coming over to
your MOO and poking around.  What's the address and port?

	Pavel

From aero.org!obrien Wed Oct 27 12:10:06 1993
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Date:	Wed, 27 Oct 1993 11:57:35 -0700
From:	obrien@aero.org
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites

	Here's my take on the problem, expanding on what Pavel said.
While it's true that global authentication is a wish-list item for the
Internet, let's face it, most people connecting to a MOO are not up
to spoofing Internet addresses.  If you take that as a given, there are
several things you can do, which vary depending on the situation.

	Situation 1) There is only one person from the offending site
currently connected to the MOO, and you have access to the offending
site (or can get it temporarily).  In that case you can do things
pretty much straight up.  Use 'netstat' or the moral equivalent to find
the process connected to your MOO, and see who owns that process.
You've got it.

	Situation 2) There are several people from the offending site
connected to the MOO at all times, so you can't isolate the user,
but you do have access to the foreign site (or can get it).
This gets trickier.  You must convince the MOO to tell you the foreign
port number associated with the offending player.  I don't think this is
in the current server (I haven't dug that deep so I could be wrong),
which would mean some server hacking.  Then you go to the foreign
site and use 'netstat' or the moral equivalent thereof to determine
which process owns that particular port number.  You've got him.

	Situation 3) There is only one user from the offending site
connected to your MOO, but you don't have access to that site.
In that case, you get to play a statistical waiting game.  Set up
a shell script to finger the site every half hour, and take an @@who
listing at the same time.  Correlate who's logged on at the foreign site,
with the times the offending player is on the MOO.  If the foreign site
doesn't support 'finger' protocol you're out of luck.

	Situation 4) There are always multiple users from the offending
site connected to your MOO, and you don't have access to that site.
Technically speaking you're out of luck.  At this point you have to
prove how good a wizard you really are by using people skills instead
of technical skills, to either convince the offender not to be anti-social,
or to convince one of the other players at that site to reveal the
offender's identity.

	In fact the longest-running MUD on the Internet reverses these
priorities, and uses technical means of detection only as a last resort.
In all the years that MUD's been up, this has only been necessary on
a very few occasions.  Since the MUD doesn't run with player registration,
it's really the only practical alternative: if a @toaded player can
immediately create a new character, @toad loses its force, and knowing
a player's true identity is no bar to the creation of a new character.
Long talks and moral suasion have been successful there, where they
have apparently failed on LambdaMOO.

Mike O'Brien

From minos.nmt.edu!schlake Wed Oct 27 13:48:04 1993
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In-Reply-to: "obrien@aero.org
       \"Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites\" (Oct 27, 11:57am)efind out"
Message-ID: <9310272031.AA12372@minos.nmt.edu>
Date:	Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:31:35 -0700
From:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
To:	obrien@aero.org, MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites

On Oct 27, 11:57am, obrien@aero.org wrote:
> Subject: Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites
>
>	Here's my take on the problem, expanding on what Pavel said.
>While it's true that global authentication is a wish-list item for the
>Internet, let's face it, most people connecting to a MOO are not up
>to spoofing Internet addresses.  If you take that as a given, there are
>several things you can do, which vary depending on the situation.

If you catch a spoof you can have them knocked off the net real quick.
>
>	Situation 2) There are several people from the offending site
>connected to the MOO at all times, so you can't isolate the user,
>but you do have access to the foreign site (or can get it).
>This gets trickier.  You must convince the MOO to tell you the foreign
>port number associated with the offending player.  I don't think this is
>in the current server (I haven't dug that deep so I could be wrong),
>which would mean some server hacking.  Then you go to the foreign

Easy (if you know net stuff) hack.

>site and use 'netstat' or the moral equivalent thereof to determine
>which process owns that particular port number.  You've got him.

>	Situation 3) There is only one user from the offending site
>connected to your MOO, but you don't have access to that site.
>In that case, you get to play a statistical waiting game.  Set up
>a shell script to finger the site every half hour, and take an @@who
>listing at the same time.  Correlate who's logged on at the foreign site,
>with the times the offending player is on the MOO.  If the foreign site
>doesn't support 'finger' protocol you're out of luck.

Close.  Everytime their MOO char is unidle, take a look at the site.
The culrpit will drop out much quicker (idle 0 on moo, idle 0 on
site).  If no finger, you have to try many things.  rusers -l,
logining in as user 'w' (not at all common anymore), telneting to 79
on an "authoritative host" and proxy-fingering, using the 'SEND'
command from SMTP to check if a certain user is on (if you have a
list of users, and be careful, this one can get you into trouble).

>	Situation 4) There are always multiple users from the offending
>site connected to your MOO, and you don't have access to that site.
>Technically speaking you're out of luck.  At this point you have to
>prove how good a wizard you really are by using people skills instead
>of technical skills, to either convince the offender not to be anti-social,
>or to convince one of the other players at that site to reveal the
>offender's identity.

Look at above.  There is little chance that they will all idle and
unidle at the same times.  There is also the fact that you can lock
them all out and force the good ones to take care of the bad ones.  Be
sure to warn them, and explain it to all of them when you do it.

>	In fact the longest-running MUD on the Internet reverses these
>priorities, and uses technical means of detection only as a last resort.
>In all the years that MUD's been up, this has only been necessary on
>a very few occasions.  Since the MUD doesn't run with player registration,
>it's really the only practical alternative: if a @toaded player can
>immediately create a new character, @toad loses its force, and knowing
>a player's true identity is no bar to the creation of a new character.
>Long talks and moral suasion have been successful there, where they
>have apparently failed on LambdaMOO.

It's hard to stop a dedicated person.  I have lots of machines I can
login from if I want to.  You might lock out sphinx.nmt.edu to find me
coming on from minos.nmt.edu, so you lock out *.nmt.edu and I come on
from gnu.ai.mit.edu so you lock it out, so I come on from
dockmaster.ncsc.mil, so you lock it out, so I come on from one of
those wonderful terminal servers in sweden that allow incoming telnets
to telnet back out, and you lock out .se, so I come in from tymnet,
and you lock it out.  This kind of thing can continue for a long long
time.  I can always change a local PTR to be localhost (see my note on
spoofing above).

Barring that, I can also just run a process on every machine I have
access to which would connect to your login port, and spam the game
with repeated connection attempts.

I whole-heartedly reccomend convincing the person to be a nice guy.


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu!scott Wed Oct 27 13:53:04 1993
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Date:	Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:35:49 -0700
From:	Jay Scott <scott@sparc0a.cs.uiuc.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites

In general there's no way to identify what user at a remote site is
responsible for a given connection, but in practice many remote sites
leak enough information that you can make a reliable guess. If you are
clever and willing to collect information over time, you can probably
find the right user id.

One way is by Russ Smith's program 'fascist'. I haven't seen it, but
I understand that it fingers the remote site to collect idle times and
correlates these with idle times on the mud.

	Frand
	scott@cs.uiuc.edu

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Thu Oct 28 00:01:54 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "27" "October" "1993" "23:54:54" "-0700" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "16" "$scheduler v3.00" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Wed, 27 Oct 1993 23:54:54 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: $scheduler v3.00
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

I have a problem with the scheduler. When a number of insert and deletes
are performed by various forked tasks I get MANY :atrun() processes running
that do not die.

This seems to be because the scheduler is forking too many times. 

I think this must be to do with having 5 or 10 requests for scheduling
changes coming in off of 5 or 10 forked tasks!

I need idea on how to fix this problem.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key fingerprint is:  EA 16 1B 5D 5D 94 6B 06  58 FD E6 E9 52 F3 6E 11
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Thu Oct 28 01:40:13 1993
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Subject: Re: Tracking Players to Home Sites
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>Uhm, not that I want to defend this bozo or anything, but why exactly is that a
>problem?  I, for one, often used two different sites.  FOr instance, I was
>getting mail through a forwarder from one site that I used as my primary email
>site but I was apt to be logged in through another site.  (As it happened, I
>went through three different other sites for primary access before my mail
>forwarding site croaked.   Made it a lot less hassle changing email sites.)

I don't mind the player using a different account to connect.  But in this
 case, there are two problems: (1) his registered email account is invalid
 and (2) he's connecting from two different sites (according to @@who)
 and I suspect someone from my MOO may have hacked into his account to
 discredit him.  I just want to be sure we're @newting the right person.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From pepvax.pepperdine.edu!kcary Thu Oct 28 08:02:31 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "28" "October" "1993" "08:45:56" "-0700" "Kim Cary" "kcary@pepperdine.edu " nil "4" "using verbs on other objects w/o copy" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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From:	kcary@pepperdine.edu (Kim Cary)
Sender: kcary@pepvax.pepperdine.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: using verbs on other objects w/o copy

The particular case is that I wish to use verbs relating to celestial
features of one room type, on another type of room. Is there a way to do
that without @copying the verbs from the parent of the other room?


From owlnet.rice.edu!amitp Thu Oct 28 10:38:15 1993
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Date:	Thu, 28 Oct 1993 10:22:01 -0700
From:	Amit Jayant Patel <amitp@owlnet.rice.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Experiences with the MOO language

[I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask here]

For those of you who know both MOO and another programming language,
do you think that MOO can be used as a general purpose language?  If
not, what features are missing?  If so, would you use it over other
languages?

For those of you who know only MOO -- do you consider it to be an easy
programming language?

I'm not asking as a study or anything -- I'm just curious to know what
people think of this language.

		- Amit

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Thu Oct 28 12:49:25 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "28" "October" "1993" "12:37:17" "-0700" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "33" "Re: Experiences with the MOO language" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 28 Oct 1993 12:37:17 -0700
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	amitp@owlnet.rice.edu (Amit Jayant Patel)
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Experiences with the MOO language

> 
> [I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask here]
> 
> For those of you who know both MOO and another programming language,
> do you think that MOO can be used as a general purpose language?  If
> not, what features are missing?  If so, would you use it over other
> languages?
> 

Do you mean MU* languages or "real" languages?

I can't begin to say how much I wished for a MOO-like programming
language "on the outside", or maybe a scripting language, like perl...
sure MOO is alot like C but without the evil pointers... its also nice
to not have to declare variables...  *shrug*  you could also call
me lazy for not learning C (actually I've tried, but me and pointers
can't cooperate)... perl is nice too but I miss MOO lists, and 
sometimes perl ends up looking like so much line noise...

As for missing stuff, file handling :)  But I doubt you'll see that
written into a MOO server... dangerous stuff.

If it were a "real" language tho... hell yes.  I'd throw out all my
other programming books and write MOO all the time.

> For those of you who know only MOO -- do you consider it to be an easy
> programming language?

Yeah.  Its nice.  But, I may be a little biased. :)  Its not especially
easy to learn... but once you've got the basics it is simple.

-j.
Kira@Harper's Tale MOO (netman.widener.edu 8888)

From mit.edu!ghudson Thu Oct 28 13:25:38 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "28" "October" "1993" "13:16:46" "-0700" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "71" "Re: Experiences with the MOO language" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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             <9310281722.AA05749@flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu>"
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Date:	Thu, 28 Oct 1993 13:16:46 -0700
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Amit Jayant Patel <amitp@owlnet.rice.edu>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Experiences with the MOO language


> For those of you who know both MOO and another programming language,
> do you think that MOO can be used as a general purpose language?  If
> not, what features are missing?  If so, would you use it over other
> languages?

Before I answer this, I should note while I'm more or less familiar
with MOO, I haven't spent very much time writing MOO code.  I'm
interested in it primarily from a theoretical point of view.

First, there are the capabilities issues: MOO as a program has a
certain restricted interface to its language, which makes it
inappropriate for tasks other than a moo.  You can't access the file
system, you can't draw windows on the screen or move the cursor
around, etc.

In a somewhat different sense of "capability", I could complain that
MOO's implementation makes it impossible to carry out most good
algorithms with optimal order.  For instance, I recently implemented a
timer queue in Cold World (in C--) using a heap, which had the
property that insertions and extractions of the minimum element both
took O(lg(n)) time.  As far as I know, there's no way to do this in
MOO, since (correct me if I'm wrong) you can't modify a list stored in
a variable without copying it.  (This is NOT a result of data being
conceptually immutable; C-- data is also immutable, but I have
internal optimizations for common cases of modifying data in a
variable and assigning the result back to the variable.)

But none of these issues are very important, since they could be
changed without changing very much about the language.  Some of them
are, of course, deliberate decisions; allowing MOO programmers general
access to the file system would create the potential for awful
security holes, for instance.

Second, there are software engineering issues.  This is where I find
the most room for improvement in MOO.

I don't like MOO's system of encapsulation.  As far as I can tell,
verbs on an object have no particular privilege over verbs on other
objects when it comes to access to variables, so you have (and this is
a trait of many modern languages, not just MOO) an "object-oriented"
system which considers inheritance more important than encapsulation.

The only way to build lightweight structured data types on top of the
base types in MOO is through lists, where you keep track of slots by
numbers.  This makes it difficult to understand what code is doing,
and also makes maintaining code difficult if you, say, decide that
some element of a type is unnecessary and want to get rid of it.

Error handling is somewhat lacking: when an error occurs, either your
verb bombs the task completely (eschewing any cleanup the calling
verbs might have wanted to perform) and displays a stack trace which
points out where the error occured and which of a dozen or so
categories it falls into, or it is ignored completely.  The only way
to anticipate an exception is to ignore all exceptions anywhere in
that verb.

Type assertions are also missing, although you can do them by hand.
Because you don't have encapsulation, however, there's no way to
guarantee that the data in an object variable is always of the right
type.  (Even if you consider such checks too expensive, consider that
they can be enabled only during debugging, to find out when corruption
takes place.)

I think that covers most of my general objections to MOO as a
general-purpose programming language.  To be fair, I still think MOO
the best production-quality server around at the moment in all
respects but resource consumption.

--GBH


From crl.com!arthurc Thu Oct 28 15:11:26 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "28" "October" "1993" "14:57:08" "-0700" "Arthur Chandler" "arthurc@crl.com" nil "10" "MOO-Coding Tutorials?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 28 Oct 1993 14:57:08 -0700
From:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: MOO-Coding Tutorials?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


  Does anyone out here know if there are good MOO-coding tutorials -- 
either FTPable or available on-site at MOOs? I'm looking for beginning, 
intermediate, advanced, or comprehensive tutorials. So far, I have only 
found these:
   1) The Wind-Up Duck tutorial
   2) "Coding with cdr" (on MediaMOO and BayMOO)

  Any others?


From indial1.io.com!mentor Thu Oct 28 18:53:35 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "28" "October" "1993" "18:33:36" "-0700" "Loyd Blankenship" "mentor@indial1.io.com" nil "13" "Re: MOO-Coding Tutorials?" "^Date:" nil nil "10"])
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Date:	Thu, 28 Oct 1993 18:33:36 -0700
From:	Loyd Blankenship <mentor@indial1.io.com>
To:	Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO-Coding Tutorials?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Part one of my tutorial is available on parcftp; it's an introductory
text. Part two will be available real soon now.

Look in /pub/MOO/contrib/docs for mootutor1.txt.

Loyd

* Loyd Blankenship        mentor@io.com                  ^              *
* Steve Jackson Games     CI$: [73407,515]              / \             *
* PO Box 18957            GEnie: SJGAMES               / O \            *
* Austin, TX  78760       512/447-7866                /_____\           *



From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Fri Oct 29 13:25:22 1993
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In-Reply-to: "<9310291934.AA05195@cheetah.math.oxy.edu> from \"t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu\" at Oct 29, 93 12:34:11 pm"
Message-ID: <9310292008.AA22033@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Fri, 29 Oct 1993 13:08:35 -0700
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	t_pascal@cheetah.math.oxy.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: Re: $scheduler v3.00
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text


> This might be a bug I let slip into the release. 
> Sorry about it, and I'll get back to you. 

The problem was solved using a fork() task that was killed and
rescheduled, but the ideal solution is still to use the scheduler. It may
be a server problem... something to do with the task being run multiple
times before the lock can be set. I've got this problem with a :notify
verb that sets a property so supposedly a routine only executes once no
matter how many times :notify is called. It doesn't work, the routine
gets called sometimes 3 times before the variable seems to lock it out.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key fingerprint is:  EA 16 1B 5D 5D 94 6B 06  58 FD E6 E9 52 F3 6E 11
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From dus.morgantown.wv.us!quinn Mon Nov  1 01:42:43 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "November" "1993" "01:14:53" "-0800" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us" nil "17" "several things" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 01:14:53 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: several things
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


I'd like to be able to set the 'player' variable to an object I own, such
 as a puppet.  Similiarly, set_task_perms(something-I-own) would be useful.

Without being a wizard, of course.

Would there be problems with adding these mods in the next release?

Also, will there be any new error handling in upcoming releases?  I'd
 really like the ability to `!d' an entire task with something like
 the `** <expression> **' syntax that was floating around a while ago,
 or coldmud's `(| <expression> |)'.

-quinn




From scitsc.wlv.ac.uk!cm5297 Mon Nov  1 04:56:29 1993
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Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 04:54:38 -0800
From:	"R.Mehta" <cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Database Format?!
Content-Type: text

Hi.

I was wondering if anybody knows that exact format of the MOO
database or if there is any documentation on this?

Thanx in advance!
In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it                                       

From crl.com!blast Mon Nov  1 05:21:12 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "November" "1993" "05:02:36" "-0800" "Tim Keanini" "blast@crl.com" nil "34" "Maas-Neotek Robots in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 05:02:36 -0800
From:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Maas-Neotek Robots in MOO?
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Has anyone heard of a port to MOO with the robot class Maas-Neotek?

Maas-Neotek is a version of a robot that runs externally to some MU*.
I have found it to work for MUCKs adn MUSEs but I don't know if anyone 
has brought it over to MOO yet.  It is a matter of getting this bot to 
handle the MOO syntax.

If no one has heard of this flavor of bot on a MOO then I will start to 
port it on over.
If someone has heard of it, please mail me and I will still port it but I 
would like to keep a dialogue going with you.

Because these bots sit external to the MOO server it does not tax the 
server anymore than a player would.  I have already started the design 
document and the port of Michael Mauldin's code for Colin (a Mass-Neotek 
Bot).  She is called Rachel and she will be a good "agent" for our MOO.

kill -9,
blast


+====================================================================+
|    Tim Keanini    |"Art is not a mirror. Art is a Hammer" -MediaLab|
|aka blast          |           Come and visit us at bayMOO          |
|                   |                mud.crl.com 8888                |
|                   |            The only rule is RESPECT!           |
|                   |================================================+
|for more info on bayMOO...             <timk@broder.com>            |
|  email blast@crl.com                  <blast@crl.com>              |
+====================================================================+ 




From mit.edu!ghudson Mon Nov  1 05:47:44 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "November" "1993" "05:40:01" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "17" "Re: Maas-Neotek Robots in MOO?" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Mon, 01 Nov 93 05:02:36 -0800.
             <Pine.3.87.9311010536.A11471-0100000@crl.crl.com>"
Message-ID: <9311011340.AA22681@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 05:40:01 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Maas-Neotek Robots in MOO?


> If no one has heard of this flavor of bot on a MOO then I will start
> to port it on over.

You may have trouble; Maas-Neotek expects to be able to use prefixes
and suffixes to determine the output of commands.  MOO has prefix and
suffix commands, but they don't deal well with the task-forking which
is common in the Lambda core.  For instance, typing '@who' tends to
yield the prefix, the first section of the who list, the suffix, and
then the rest of the list.

In my opinion, this should be dealt with through a more general task
output labeling mechanism, or perhaps by buffering other output when
commands such as @who are preempted.

--GBH


From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Nov  1 06:15:37 1993
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             <9311011254.AA21150@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>"
Message-ID: <9311011403.AA01384@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 06:03:38 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	"R.Mehta" <cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Database Format?!

> Hi.
> 
> I was wondering if anybody knows that exact format of the MOO
> database or if there is any documentation on this?

Check through the moo source code. The code describes the format of
the database pretty well, and is a great example for writing code to
manipulate it yourself.

I've been tempted to write Perl scripts for Moo-db manipulation (like
reintegrating core-changes from Lambda) for a while now.

--JRP [Shirgall@various places]

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Nov  1 06:18:07 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Mon, 01 Nov 93 05:02:36 PST\"
             <Pine.3.87.9311010536.A11471-0100000@crl.crl.com>Viital's 
	"
Message-ID: <9311011405.AA01405@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 06:05:57 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Maas-Neotek Robots in MOO?

> Has anyone heard of a port to MOO with the robot class Maas-Neotek?

I tried the Maas-Neotek robot, but eventually went on to write my own.
It needed a little tweaking to deal with the differences in listing
exists and multi-line descriptions.

> If no one has heard of this flavor of bot on a MOO then I will start to 
> port it on over.

Well, I have my Perlic robots, but they are not "clean" releases. I use
them to do floating point arithmetic on Empire of the MOOns.

--JRP [Shirgall@various places]

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Nov  1 06:21:08 1993
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Message-ID: <9311011408.AA01418@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 06:08:38 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Maas-Neotek Robots in MOO?

> You may have trouble; Maas-Neotek expects to be able to use prefixes
> and suffixes to determine the output of commands.  MOO has prefix and
> suffix commands, but they don't deal well with the task-forking which
> is common in the Lambda core.  For instance, typing '@who' tends to
> yield the prefix, the first section of the who list, the suffix, and
> then the rest of the list.

Gettign around this problem is not too difficult. By buffering up a list
of lines in a variable, like msg, you can make sure prefix and suffix
directives work. For example:

msg = {};
msg = {@msg, "Some text."};
msg = {@msg, "Some more text."};
player:tell_lines(msg);

--JRP [Shirgall@various places]

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov  1 13:43:27 1993
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References: <Pine.3.05.9311010453.A27364-a100000@DUS.Morgantown.WV.US>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 13:34:55 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: several things

> Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 01:14:53 -0800
> From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.morgantown.wv.us>
> 
> I'd like to be able to set the 'player' variable to an object I own, such
>  as a puppet.  Similiarly, set_task_perms(something-I-own) would be useful.
> Without being a wizard, of course.

:hmms.  I will look into adding these in 1.8.0, assuming nobody comes up in the
meantime with any nasty security holes that such changes would open.

> Also, will there be any new error handling in upcoming releases?  I'd
>  really like the ability to `!d' an entire task with something like
>  the `** <expression> **' syntax that was floating around a while ago,
>  or coldmud's `(| <expression> |)'.

The syntax in 1.8.0 is
	
	expr ::=  `  expr  '

for expressions as well as the following new statements:

	stmt ::=  TRY stmts EXCEPT id stmts ENDTRY
	     |	  TRY stmts FINALLY stmts ENDTRY
	     |	  RAISE expr ;


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov  1 13:49:39 1993
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References: <9311011254.AA21150@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 13:37:37 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Database Format?!

> Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 04:54:38 -0800
> From:	"R.Mehta" <cm5297@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk>
> 
> I was wondering if anybody knows that exact format of the MOO
> database or if there is any documentation on this?

There is no documentation for this other than the code itself.  The format has
changed from release to release and will be changing yet again in 1.8.0, though
maybe only in relatively minor ways.  In 1.9.0, when we go disk-based, the
format will change utterly and completely, though there will, as always, be a
simple upgrade path to the new format.

	Pavel

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Mon Nov  1 18:23:45 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "November" "1993" "18:14:59" "-0800" "John William Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu " "<9311020213.AA25458@whale.st.usm.edu>" "13" "Adding objects to core" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 18:14:59 -0800
From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (John William Chambless)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Adding objects to core
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I have a feeling I'm going to be embarassed when I get the answer to this
one, but:

I seem to remember seeing mention of a command to add an object to
the  core db, such that it would be included in the output of
make-core-database.

How do I do this? I'd like to backup some of the verbs, etc we've done,
without all the building, etc, etc.
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* "Ah, but I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."
*		--Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov  1 19:51:26 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "November" "1993" "19:46:01" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "20" "Re: Adding objects to core" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <9311020213.AA25458@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 19:46:01 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Adding objects to core

> Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 18:14:59 -0800
> From:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu (John William Chambless)
> 
> I seem to remember seeing mention of a command to add an object to
> the  core db, such that it would be included in the output of
> make-core-database.

There's no special command for it; m-c-d starts from all objects that have `$'
names (like `$room') and then adds in all ancestors of those objects, #0, and
the player typing the `m-c-d' command.  Those are considered the `core'
objects.  To add something to this set, then, the simplest way is just to give
it a `$' name by defining a property on #0 with that object as its value.  For
example, to make `#1234' a core object, you might do this:

		@prop #0.foo #1234

Then you could refer to it as `$foo' and m-c-d would include it in the core
database it creates.

	Pavel

From gac.edu!eostrom Mon Nov  1 20:08:49 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "1" "November" "1993" "14:07:11" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@gac.edu " nil "15" "Re: Adding objects to core" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-To: <93Nov1.194615pst.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> from "Pavel Curtis" at Nov 1, 93 07:46:01 pm
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Date:	Mon, 1 Nov 1993 14:07:11 -0800
From:	eostrom@gac.edu (Erik Ostrom)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com (Pavel Curtis)
Cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Adding objects to core
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> > I seem to remember seeing mention of a command to add an object to
> > the  core db, such that it would be included in the output of
> > make-core-database.
> 
> There's no special command for it;

Actually, there is a special command for it in recent releases of
LambdaCore:

    @corify <object> as <propname>

It does roughly what Pavel said to do by hand, but it does object
matching and it nags you about writing an :init_for_core verb, since
we seem to keep making objects that still have junk in them when Pavel
makes the core database.

From bigdog.engr.arizona.edu!web Wed Nov  3 12:20:27 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "2" "November" "1993" "16:10:01" "-0800" "Wayne E. Bouchard" "web@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu " nil "145" "Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Question (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 2 Nov 1993 16:10:01 -0800
From:	web@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Wayne E. Bouchard)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Question (FAQ)

[Last updated November 1, 1993]

Database and Programming:
------------------------
1) Q: I want to start my own MOO. Where do I get the source?

   A: The standard MOO archive is parcftp.xerox.com in the directory pub/MOO.

      The file `LambdaMOO-X.Y.Z.tar.Z' (for a current server version of
      X.Y.Z) is a compressed tar file containing the complete source code,
      installation instructions, and a copy of the `Minimal' LambdaMOO
      database.

      The file `LambdaCore-DDMMMYY.db' (for some date DDMMMYY) is a
      LambdaMOO database file containing the `core' of the running LambdaMOO
      database as of the specified date.  This is almost certainly the
      easiest place for you to start from in creating your own MOO, since
      this includes such useful things as the various generics (room,
      player, exit, thing, container, note, etc.), the MOO text editors, the
      MOO mail system, etc.

      The `binaries' subdirectory contains already-compiled executables of
      the current release for various machines.

2) Q: What is this programmer's manual everybody talks about and where
      can I get it?

   A: The "LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual" is a complete reference for all
      database-independent aspects of the LambdaMOO system, including the
      programming language, built-in functions, and command parser.

      The Programmer's Manual is availible via anonymous FTP at
      parcftp.xerox.com in the directory /pub/MOO/. The file name is
      `ProgrammersManual.*' where `*' is the format tag. It is availible in
      DVI, PostScript, TeXInfo, and plain text formats.

3) Q: Is there a way to incorporate new features of LambdaCore into my
      MOO's DB?

   A: There is no easy way to merge databases. The easiest thing to do is
      just snag the code from LambdaMOO or somewhere and build the objects
      by hand. (For information on how to do so, see `help @dump' on
      LambdaMOO.)

4) Q: How do I do execute a verb automatically each time the server starts?

   A: When the server starts, it calls the verb #0:server_started.
      Create/alter that verb to have it call the verb you want to execute.
      
      (NOTE: If a task has suspended or forked, and its execution is
      still pending when the server checkpoints or is shutdown, that
      task is saved along with the rest of the database. Thus, when
      the server is restarted, that task will be resumed.)

5) Q: How can I make an object in a room "listen" to everything that's
      being said?

   A: When something is said in a room, each object in that room is sent
      that text via :tell. You can hack this verb to do whatever you want it
      to whenever anything is said or done in a room.

6) Q: My MOO checkpoints every hour. I want to change this but I don't
      know where to look.

   A: Change the value of the property #0.dump_interval to the desired
      number of seconds between dumps; the change will take effect after the
      next checkpoint.

      This is documented in the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, section 4.2.2,
      Database Checkpointing Frequency.


Server Related:
--------------

1) Q: What are the minimum requirements for running a MOO?

   A: The LambdaCore database is approximately 2 megabytes in size. The
      source and executable for MOO will likely occupy another 1-2 Megs. In
      its current state, MOO resides entirely in resident memory when
      running. The process size is going to be roughly 2-3 times the
      size of the database file on disk.

2) Q: I'm running a MOO on a NeXT but every once in a while it crashes
      with a 'vm_allocate failed' error. What's wrong?

   A: This is a bug in the NeXT's operating system and not in the MOO
      server.  The current best guess as to the cause is massive
      fragmentation in either the virtual memory system or in the memory
      managed by malloc() and free().

3) Q: I've heard a lot about the next release. When is it due out?

   A: It is unpredictable when each new version of the server will be
      released. Pavel Curtis (The developer of LambdaMOO) has
      estimated that 1.8.0 might well be out sometime in the fall of this
      year (1993), but no specific date can confidently be relied upon.

Miscellaneous:
-------------

1) Q: What are some good clients to use with MOO?

   A: Most people prefer to use TinyFugue or the emacs client, mud.el.
      mud.el is availible at parcftp.xerox.com in the directory
      pub/MOO/clients/. As for other clients, you might try poking around at
      ftp.math.okstate.edu in the directory pub/mud/clients/.

2) Q: What are all the MOOs currently out there?

   A: Its hard to keep an accurate list of all public MOOs, but here's
      my best info:

	Name               Address                 Numeric Address Port
	---------------------------------------------------------------
	LambdaMOO          lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36     8888
         (The original)
	ZenMOO             cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253    7777
	ScrabbleMOO        next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   7777
	OpalMOO            cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1     7777
	PMC-MOO            dewey.lib.ncsu.edu      152.1.24.90     7777
	VampireMOO         pluto.cs.trinity.edu    131.194.131.20  7777
	TechMOOseum        whyanext.com            156.151.253.1   8888
	MagicMOO           dougal.aston.ac.uk      134.151.36.1    7777
	JanusMOO           sun10.sep.bnl.gov       130.199.50.6    8888
        BayMOO             mud.crl.com             165.113.1.30    8888
        Harper's Tale MOO  salmon.csb.ki.se        130.237.204.6   8888

      [ EDITOR'S NOTE: Some MOOs have been purposely omitted at the request
        of their administrators. If you wish to add _your_ MOO to this list,
        please send mail to the address listed below. ]

3) Q: How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to/from this list?

   A: Send an email message to MOO-Cows-request.PARC@Xerox.com with your
      request to be added to or deleted from the MOO-Cows mailing list.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "MOO Frequently Asked Question List" is maintained by
Wayne E. Bouchard (web@HACKS.Arizona.EDU).  Direct all questions or
comments concerning this list to him.  Submissions and questions are
welcome and appreciated.  This list will be posted again on the first
of next month.


From netcom.com!imf Wed Nov  3 13:23:14 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "3" "November" "1993" "13:13:24" "-0800" "Ian McFarland" "imf@netcom.com " nil "26" "Parser suggestion" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 3 Nov 1993 13:13:24 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
Subject: Parser suggestion

I just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to resolve a problem with
an object, because I thought it was a permission problem. The problem was
this:

My object (Generic Poetry Journal) has a verb: addl*ine any to this
The problem: Someone tried to 'addl "Upon" to journal'

The parser parsed "Upon" as upon, a preposition, and then parsed "to journal"
as the iobjstr. I would like to suggest that some future version of the
parser not parse explicitly declared strings as prepositions.

(The workaround was simple: adding a space at the end of the string cleared
the whole thing up, but still, it seems more intuitive to treat "upon" and
upon differently.)

If you'd like to try the object for yourself, there is one on MediaMOO
(#7143, I believe) and one on LambdaMOO as well. (I forget the object
number on Lambda. You can mail me for it if you're interested.)

I'm just relieved that it was something like this. Isn't debugging fun?
-Ian
(Hannes@LambdaMOO and IanM@MediaMOO)
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
- imf@Netcom.com  or  imf@Tatertot.com              Jeste pivo, prosim! -
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

From indial1.io.com!mentor Fri Nov  5 11:23:00 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "5" "November" "1993" "11:03:13" "-0800" "Loyd Blankenship" "mentor@indial1.io.com" nil "18" "moveto & mail" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 5 Nov 1993 11:03:13 -0800
From:	Loyd Blankenship <mentor@indial1.io.com>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: moveto & mail
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

When people try to send mail (or use any editor, for that matter) inside
a room with .free_entry==0, they can't be moved back into the room once
they're done mailing/editing/etc. 

Has anyone already fixed this? If not, I was planning on patching moveto:
to check and see if the caller was related to the generic editor, and if
so, ignore the free_entry flag. I don't want to hassle with it if someone
else has done it already and can dump the code here. :-)

Thanks,
Loyd

* Loyd Blankenship        mentor@io.com                  ^              *
* Steve Jackson Games     CI$: [73407,515]              / \             *
* PO Box 18957            GEnie: SJGAMES               / O \            *
* Austin, TX  78760       512/447-7866                /_____\           *



From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Nov  5 11:51:24 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "5" "November" "1993" "11:39:47" "-0800" "\"Jacqueline D. Hamilton\"" "kira@feenix.metronet.com" nil "42" "Re: moveto & mail" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 5 Nov 1993 11:39:47 -0800
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	mentor@indial1.io.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: moveto & mail


> 
> When people try to send mail (or use any editor, for that matter) inside
> a room with .free_entry==0, they can't be moved back into the room once
> they're done mailing/editing/etc. 

Actually I always figured it was an accept problem, since your player
moveto only calls a move() which will have to go through the accept
anyway and still not allow them into the start room.

At any rate.  The HT solution.  Its spammy, but it works.

Object #187 does not define that verb, but its ancestor #3 does.
#3:"accept"   this none this
 1:  what = args[1];
 2:  editor = 0;
 3:  if ($object_utils:isa(what.location, $generic_editor))
 4:    edt = what.location;
 5:    which = what in edt.active;
 6:    if (edt.original[which] == this)
 7:      editor = 1;
 8:    endif
 9:  endif
10:  return this:is_unlocked_for(what) && (this.free_entry || 
(what == this.blessed_object && task_id() == this.blessed_task) ||
what.owner == this.owner || (typeof(this.residents) == LIST && what in 
this.residents) || editor || $object_utils:isa(what,$ref.wagon) || 
(valid(what.location) && what.location.location == this) || 
(what.race == "firelizard" && caller == $ref.between));


Line 10 needs changing since most MOOs wont have firelizards :) 
It had formerly not included lines 2-9 but then we found that
people could just move into an editor then move() themselves 
anywhere on the moo if all you do is check to see if theyre IN
an editor, and not whether they're moving to the room they started
from.

I had also added the what.location.location == this so people could
drop things in !free_entry rooms.

-j.

From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Fri Nov  5 12:03:26 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "5" "November" "1993" "11:46:21" "-0800" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "13" "NeXT Crashes and NS 3.0" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: NeXT Crashes and NS 3.0
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
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Well, since upgrading to NextStep 3.0, my MOO has been up to 2 days, 16
hours, and not crashed. This is a record. It has used 133:00 minutes of CPU
time according to PS. So, for those of you running the MOO server on a NeXT,
are you using MachOS 2.1 or 3.0/3.1/3.2? I'd suggest giving upgrading a
definite shot! My old limit was generally about 12 hours with a good wind.

(Watch it crash after I post this.... <grin>)

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key is available on keyserver or send mail with subject of 'send key'
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From mailhost.unidata.com!uso01 Fri Nov  5 17:24:11 1993
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Date:	Fri, 5 Nov 1993 09:39:54 -0800
From:	Steven Owens <uso01@mailhost.unidata.com>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers


I've been tinkering about with some ideas for mechanisms to transfer
objects between MOOs and such (any suggestions and information on that
would be greatly appreciated, particularly pointers to working
implementations I can learn from).

In looking for information about this, I've come across a few
instances where people are asking for an easier way to update to a new
core release.  What exactly makes it so hard?  I can guess, but I'm
wondering if there's more than meets the eye.

If it's simply a matter of dealing with object numbers, I can see how
it would be awkward to add new objects when they default to numbers
already in use, but that's relatively simple to resolve (I think).  How
about simply reserving the first, oh, 3000 object numbers for core use?

The first thousand could be reserved for core objects.  Any new
objects that are part of the essential core would be in this range.

The second thousand could be for optional objects; for example, if the
object-oriented mail system was completed and added to the optional
core, its generics would go here.

The third thousand could be for local core objects, so modifications that
the wizards of a "satellite" MOO decide are good 'nuff to corify go here,
so as to avoid stomping on namespace reserved for essential core or optional
core distributions.

Obviously, the 1-2000 range would be kept pristine - nothing altered, all
modifications done on descendants.  This would allow new versions to be
plugged right in, as long as they were "backward compatible."

This seems like such a simple solution, I have to feel I'm missing
something.  So what is it?

Steven J. Owens
uso01@unidata.com
Puff @ LambdaMOO, OpalMOO, JaysHouseMOO, MediaMOO, MetaverseMOO, GNA, etc.

From visgraph.uucp!forrie Fri Nov  5 17:43:13 1993
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Date:	Fri, 5 Nov 1993 17:14:38 -0800
From:	Forrest Aldrich <forrie@visgraph.uucp>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers
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Steven Owens writes:
| 
| In looking for information about this, I've come across a few
| instances where people are asking for an easier way to update to a new
| core release.  What exactly makes it so hard?  I can guess, but I'm
| wondering if there's more than meets the eye.
[ ... ]

	There is no direct interface to doing this... you must type in
	everything manually.  This is a potentially laborious task that
	few would like to perform.  Including me.  ;)

| If it's simply a matter of dealing with object numbers, I can see how
| it would be awkward to add new objects when they default to numbers
| already in use, but that's relatively simple to resolve (I think).  How
| about simply reserving the first, oh, 3000 object numbers for core use?
[ ... ]

	Well, some issues surround the actual functional changes between
	objects in each CORE release.  I haven't encountered this due
	to my waiting for further developments in this area.  There are also
	issues with SERVER changes that render some things incompatible... etc.

	I'm hoping that someone will invent an ingenious way to allow the
	integration of CORES and SERVERS... it would be nice to have an
	external interface to make forced changes to the CORE... in the
	instance where, say, someone has forgotten a critical password to
	get into Wizard mode (yes, it happend to me!  only because I let
	so much time go by).  I understand Pavel is working on something
	like this. ?

	[ ... ]

	You have a lot of great ideas.  Thanks.

	Forrest
-- 
Forrie Aldrich @ visgraph.UUCP / visgraph!forrie@decvax.dec.com
                                 forrie@decvax.dec.com
VISION GRAPHICS                  forrie@mv.mv.com

From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Nov  5 17:53:44 1993
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Date:	Fri, 5 Nov 1993 17:44:04 -0800
From:	"Jacqueline D. Hamilton" <kira@feenix.metronet.com>
To:	uso01@mailhost.unidata.com (Steven Owens)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers


> 
> 
> If it's simply a matter of dealing with object numbers, I can see how
> it would be awkward to add new objects when they default to numbers
> already in use, but that's relatively simple to resolve (I think).  How
> about simply reserving the first, oh, 3000 object numbers for core use?

Well if you create 3000 objects just to reserve the numbers, you've 
immediately got a 6 meg (?) or so database to start off with, thats 12
meg or more in core, without even building anything.

However its still a usable idea (not mine tho, Ted/Falryx and Josh/
Shirgall started it) :)  and we're using it on MOOns and HT (altho
HT only reserves up to 100 for core objects).

At any rate we create #76(?)-#100 as "core saving objects" and stow them
til later.  100 may not be enough of a margin though, perhaps 1-300?
This allows for a healthy amount of core growth, for sure.

Upgrading cores tho... doesn't seem as easy as just @dumping a new core
and replacing an old one... I'd expect you'd want to proceed carefully
and on a spare used copy of your db in case you trash the place.  We've
been careful not to touch the core much at all - we put it all on $ref
objects - $ref.player=> generic player II, $ref.room => generic room II,
etc, so its possible we *might* be able to make a clean upgrade.  Still,
I'd be a little wary of losing things, and we *do* still have core changes 
on our db now, (some documented, some probably not).  And any way you do
it its going to be time consuming.  

And anyway it doesnt help all the various MOOs that didnt start this way...
:)

Cool idea tho.  Perhaps one of these days I'll try fixing HT's core.
It'd be easier if we knew what had been changed and only fix those things.
I am so reluctant to use @dump.  Already seen what it can do to 
reparented players... :)

-j.

From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Sat Nov  6 15:18:28 1993
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Date:	Sat, 6 Nov 1993 14:11:11 -0800
From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
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Subject: MOO going disk based
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How long till this happens?

I'm considering changing DarkurtheMOO to ColdMUD for the main reason that it IS
disk based, and our permanent machine will not have a lot of extra RAM...

(yes, its lots of work, I know)

-Lynx (@DMOO & the rest the wurld) Shade_Pendragon @Lambdamoo

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Nov  6 15:52:11 1993
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Date:	Sat, 6 Nov 1993 15:45:40 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: MOO going disk based

> Date:	Sat, 6 Nov 1993 14:11:11 -0800
> From:	Lynx <BRANDON@cc.usu.edu>
> 
> How long till this happens?

I'm afraid that I don't know.  I would very much like to get 1.8.0 out during
this calendar year, but I probably won't make that deadline.  Once it's out, I
can start the work on the actual disk-basing of the server.  The bottom line is
that I hope to have the disk-based server (release 1.9.0) out before next
summer, and perhaps sometime in the spring, but I have a lot of other demands
on my time, so these dates are really nothing more than crude guesses on my
part.

	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon

From fenchurch.mit.edu!strata Mon Nov  8 11:43:38 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "November" "1993" "11:32:33" "-0800" "\"M. Strata Rose\"" "strata@fenchurch.mit.edu" nil "43" "cores & numbering schemes" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 8 Nov 1993 11:32:33 -0800
From:	"M. Strata Rose" <strata@fenchurch.mit.edu>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	strata@fenchurch.mit.edu
Subject: cores & numbering schemes
Reply-to: strata@hybrid.com



I've been working on designing utilites to move objects in and out of the
database and on a core-load and secondary-core-load system/protocol.  The
work I'm doing involves a mechanism for "sharing" objects in a limited way
between databases by specifying an authentication protocol a la Kerberos by
which objects may be invoked/created on remote servers.  This involves 
special object-handling code that can classify objects according to their
relation to core and secondary-core objects and only move the attributes
or pieces that differ from the core description.  Initially there will be an
upper bound on how big an object you can load across the net this way, but I
don't have enough data yet to say what that bound might be.

However, many cases where people want to "move" objects, what they
really want is to execute a particular object on another MOO, so I am
addressing that case as well, remote execution of native and imported
objects with output going over the wire to the original invoking
object.  This too is a several mile wide potential security hole which
I am trying to design very carefully.  The VCN server is
being built with support for PGP encrypted sessions and on-the-fly
authentication of individual sensitive objects, as well as potential
support for the entire session to be sent in a session key to the
client.  

As with any security system based on encryption, you are 
only as secure as your key is secret, but given the nature of passwords
and encryption built into VCN, there will be strong incentive not to 
give away your key, as that will grant someone full privileges as you.

The part that's bogging me down a little is "what's the best way to make the
server handle local and foreign objects on various levels: efficiency,
compatability, and security?"  A friend has suggested a system which may
work, but it's too soon to post details yet.

I will post more as I have time...

_Strata


M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City (TM) Network
strata@virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@fenchurch.mit.edu

From symcom.math.uiuc.edu!schalk Mon Nov  8 14:05:41 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "November" "1993" "13:56:43" "-0800" "Ken Schalk" "schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu" nil "57" "Re:  Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 8 Nov 1993 13:56:43 -0800
From:	Ken Schalk <schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
To:	uso01@mailhost.unidata.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re:  Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers

> Date: 	Fri, 5 Nov 1993 09:39:54 PST
> From: Steven Owens <uso01@mailhost.unidata.com>
> Subject: Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers
> To: moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
> 
> [...]
> 
> This seems like such a simple solution, I have to feel I'm missing
> something.  So what is it?

The problem that I see with the scheme you suggest is the implicit
assumption that 2000 objects would be `enough' for any future
potential core release.  I find that to be a big assumption to
swallow.  I don't think that I'd even say that tonum(max_object()) on
Lambda would be big enough.

You may think that I'm being nit-picky here, but believe me, putting
such arbitrary restrictions on a system is just a Bad Idea (tm).  For
anyone who doesn't believe me, think back to the early days of the IBM
PCs, and remember that at one time, due to their weird segmented
memory model, you couldn't create a single contiguous data structure
larger than 64k (at least not without considerable bleeding on the
part of the programmer).  At the time the people at Intel put that
kind of restriction on the original 8088 processor, I'm sure they said
to themselves "Surely 64k will be much bigger than anyone will ever
want to put a single data structure in."  Well, they were wrong (as
many programmers found out and were much frustrated by, myself
included).  Systems grow, much faster and much further than we
imagine.

Saying that 2000 objects will be `big enough,' makes me extremely
wary.  In fact, if you named any number that I think I might be able
to count up to within a week I'd probably still say that chances are
it would one day not be big enough.  Solutions of this kind seem
incredibly simple because they are.  They will also break down
eventually.  What's needed is a more general solution that doesn't put
any artificial and/or uneccessary constraints on the
users(/programmers/wizards).

P.S. I'm not saying that I have a good solution, just that I don't
think this is one.

P.P.S. My reasoning above stems from a piece of what I like to call
'computer philosophy' which I call 'The Rule of 1 or N'.  If you're
interested in a greater explanation of what the heck I'm talking
about, mail me (either INet or MOO).

--Xorian @ LambdaMOO

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
\\ Kenneth C Schalk \\\\\"Is consciousness just a special form of \\  //-\
/////////////////////////  hallucination?" -- Frank Herbert       // //-O|
\\ xorian@uiuc.edu \\\\\\"We're each other fragments...but each   \\ |   |
// schalkk@icomsim.com // fragment reveals the [whole] from a     //  \_/
\\ ken@imsa.edu \\\\\\\\\ different angle..." -- William Gibson   \\
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


From mailhost.unidata.com!uso01 Mon Nov  8 16:07:34 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "8" "November" "1993" "16:01:36" "-0800" "Steven Owens" "uso01@mailhost.unidata.com" nil "66" "Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Ken Schalk's message of Mon, 8 Nov 1993 13:56:43 PST <199311082156.AA19312@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>"
Message-ID: <199311090001.AA14493@mailhost.unidata.com>
Date:	Mon, 8 Nov 1993 16:01:36 -0800
From:	Steven Owens <uso01@mailhost.unidata.com>
To:	schalk@symcom.math.uiuc.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Distributing New Cores, Object Numbers


I suggested reserving the first 3000 object numbers for core objects, to
make core distribution, updates, and management easier.

>> This seems like such a simple solution, I have to feel I'm missing
>> something.  So what is it?

Ken Schalk replied:
> The problem that I see with the scheme you suggest is the implicit
> assumption that 2000 objects would be `enough' for any future
> potential core release.  I find that to be a big assumption to
> swallow.  I don't think that I'd even say that tonum(max_object()) on
> Lambda would be big enough.

Somebody also mentioned the problem that it wouldn't help MOOs already
in progress.

Both problems seem to be using the wrong frame of reference, the one an
overly long view, the other an overly short view.  Yes, the true solution
would be to fix the dependence on object numbers; but who's going to fix
it?  And when?

Taking the overly long view of "Well, someday somebody will fix it
right, and meanwhile this solution, though simple, will eventually
become obsolete, so why switch to it?" doesn't help the situation.

Taking the overly short view of "There are already several MOOs set
up that would not benefit from this solution" is equally useless;
you have to start somewhere, and if you don't start sooner you just
have to start later - and now there's even more stuff on the existing
MOOs to update, and more existing MOOs.

What's the "right" way to fix it?  I'm sure there are a lot of
software engineers and programmers out there who know the theory and
background to critically analyze the problem; me, I'm just a writer
with a knack for programming and some bright ideas. I would assume
that a better solution would be to hide the object numbers from most
code.  Should this be done in server or in DB?  And how?

It seems obvious to me that there should be some mechanism more
elegant than object numbers to define parentage and so forth; the only
analogous situation I can think of is writing a C program where you're
explicitly addressing functions and data structures by hardcoded
numerical locations in memory.  Not terribly portable.

But what's the best solution?  Best being defined both by feasibility
(programming time resources to implement the solution, and the memory
and CPU of the average machine running MOO) and elegance.

Steven J. Owens
uso01@unidata.com

p.s. To the person who responded that 3000 objects is 6 meg - you don't
need to reserve 3000 OBJECTS, just 3000 object NUMBERS.  No problem at
all.

> P.P.S. My reasoning above stems from a piece of what I like to call
> 'computer philosophy' which I call 'The Rule of 1 or N'.  If you're
> interested in a greater explanation of what the heck I'm talking
> about, mail me (either INet or MOO).

Sure, drop me a line at the address above, I'm interested in what
you're thinking.

---


From actlab.rtf.utexas.edu!chiphead Wed Nov 10 08:04:06 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "November" "1993" "07:46:12" "-0800" "Allan Alford" "chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu" nil "24" "Player Properties" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 1993 07:46:12 -0800
From:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
To:	MOOcows <moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com>
Subject: Player Properties
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

We are trying to implement a number of properties that will reflect
on all players, and that will be affected by various verbs...

For example:

.cult_member and .wasted

the first determines if the player can participate in certain rooms/verbs,
and the second determines their behavior in the various bars, etc...

How can we add such properties without allowing the player himself to
modify them?  We want them to be modified only by programs written by
the wizards...

I'm thinking of Quinn's RPG stuff in Lambda and wondering if that isn't
some kind of glorified feature object that determines the player's
attributes and prevents the player from changing them except through
normal means...

Thanks,
Chiphead




From hook.eecs.nwu.edu!usenet Wed Nov 10 09:11:42 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "November" "1993" "09:00:41" "-0800" "H. Peter Anvin N9ITP" "hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "24" "Re: Player Properties" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <Pine.3.07.9311100912.A10995-a100000@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 1993 09:00:41 -0800
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
Sender: usenet@hook.eecs.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Player Properties
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Newsgroups: mail.moo-cows

In article <Pine.3.07.9311100912.A10995-a100000@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu> of mail.moo-cows,
  Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu> writes:
> We are trying to implement a number of properties that will reflect
> on all players, and that will be affected by various verbs...
> 
> For example:
> 
> .cult_member and .wasted
> 
> the first determines if the player can participate in certain rooms/verbs,
> and the second determines their behavior in the various bars, etc...
> 
> How can we add such properties without allowing the player himself to
> modify them?  We want them to be modified only by programs written by
> the wizards...
> 

Make them owned by a wizard (or some other special character) and
make'm !c.  The c flag makes the owner of a new object inherit the
properites; since you *don't* want that (you want the original
property owner to own all inherited ones as well), you make it !c.
And of course !w.

	/hpa

From research.microsoft.com!rfc Wed Nov 10 10:44:44 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "November" "1993" "10:28:02" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "20" "Re: Player Properties" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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             <Pine.3.07.9311100912.A10995-a100000@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>ostSc"
Message-ID: <9311101828.AA05137@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 1993 10:28:02 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
cc:	MOOcows <moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com>
Subject: Re: Player Properties

>   I'm thinking of Quinn's RPG stuff in Lambda and wondering if that isn't
>   some kind of glorified feature object that determines the player's
>   attributes and prevents the player from changing them except through
>   normal means...

The reason for implementing the LambdaMOO RPG an entirely separate set of
"voodoo-doll" objects has more to do with allowing there to be several 
distinct RPG systems and allowing players to participate in any or all 
of them (or none of them) as they choose.

On a MOO where it has been decreed that there shall be exactly one 
RPG system and that every player will participate in it (e.g., OpalMOO), 
it's perfectly reasonable to put all of the relevant properties on the 
player class (-c, of course).  

--
Roger Crew
Internet:   rfc@research.microsoft.com
LambdaMOO:  Rog


From pepperdine.edu!kcary Wed Nov 10 15:17:21 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "November" "1993" "15:05:02" "-0800" "Kim Cary" "kcary@pepperdine.edu " "<199311102306.AA00983@pepvax.pepperdine.edu>" "17" "immoveable objects" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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From:	kcary@pepperdine.edu (Kim Cary)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
cc:	lpolin@pepperdine.edu
Subject: immoveable objects

OK, I've been poking about the programmers manual and the help for a way to
make an object immovable (no @move or @take or @put). I
examined/displayed/listed some immoveable objects. No clue.

I tried @chmod myobject.location !w, but got the this prop not defined msg.
Guess 'cause its a builtin property.

>From reading the manual, I gather that moving is related to exitfunc. Do I
have to hack the containing rooms exitfunc in order to prevent the object
from being removed from the room?

Kim Cary
Two hours later, and a bit tired from trying to match my unstoppable force
against immoveable objects.




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Nov 10 16:03:06 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "November" "1993" "15:34:16" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "19" "Re: immoveable objects" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 1993 15:34:16 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	kcary@pepperdine.edu
cc:	lpolin@pepperdine.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: immoveable objects

> Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 1993 15:05:02 -0800
> From:	kcary@pepperdine.edu (Kim Cary)
> 
> OK, I've been poking about the programmers manual and the help for a way to
> make an object immovable (no @move or @take or @put). I
> examined/displayed/listed some immoveable objects. No clue.

This is easy.  The only way to move an object, primitively, is through the
move() built-in function.  That function's descrption in the manual says that
you only have permission to do this for objects that you own (unless you're a
wizard.  This being the case, LambdaCore provides a conventional verb on every
object, :moveto(), that you call to `request' an object to move itself
somewhere.  The default implementation, on #1, just calls move() (i.e., it
always says `yes').

To make your object immoveable (by everyone except wizards), simply give it its
own :moveto verb that always just returns and never calls move().

	Pavel/Lambda/Haakon

From sage.cc.purdue.edu!image Wed Nov 10 17:08:04 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "10" "November" "1993" "16:50:59" "-0800" "Jeff T.P." "image@sage.cc.purdue.edu " nil "19" "Finding the Calling Verb" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: Finding the Calling Verb

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In recent times I've had the desire to know what verb is calling another
verb.  For example, what verb calls :announce from inside :announce.  Is
there a `simple' way to do this?

- -- 
I don't know which is worse, that  |  I'd make mine higher, but it's
everyone has a price, or that the  |  hard to find buyers as it is.
price is always so low.            |
                                      -- PGP Key Available --

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From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Wed Nov 10 17:32:57 1993
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Subject: Re: Finding the Calling Verb
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>In recent times I've had the desire to know what verb is calling another
>verb.  For example, what verb calls :announce from inside :announce.  Is
>there a `simple' way to do this?

Check out the built-in function callers().  It returns information listing
 the verbname, location, player, programmer, and this (thought not in that
 order - check `help callers()' for the actual order).  It actually returns
 a list of lists.  Each sub-list is a list of that information I mentioned
 above with the first sub-list being the verb that called the current verb,
 the second being the verb that called that one, and so on back to the
 command-line.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Wed Nov 10 21:03:06 1993
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Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 1993 19:44:13 -0800
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: read() in :confunc()
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Is there any way to do any kind of read() call started by a player logging
 in?  It always seems to return E_PERM.  Is there any way around this?

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Fri Nov 12 15:54:22 1993
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Date:	Fri, 12 Nov 1993 15:13:59 -0800
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: #11 == $player_start

Okay, I've built this MOO with all the rooms a special sub-class of $room. 
I left #11 alone thinking I could just chparent it later, but now I notice
that it does all sorts of special things on confunc, disfunc etc.

So I'm wondering, is it safe to chparent #11 to something else? (still a
descendant of $room, natch)

Or should I just create a new special room, alter $player_start to this new
room, and copy the verbs from #11 to the new start?

Or should I hack #11 to immediately send a player to some other room, so
they never know they were in #11?

Or am I stuck?
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From research.microsoft.com!rfc Fri Nov 12 16:14:33 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "12" "November" "1993" "16:03:22" "-0800" "Roger Crew" "rfc@research.microsoft.com" nil "13" "Re: #11 == $player_start" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Fri, 12 Nov 1993 15:13:59 PST.\"
             <9311122314.AA13022@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>overag"
Message-ID: <9311130003.AA06687@palnu.research.microsoft.com>
Date:	Fri, 12 Nov 1993 16:03:22 -0800
From:	Roger Crew <rfc@research.microsoft.com>
To:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: #11 == $player_start

The special stuff on #11 ($player_start) is to handle the case where
you have a huge number of players (as on certain MOOs that shall
remain nameless) and don't actually want them to be *in* #11 when they
are not connected.  None of this verbiage really cares that #11 is a
descendant of $room.

One general assumption to be aware of: 
  some verbs (e.g., $root:eject) assume a player will always be able 
  to move to $player_start.  
Whatever hacks you put on #11, you'll probably want to make sure that 
#11:accept always returns true for players.



From darwin.cc.nd.edu!jbradsh2 Sat Nov 13 01:15:47 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "13" "November" "1993" "00:56:46" "-0800" "jonathan bradshaw" "Jonathan.M.Bradshaw.9@nd.edu" nil "20" "Upgrade to NeXT 3.0 does not help" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sat, 13 Nov 1993 00:56:46 -0800
From:	jonathan bradshaw <Jonathan.M.Bradshaw.9@nd.edu>
Sender: jbradsh2@darwin.cc.nd.edu
To:	Moo-Cows Mailing List <MOO-Cows@xerox.com>
Subject: Upgrade to NeXT 3.0 does not help
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

Well, I guess I was wrong. Unfortunatly, I upgraded to NS 3.0 and instead of
the MOO simply panicing and killing itself it now causes the whole NeXT to
panic and die. The NeXT doesn't reboot, and just sits there in the ROM
monitor. I have the MOO automaticly downing on a daily basis but this does
not help. The NeXT has 20mb of ram, the MOO uses 5MB virtual memory.

Out of curiousity, anyone else NOT using GNU malloc routines? Since the NeXT
doesn't, I wonder if this makes a big difference.

I'm looking for help... anyone with a NeXT.... I need the NeXT to reboot
when it panics, not sit in the monitor but I can find NO option to make
this happen. I really hate to have to dump the MOO and go with something
else (recommendations?) since I have so much code in it but I have run
out of options. I cannot keep killing the NeXT machine.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP 2.2 Key is available on keyserver or send mail with subject of 'send key'
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From de-montfort.ac.uk!cph Sat Nov 13 09:18:35 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "13" "November" "1993" "05:17:20" "-0800" "Chris Hand" "cph@de-montfort.ac.uk" nil "27" "Re: Upgrade to NeXT 3.0 does not help" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <9220.9311131317@helios.dmu.ac.uk>
Date:	Sat, 13 Nov 1993 05:17:20 -0800
From:	Chris Hand <cph@de-montfort.ac.uk>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Upgrade to NeXT 3.0 does not help

jonathan bradshaw said:
> Out of curiousity, anyone else NOT using GNU malloc routines? Since the NeXT
> doesn't, I wonder if this makes a big difference.

I'm running MOO 1.7.6 on HP-UX 9.01 on a HP7000/735.  I used the HP
cc (which is not particularly good), with bison -- probably an unusual
combination (we were in the process of getting GCC sorted out and I
couldn't wait).

The major problem I had was compiling -- alloca() is referenced by
bison but not (as far as I could see) actually called anywhere, this
caused the link to fail since we don't have alloca().  To fix it I just stuck
a dummy alloca() in one of the C source files.

We've had the MOO running now for about 2 weeks and it hasn't
crashed (touch wood).  We *did* lose some database changes at one time
when we accidentally ran up 2 servers together, but that's most likely
our fault.

Chris


-- 
Chris Hand, Lecturer                      | Dept of Computing Science,
Internet e-mail: cph@dmu.ac.uk            | De Montfort University, The Gateway 
 Reality is 80 Million polygons/second    | LEICESTER, UK   LE1 9BH            
WWW: <A HREF="http://qadir.cms.dmu.ac.uk:9999/People/cph/cphroot.html">cph</A>

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Sun Nov 14 12:23:01 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "14" "November" "1993" "11:08:51" "-0800" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" "AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu" nil "9" "Next Version Wish...." "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 11:08:51 -0800
From:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Next Version Wish....
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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One thing I'd really like to see in the next version of the server is some
 way to determine the actual account name a player is logging in from.
 Currently, it seems we can only get the site but it would be nice if we
 could find out the account too.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From mit.edu!ghudson Sun Nov 14 12:50:33 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "14" "November" "1993" "12:43:38" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "37" "Re: Next Version Wish...." "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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             <01H5B6404QLUC8R9JA@conrad.appstate.edu>"
Message-ID: <9311142043.AA05870@snorkelwacker.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 12:43:38 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	AB3588@conrad.appstate.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Next Version Wish....


> One thing I'd really like to see in the next version of the server
> is some way to determine the actual account name a player is logging
> in from.  Currently, it seems we can only get the site but it would
> be nice if we could find out the account too.

This would be nice, but there isn't any way for Pavel to unilaterally
create such a system.  When I make a connection to your mud, about the
only information you can get about that connection is the local port,
and from there, you can't get anything.  (There is an RFC for asking
my machine what account is using that local port, but there's nothing
to prevent my machine from telling you that it's "Dan Bernstein",
which is what a lot of machines do regardless of the local port.)

Now, there is the option of allowing, say, Kerberos authentication to
the mud.  This lets you authenticate as a particular Kerberos
principal in some realm (which is a completely distinct concept from a
given machine--machines aren't all that useful a concept for
authentication anyway).  Unfortunately, most users of most muds aren't
running Kerberos and don't have Kerberos principals, so this is a
dream unless your users are all in a controlled environment.

I should point out that you phrased your problem in a deceptively
simple way.  I'm currently sitting in next to a room with 124
machines, and I have an "account" on all of them--the same account, in
fact.  All told, I have access to 356 machines on a dozen different
subnets simply by virtue of being an MIT student.  About the only
thing you can say (without trusting me or requiring me to
authenticate) about a connection I make to your mud is that it's from
MIT.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are PCs and Macintoshes on the
net that don't even have the concept of an account.  How do you
propose to deal with these machines?

--GBH


From de-montfort.ac.uk!cph Sun Nov 14 14:23:41 1993
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Message-ID: <13680.9311142211@helios.dmu.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 14:11:04 -0800
From:	Chris Hand <cph@de-montfort.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Next Version Wish....

AB3588@edu.appstate.conrad said:
> One thing I'd really like to see in the next version of the server is some
>  way to determine the actual account name a player is logging in from.

If we're talking wish-lists, what about modifications to the MOO language?  

Personally I don't understand why it doesn't support multiple inheritance.
Is there a good reason for this?  From my experiences so far I'm finding
it a bit of a bind to have to choose what the single parent of my object
is going to be...

Chris

ps: Sorry if there's been a flame-war on this one already... I haven't
    checked every single message in the archive... :)

-- 
Chris Hand, Lecturer                      | Dept of Computing Science,
Internet e-mail: cph@dmu.ac.uk            | De Montfort University, The Gateway 
 Reality is 80 Million polygons/second    | LEICESTER, UK   LE1 9BH            
WWW: <A HREF="http://qadir.cms.dmu.ac.uk:9999/People/cph/cphroot.html">cph</A>

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Nov 14 16:56:35 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "14" "November" "1993" "16:46:47" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "18" "Re: Upgrade to NeXT 3.0 does not help" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <9311130856.AA08525@darwin.cc.nd.edu>
Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 16:46:47 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
cc:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Upgrade to NeXT 3.0 does not help

> Date:	Sat, 13 Nov 1993 00:56:46 -0800
> From:	jonathan bradshaw <Jonathan.M.Bradshaw.9@nd.edu>
> 
> Well, I guess I was wrong. Unfortunatly, I upgraded to NS 3.0 and instead of
> the MOO simply panicing and killing itself it now causes the whole NeXT to
> panic and die. The NeXT doesn't reboot, and just sits there in the ROM
> monitor.

Well, I should hope that it was obvious now that the problem is in NeXT's
operating system and not in the server code... :-)

> Out of curiousity, anyone else NOT using GNU malloc routines? Since the NeXT
> doesn't, I wonder if this makes a big difference.

On LambdaMOO itself, I use the standard SunOS malloc from the C library and
haven't had any problems.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Nov 14 17:11:16 1993
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References: <01H5B6404QLUC8R9JA@conrad.appstate.edu>
	<13680.9311142211@helios.dmu.ac.uk>
Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 17:03:58 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	cph@de-montfort.ac.uk
cc:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Next Version Wish....

> Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 14:11:04 -0800
> From:	Chris Hand <cph@de-montfort.ac.uk>
> 
> Personally I don't understand why it doesn't support multiple inheritance.

It doesn't support MI because it's never gotten to the top of my queue.  Adding
MI to MOO constitutes a major change to the language semantics and there are a
lot of niggling little details that have to be decided before you can proceed.
At this point, though, it seems unlikely that I will get around to MI before
stopping work on the LambdaMOO server.  After that, of course, some other
person could consider taking it on, but I'm not sure that I'd recommend it.

	Pavel

From bellcore.com!norman Sun Nov 14 17:25:17 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "14" "November" "1993" "17:24:32" "-0800" "norman@bellcore.com" "norman@bellcore.com" nil "30" "Re: My wish list... " "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-Id: <199311150124.UAA19708@mailee.bellcore.com>
X-Authentication-Warning: mailee.bellcore.com: Host flaubert.bellcore.com didn't use HELO protocol
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 15 Oct 93 17:17:34 PDT."
             <93Oct15.171736pdt.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 17:24:32 -0800
From:	norman@bellcore.com
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
cc:	quinn@MGN.DUS.Mountain.Net, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list... 

> These would be written as follows in 1.8.0, according to current plan:
> 
> 	Quinn		Current MOO		New MOO
> 	-----		-----------		-------
> 	x[2..]		x[2..length(x)]		x[2..$]
> 	last(x)		x[length(x)]		x[$]
> 	last(x)		x[random(length(x))]	x[random($)]
> 
> Essentially, the subscripting bracket will define a pseudo-variable, $, whose
> value is the length of the value being subscripted.  You can use that pseudo-
> variable in any (enclosed) expression context.  So, to extract the last two
> ...
> Comments?

Yes.  I prefer the Icon model, in which integers refer to positions
between elements of a list.  Positive integers number positions from
left to right; nonpositive from right to left.  Here's an examplle:

		your	mama	wears	army	boots
	    1        2        3       4       5       6
           -5       -4       -3      -2      -1       0

So to grab all but the last element it's l[1..-1] (actually Icon uses a
colon instead of .. but that's irrelevant).  Naming a single position
gets you the element to the right; so the first element is l[1], the
last is l[-1], and so on.  FYI, Icon has a few other nice list and
string manipulators that could be worth considering for the MOO.

Norman


From harlequin.com!kmp Sun Nov 14 22:20:06 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "14" "November" "1993" "22:18:00" "-0800" "kmp@harlequin.com" "kmp@harlequin.com" nil "15" "Re: My wish list..." "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 14 Nov 1993 22:18:00 -0800
From:	kmp@harlequin.com
To:	norman@bellcore.com
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: My wish list...

    Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1993 20:24 EST
    From: norman@bellcore.com

    ... I prefer the Icon model, in which integers refer to positions
    between elements of a list.  Positive integers number positions from
    left to right; nonpositive from right to left. ... the last is l[-1]
    ...

This has the problem that arithmetic errors that erroneously lead to
negative numbers will not be detected because it has a well-defined
meaning.  A good property for a language syntax to have is to be sparse
enough that readily anticipatable errors will tend to be detected.  I
think the new $ syntax has this property and your negative subscripts
syntax does not.
 -kmp

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Mon Nov 15 05:05:54 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Mon" "15" "November" "1993" "04:55:59" "-0800" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "19" "Netmail" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 15 Nov 1993 04:55:59 -0800
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Netmail
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I have a little problem with sending mail from the MOO to the net.

Every time $network:raw_send is called, it returns:

Mail sending failed: 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized
as local

But... the mail is actually sent. So the MOO thinks it failed, but the mail
is on its way.
For some uses of this netsend I can live with it... but I now implemented
the netsend mailoption, and if the MOO thinks it failed and keeps a copy of
the text, we did nothing.

What's can be wrong? I thought I had customized $network properly.

Thanks for any help.




From hook.eecs.nwu.edu!usenet Mon Nov 15 11:05:44 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "15" "November" "1993" "10:42:22" "-0800" "H. Peter Anvin N9ITP" "hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu " nil "23" "Re: Netmail" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 15 Nov 1993 10:42:22 -0800
From:	hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
Sender: usenet@hook.eecs.nwu.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Netmail
Reply-to: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Newsgroups: mail.moo-cows

In article <9311151252.AA02649@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il> of mail.moo-cows,
  bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman) writes:
> I have a little problem with sending mail from the MOO to the net.
> 
> Every time $network:raw_send is called, it returns:
> 
> Mail sending failed: 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized
> as local
> 
> But... the mail is actually sent. So the MOO thinks it failed, but the mail
> is on its way.
> For some uses of this netsend I can live with it... but I now implemented
> the netsend mailoption, and if the MOO thinks it failed and keeps a copy of
> the text, we did nothing.
> 
> What's can be wrong? I thought I had customized $network properly.
> 

I would say telnet to the SMTP daemon the MOO talks to and give it the
commands in order.  It looks to me like the name given in the HELO
command is no good for some reason.

	/hpa

From phoenix.aps.muohio.edu!crwilson Tue Nov 16 06:38:46 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "06:22:34" "-0800" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu " nil "34" "pocket fluff and black holes" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 06:22:34 -0800
From:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: pocket fluff and black holes
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Well, I should be studying for an exam, but I can't just quite get up the
urge to log out just yet.

I was made happy a week ago.  Here is what happened:

  I am wilson@mediamoo, and believe it or not, I produce generic's there. 
I don't program on LambdaMOO anymore, usually too much lag for me.  I got
tired of using different room hierarchies for different features i wanted
in a room.  So I dumped all the code from serveral generics on LambdaMOO
(Generic Detailed Room, Generic Seated Room, Improved Details Room, Secure
Room, etc...).  I then integrate all of their code onto a single room.  I
was happy, I had details, seats, and security the way i was used to it. 
Then I began adding lotsa of other things to it.  Integration of
descriptions (real objects and details, programmed by me from scratch), time
events (as programmed by me, also), and some other miscellany features.
  Well, in the the end, I had a pretty good room, so i made it fertile,
had it debugged, then added some more stuff.  You can now define the
standing_msg to be anything (My private room has people 'contemplating'). 
It's still being expanded as i go along.
  Now to the point of my ramblings.  My generic room has been ported to
other MOO's, w/o me being one doing it!  I feel good now.  I have become a
comtributor finally to the world of MOO generics.  I have attained
immortal status in my own mind.  I don't know if it's really healthy to
become attached to computer code, but I feel like a new daddy.  Some of
you may think I'm crazy (well, i am, but don't say it to me), but I am
having a blast now.
  I don't see how people can just use MOO's to socialise when there are so
many things opened up with programming.

#endrambling

#define STUDY for (int i=7;chapters=10;i++);



From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Tue Nov 16 07:08:10 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "06:57:20" "-0800" "John William Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu" nil "23" "Re: pocket fluff and black holes" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "<9311161422.AA32161@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu> from \"Chad Wilson\" at Nov 16, 93 06:22:34 am atrocthe othe"
Message-ID: <199311161457.IAA78586@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 06:57:20 -0800
From:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
To:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: pocket fluff and black holes
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In an earlier message, Chad Wilson said something like:
> 
> Well, I should be studying for an exam, but I can't just quite get up the
> urge to log out just yet.
> 
> I was made happy a week ago.  Here is what happened:
> 
>   Now to the point of my ramblings.  My generic room has been ported to
> other MOO's, w/o me being one doing it!  I feel good now.  I have become a
> comtributor finally to the world of MOO generics.  I have attained
> immortal status in my own mind.  I don't know if it's really healthy to
> become attached to computer code, but I feel like a new daddy.  Some of
This raises a question: what are the ethics/restrictions of porting code from
one MOO to another. I like to have the original programmer's permission, but
it's not always clear who the programmer IS.

I'd be curious to see what the general consensus on this is.
I realize that code used on a MOO and set fertile, is probably _legally_
in the public domain; I'd just like to have the opinions of programers as to
what the ethical implications are.
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* chambles@whale.st.usm.edu

From phoenix.aps.muohio.edu!crwilson Tue Nov 16 09:34:53 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "08:54:42" "-0800" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu " nil "21" "ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 08:54:42 -0800
From:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage
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The following is my personal opinion.

I believe that once an algorithm is created, and accomplishes it's funtion
correctly, that the code should be considered public domain, within limits.

I don't like outright copying and claiming of credit, that is cheating. 
wholesale usage of an entire product can also be bad, copyright-wise.

I personally don't believe copyright's should apply to code.  If you write
it, and make it readable, that is my license to use it.  If progger A
comes up with a neat way to solving a problem, then progger B should
consider using it if it is superior.  progger A should make that code
available for hacking on, not hide it.  I admit to using code from
lambdamoo, I do it all the time.  I do give credit where it comes from,
even if i hack on it, and i encourage someone to use my code as they seem
fit.  I like to see the expansion of progging skills, not the inhibition
of them by fascist IBM-like people (IBM is very proprietary, that is my
point).

Long live @dump.  @port coming soon.


From phoenix.aps.muohio.edu!crwilson Tue Nov 16 10:01:16 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "08:42:11" "-0800" "Chad Wilson" "crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu " nil "5" "correction" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 08:42:11 -0800
From:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: correction
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oops, my macro IS an infinite loop...well, you can't study too much, my
parents try to drive into me.

The test is done, so ^C


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Nov 16 10:19:58 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "09:58:41" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "12" "ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Chad Wilson's message of Tue, 16 Nov 1993 08:54:42 PST <9311161654.AA19066@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu>"
Message-ID: <9311161758.AA07650@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 09:58:41 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage

It's more complicated than just an algorithm when it's MOO code.  This
doesn't apply as much to generics, but a lot of MOO code is Virtual
Reality, and should be treated more like a story---that is, copying
without giving credit or asking permission is socially irresponsible.
Me, I think you should always ask, even if the code is readable.

Do you think you should be able to xerox a book, just because it's
sitting there in the bookstore, *readable*?

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From coos.dartmouth.edu!mozart Tue Nov 16 11:17:22 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "11:06:18" "-0800" "Sting" "mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu " nil "48" "Re: ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:06:18 -0800
From:	mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu (Sting)
To:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage
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quoth Chad Wilson:
>
>The following is my personal opinion.

The following responses are mine...nothing personal intended :)

>I believe that once an algorithm is created, and accomplishes it's funtion
>correctly, that the code should be considered public domain, within limits.
>
>I don't like outright copying and claiming of credit, that is cheating.
>wholesale usage of an entire product can also be bad, copyright-wise.
>
>I personally don't believe copyright's should apply to code.  If you write
>it, and make it readable, that is my license to use it.  If progger A
>comes up with a neat way to solving a problem, then progger B should
>consider using it if it is superior.  progger A should make that code
>available for hacking on, not hide it.  I admit to using code from
>lambdamoo, I do it all the time.  I do give credit where it comes from,
>even if i hack on it, and i encourage someone to use my code as they seem
>fit.  I like to see the expansion of progging skills, not the inhibition
>of them by fascist IBM-like people (IBM is very proprietary, that is my
>point).

Unfortunately, what happens in a real-world situation when someone who programs
for a livelihood creates a new algorithm, or writes a program, and then
everyone just copies the idea and makes their own?  The point of copyright
statutes is to allow the creator of an idea a reasonable length of time in
which to profit from his or her creation.  Without that, there is even _less_
incentive to write new and original code!

Now, granted, where purely entertainment code is concerned, it could be allowed
that there's little practical purpose in enforcing copyright law.  However, if
someone decides they want to do so, it is within their rights.

Obviously, MOO code might bring up some tricky questions, since it's Pavel's
server and design...questions I'm not sure I know the answers to.

*shrug*
Just my $0.005 (if y' haen't got a penny...;)

-M
(aka Caedmon of Anglo-Saxony)

--
Michael J. Fromberger
Consultant, Postmaster, HD Clinic tech
Sting@Dartmouth.EDU / mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu


From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Tue Nov 16 11:43:15 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "11:35:07" "-0800" "schlake@minos.nmt.edu" "schlake@minos.nmt.edu" nil "16" "Re: pocket fluff and black holes" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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       \"pocket fluff and black holes\" (Nov 16,  6:22am)("
Message-ID: <9311161935.AA01379@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:35:07 -0800
From:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
Sender: schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson), moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: pocket fluff and black holes

On Nov 16,  6:22am, Chad Wilson wrote:
>  I don't see how people can just use MOO's to socialise when there are so
>many things opened up with programming.
}-- End of excerpt from Chad Wilson

I said the same thing on TinyMUD when people would socialize instead of
creative exits named 'l;lo;loo;look;look l;look li;look lig;look ligh;look
light; l l;l;l li;l lig;l ligh;l light;lo l;lo li...you get the point'

And then fail the exit so no one could go through it, and link it to the
room, then make ofail messages on the light that would let other people in
the room see that someone had looked at the light, and fail messages for
the guy who actually looked at the light.


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Tue Nov 16 11:52:15 1993
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Subject: ethics of code usage
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In my opinion, you should always, _always_ ask permission from the programmer
 before porting their code.  My policy has always been to go ahead and say
 "yes" but warn them that keeping their ported version updated is entirely
 their responsibility, not mine.

Some of my other code which other programmers might want to access on the
 same MOO can be pretty tick-intensive and I often won't allow those verbs
 to run when this!=caller since it causes all my tasks to slow down.

I guess you could rationalize software pirating by saying that if it's
 readable, it's public domain.  A lot of software companies have solved
 the problem by simply making their software far too complicated to easily
 copy.  I used the same technique on Schmoo.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Tue Nov 16 11:58:36 1993
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In-Reply-to: "John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
       \"Re: pocket fluff and black holes\" (Nov 16,  6:57am)j%‚"
Message-ID: <9311161942.AA01445@sphinx.nmt.edu>
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:42:48 -0800
From:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
Sender: schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>,
	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (Chad Wilson)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: pocket fluff and black holes

On Nov 16,  6:57am, John William Chambless wrote:

>This raises a question: what are the ethics/restrictions of porting code from
>one MOO to another. I like to have the original programmer's permission, but
>it's not always clear who the programmer IS.

I generally feel that if someone makes a CUSP, and installs it, and leaves
it readable, *AND* does not put a limit on redistribution, or an ownership,
or any such thing, then it is public domain.

I've run into trouble on this, because I found code installed on my mud,
owned by the wizard, with no ownership info, and no redistribution, so I
happily copied it over to another mud, only to find someone down the line
who recognized it and was upset.  I've also seen people put things into the
public domain, then threaten to sue someone they didn't like because that
person was using the PD software without permission.

I tried to have a discussion with RMS about this kinda thing, but we were
never able to get anywhere on it.

>I'd be curious to see what the general consensus on this is.
>I realize that code used on a MOO and set fertile, is probably _legally_
>in the public domain; I'd just like to have the opinions of programers as to
>what the ethical implications are.

A MOO admin could state that the MOO is run in the spirit of research, and
that everything is for the good of knowledge, and there is no place for
selfish people on that MOO.

I'm a firm believer that if someone provides you with free access to
something, you should go ahead and use it.

-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Nov 16 12:08:18 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "11:42:07" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "17" "ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <9311161942.AA18502@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:42:07 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu
cc:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage


						       The point of copyright
   statutes is to allow the creator of an idea a reasonable length of time in
   which to profit from his or her creation.  Without that, there is even
   _less_ incentive to write new and original code!

   Now, granted, where purely entertainment code is concerned, it could be
   allowed that there's little practical purpose in enforcing copyright law.

The practical purpose is *fame*.  Not all profit is in $$$.  Some of it
is in happiness and some in fame :-)  So when you steal someone's code,
at least put their name prominently displayed.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net


From lamp0.arl.army.mil!cschles Tue Nov 16 12:16:30 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "11:55:59" "-0800" "Chris schlesiger" "cschles@lamp0 " nil "11" "Re:  ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <9311161955.AA11625@geni16.arl.army.mil>
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:55:59 -0800
From:	cschles@lamp0 (Chris schlesiger)
Sender: cschles@lamp0.arl.army.mil
To:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re:  ethics of code usage

Well, that may be the way you personally see porting code, but what if the author doesn't see it that way? Are you going to ignore his/her wishes?

I tend to agree with yduJ's analogy to stories in VR. It's not just simple code that people have written, but many times a whole complex idea and concept.
For instance, take Club Dred. I, as the creator, don't want it anywhere else but LambdaMOO. Even though the code is readable. That's part of the uniqueness of it.

I think that one should ALWAYS ask the writer of the code before just taking it. Generics included.

About the only exception I can think of would be Lambdacore. Since that is routinely put up for public consumption anyway.

CDRS aka Dred(ful)
cschles@lamp0.arl.army.mil

From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Nov 16 12:38:41 1993
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 12:18:12 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	cschles@lamp0.stanford.edu
cc:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage

| About the only exception I can think of would be Lambdacore. Since
| that is routinely put up for public consumption anyway.

Things get complicated, of course, when we corify a user's code.
Generally we ask them first though!

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From harlequin.com!kmp Tue Nov 16 12:54:12 1993
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 12:26:00 -0800
From:	kmp@harlequin.com
To:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu
cc:	crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage

    Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 12:58 EST
    From: Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>

    ... but a lot of MOO code is Virtual Reality, and should be 
    treated more like a story ...

What if it's a story about code pirating?  I think each story should be
permitted to establish its own ground rules, just as science fiction books
sometimes establish their own laws of physics.  I am not adverse to the
notion that there is some reasonable default in the absence of such rules,
and that that notion should be inherited from reality.  Just as when we
read a story someone writes, we assume the defaults come from the RL world
that the story's author live[s/d] in.

From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Tue Nov 16 13:21:44 1993
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	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7097 Mathematical Sciences	Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 12:46:03 -0800
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage

Well, prompted by this discussion, I have kind of on-the-fly 
thrown together some thoughts I have had running around in my 
head for a while and which, when polished, will comprise a 
"help porting" text on my MOO, ForeMOO. (Whenever ForeMOO can 
be loaded back into existance, that is). Anyhow, I have 
included the (long, bureaucratic) first draft here...
 
help porting-----------------
 
On many MOOs, the question is raised, "Who actually owns a 
piece of code written on this MOO? Whose permission (if any) 
do I need to get before I copy code from this MOO to another 
MOO?"
 
The answer is, of course, individual to each MOO.
 
On ForeMOO, the Archwizard has deemed that any code written on 
this MOO is the property of the administrative body of the 
MOO. This may seem harsh to some, but consider that most 
corporations consider any code written using corporate 
resources to be property of the company. As is frequently 
stated, ForeMOO is not a democracy. There is a definite power 
structure on ForeMOO, and this will not change. To experience 
VR democracy in action, we recommend LambdaMOO (13.2.116.36 8888).
 
Of course, to say that we maintain control of all code 
existing in the database does not imply a strict policy. It 
merely says that there *is* a policy, and the formation and 
application of this policy rests solely with the ForeMOO 
wizards.
 
The current policy (16 November 1993):
 
CODE -- Used to refer to any functional discrete element of the MOO
        which may be transported to another MOO, including all verbs, 
        objects, and properties. Algorithms are also considered
        elements of code unless accompanied by a comment reserving
        intellectual ownership of the algorithm.
                        
 
1) CODE owned by you:
        a) CODE created by you:
                You may freely port CODE which is the
                product of your own effort. No restrictions.
        b) CODE you have ported from other MOOs:
                If you have ported CODE from another MOO
                to ForeMOO and you wish to port that CODE from
                ForeMOO to yet another MOO, you must follow the
                guidelines for porting set up on the MOO from 
                which you originally ported the CODE. (IE if 
                BigMOO specifies that the owner should be asked
                before porting CODE, and you did ask Owner_X for
                permission to port his object from BigMOO to 
                ForeMOO, you must ask his permission again to
                port his object from ForeMOO to LittleMOO.)
                Credit must be given to the original author. 
                (See 'Credit for CODE') In cases where the
                MOO from which the CODE was originally ported
                has no policy regarding porting of CODE, the
                ForeMOO wizards recommend obtaining the
                permission of the author.
2) CODE owned by other players:
        a) CODE created by another player:
                You must ask permission of the original author
                before copying any CODE. No modifications to the
                CODE are permissable unless approved by the
                author. Credit must be given to the original
                author. (See 'Credit for CODE')
        b) CODE another player has ported from another MOO:
                In order to do this, you must satisfy the
                requirements of BOTH sections 1b and 2a above.
3) System CODE:
        ForeMOO is based on the publicly released LambdaCore. Most
        features of the system are available for anonymous ftp
        from parcftp.xerox.com: /pub/MOO.  ForeMOO does, however
        implement a number of changes to/improvements on/deviations
        from the original core. If you are interested in porting
        elements of the ForeMOO Core, please contact a wizard.
        Credit must be given to the original author. (See 
        'Credit for CODE')
4) Credit for CODE:
        a) For entire objects:
                A single property, .credits_for_object, will be
                placed on the ported object. It's contents will 
                be determined in part e) below.
        b) For single verbs:
                Verbs which are not part of a ported object (the
                verbs on whole objects are considered 
                collectively) should have a tagline at the 
                beginning of the verb code (so as to appear in
                help object:verb) which contents will be 
                determined in part e) below.
        c) For single properties:
                Properties which are not part of a ported object
                (the properties on whole objects are considered
                collectively) should be cited in a property,
                .property_credits on the destination object.
                Contents to be determined in part e) below.
        d) For algorithms:
                Less restrictions are placed on algorithms as
                they are less tangible than the above elements.
                If there is a comment in a piece of code (and 
                we assume you study and understand what you
                port) stating that the author retains rights
                to an algorithm, credit will be given in a
                manner deemed appropriate by the author of the
                algorithm.
        e) Contents of Credits:
                The credits must contain the following elements:
                        * Author's (Authors') name(s)
                        * Author's (Authors') object number on
                          MOO where CODE was created.
                        * Identifier (object#, object#:verbname,
                          object#.propertyname) for CODE on MOO
                          where CODE was created.
                        * Appropriate dates of creation/
                          modification and revision numbers 
                          where appropriate and provided by
                          the author.
                        * Date on which porting of the CODE was
                          completed.
 
5) Incoming ports of CODE:
        Any code ported into ForeMOO from another MOO must be
        brought in using the appropriate policy from the source
        MOO. In cases where there is no policy on the source 
        MOO, the ForeMOO wizards recommend asking the author's
        permission.
6) Violation of Policy:
        Violation of ForeMOO's policy regarding CODE porting 
        will result in disciplinary measures to be determined
        by the wizards of ForeMOO. A likely punishment is
        temporary or permanent loss of programming privileges
        on ForeMOO, depending on the severity of the violation
        as judged by the wizards of ForeMOO and the author of
        the illegally ported CODE. Objects ported into ForeMOO
        which do not conform to the policy requirements of the
        source MOO may be deleted entirely or stored in an 
        unusable form until such time as the source MOO's policy
        requirements have been fulfilled.
 
(End of help text.) ----------------------
 
I'd really like to hear suggestions on ways this could be 
improved, or just opinions in general.
 
====Rob (Gelfin@LambdaMOO, OpalMOO, JaysHouseMOO, ForeMOO)
 
P.S. Also, as a despiser of complicated bureaucracy, do you think
     this sort of thing is really necessary? (I mean *I* am a
     despiser of bureaucracy, of course..)

From dus.mountain.net!quinn Tue Nov 16 14:52:21 1993
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 14:30:40 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: credit

For the benefit of those who aren't MOO-historians, Schmoo used to
 be `mine'.  It was taken from me and given to someone else when I
 was newted (prevented from connecting).  I'd think this is a more
 important issue than people simply porting code.  This is a case
 of code being taken and GIVEN to somebody else.
 
I attempted to set up a `Rights of Object Owners' petition on
 LambdaMOO, but it didn't get very far.  Actually, I still have it
 offline pending revision.  One of my greatest fears is that I'll
 lose access again and everything I have will be auctioned off.
 
I have a lot.
 
I consider what I've done on LambdaMOO to be very much a work
 of words rather than programming.  Descriptions, messages, and
 even the code itself is written in my own style.  There are
 characters in my world that actually LIVE.  They have emotions,
 motives, hates, loves, regrets.
 
A muds with such enormous creative potential can't simply be
 considered a toolbox from which you can borrow what you please.
 
They're living books.
 
I would -like- to get paid to do this.  Not because I'm greedy,
 but because it's what I enjoy.  I'm a creator.  I want to make
 a living making living things.  Finally, people are realising
 the enormous entertainment potential of this medium, and are
 beginning to commission a few of us cyberbards to compose
 virtual symphonies of living words.
 
I suppose I'm straying away from the point.  I do that.
 
I could go without the money.  There's always Mcdonalds or night
 security.  But I'd like to keep the credit.  I'd rather leave this
 world known not for "He scrubbed a mean floor", but for the rich
 wonderful worlds I left behind in this virtual Eden.
 
-quinn

From sage.cc.purdue.edu!image Tue Nov 16 16:26:11 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "16:07:58" "-0800" "Jeff T.P." "image@sage.cc.purdue.edu " nil "33" "Ethics of Code Usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 16:07:58 -0800
From:	image@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Jeff T.P.)
To:	MOO-Cows@xerox.com (Moo-Cows Mailing List)
Subject: Ethics of Code Usage

Welcome to Jeff's MOO ethics. . . and idealistic view.

Ethically, yes you should ask permission, and you should give credit
where credit is due.  Realistically, no one really cares who made an
object.  They use it, it's neat, big deal.  If it's from another MOO,
then they care even less who 'made' it.  The wizards put it together at
the local MOO, and that's all that matters.

Let's not simulate the darker side of reality anymore than we already
have.  We don't need to be concerned about Copyrights and all that bull,
instead how about thinking that if we let anybody take our programs and
work on them, then one day they'll be much better than our original?

Personally, I've had several of my projects moved from Dragon's Fire MOO
to Harper's Tale MOO, and vice-versa I wouldn't doubt.  I'm not
complaining.  Heck if they can use my code, then let'em.  Why scream and
shout: "I worked four weeks on this Frob-o-Matic and no one can steal
it."  If you had something better to do during that time then you should
have, otherwise the programming and planning you did was part of your
hobby, and if you don't enjoy your hobby, and don't enjoy sharing your
hobby with others, then you should find a new hobby.

Let me summerize:  In kindergarten we learned to share.  Somewhere
between then and now we learned to be greedy.  Where did you have more
fun, in kindergarten where there was nap time, toys, and lots of
friends; or now where there are responsiblities, bills, and lots of
people stabbing you in the back.  Okay, let's go back to kindergarten
and share.
-- 
I don't know which is worse, that  |  I'd make mine higher, but it's
everyone has a price, or that the  |  hard to find buyers as it is.
price is always so low.            |
                                      -- PGP Key Available --

From dus.mountain.net!quinn Tue Nov 16 16:45:23 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "16" "November" "1993" "16:18:15" "-0800" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.mountain.net" nil "10" "Re: Ethics of Code Usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 1993 16:18:15 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	image@sage.cc.purdue.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics of Code Usage

I resent the simplistic implication that wanting credit for
 something you've worked hard on is being GREEDY.

As for this being a 'hobby', it ISN'T for many people.  Mud
 development has a commercial future.  It isn't all fun and
 games and a waste of time.

Even wanting to be paid for something you do isn't being Greedy.

It's called a job.

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Thu Nov 18 15:52:16 1993
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 06:44:46 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to credit

> For the benefit of those who aren't MOO-historians, Schmoo used to
>  be `mine'.  It was taken from me and given to someone else when I
>  was newted (prevented from connecting).  I'd think this is a more
>  important issue than people simply porting code.  This is a case
>  of code being taken and GIVEN to somebody else.

It's a tale not uncommon to all MU*'s. However, you have to admit the
only person truly responsible for a server would have to be the person
who is providing the resources.  Having owned and operated a few Moo's
in my time (and I'm still reposnsible for two) I can easily state that
many people don't agree with that simple statement.

But you have to look at it this way: The person providing the server
is reponsible for any use of his or her account. Reponsible for the
use of resources and reponsible for anything caused by the use of
resources allocated to him or her. I think most people that provide a
server also get permission from the administration of that "site" for
the use of those resources in the unusual way that servers chomp on
machines.

So if you want a Moo run your way, either find someone who agrees with
you or run one yourself... All this "constitution" and "government"
stuff is well and good, but they tend to ignore the responsibility
that the server maintainer has to his site.

> I attempted to set up a `Rights of Object Owners' petition on
>  LambdaMOO, but it didn't get very far.  Actually, I still have it
>  offline pending revision.  One of my greatest fears is that I'll
>  lose access again and everything I have will be auctioned off.

I would say that is less of a concern on Lambda. After all, you have
an extremely benevolent server maintainer, and a good serious set of
wizards. Let alone hundreds of competant coders and sociologists...

Fire that petition up. I'll read it and sign it if I like it. :)

> I consider what I've done on LambdaMOO to be very much a work
>  of words rather than programming.  Descriptions, messages, and
>  even the code itself is written in my own style.  There are
>  characters in my world that actually LIVE.  They have emotions,
>  motives, hates, loves, regrets.

Well, people have often gone through hoops to get the wizards of a MU*
to recognize their work. People have also deleted their own work
(which has been made public and is in use by the server users) in fits
of anger or haste.  Such unpleasantness seems to be avoidable until
one gets caught up in the middle of such things.  MU*'s, like other
communication media that are so immediate, tend to circumvent people's
normal "cooling off" mechanisms, escalating arguments into epic
battles.

> A muds with such enormous creative potential can't simply be
>  considered a toolbox from which you can borrow what you please.

Some people see fit to export their tools into the public domain.  I
can't help but be happy about such things. A good set of tools can
make a person extremely productive and happy.

> They're living books.

"Interactive Fiction", even? :)

> I would -like- to get paid to do this.  Not because I'm greedy,
>  but because it's what I enjoy.  I'm a creator.  I want to make
>  a living making living things.  Finally, people are realising
>  the enormous entertainment potential of this medium, and are
>  beginning to commission a few of us cyberbards to compose
>  virtual symphonies of living words.

A good set of tools creates even more cyberbards. You've got to give
a little to receive. Eventually we'll come up with a doctrine which 
will faciliate creation, intellectual property, tools and their use,
and the fun that so many people have with Moo's.

> I suppose I'm straying away from the point.  I do that.

Rambling is an art form. Pity I can't sell mine. :)

> I could go without the money.  There's always Mcdonalds or night
>  security.  But I'd like to keep the credit.  I'd rather leave this
>  world known not for "He scrubbed a mean floor", but for the rich
>  wonderful worlds I left behind in this virtual Eden.

I second the motion, Quinn, and I, as a user, thank you for your
contribution to MU*'s as a whole. That's one thing that people do not
get enough of. The tool creators, and the storywriters seldom get
thanked.

--JRP [Shirgall@a lot of Moo's]

From uiowa.edu!karl-boyken Thu Nov 18 16:01:27 1993
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 06:45:05 -0800
From:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics of Code Usage
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Wishing that coding on LambdaMOO and similar MOOs were a job doesn't make it 
a job.  The fact is that right now, most people who write MOO code aren't 
getting paid to do it.  It is a hobby right now, for most MOO programmers.

And even if you were getting paid to write MOO code, it's an open question 
as to whether you'd be able to claim a personal copyright on that code.  If 
they wanted to, I suspect that Xerox could make a good case in court that 
all MOO code is theirs in some sense.  And since Xerox is a large 
corporation with deeper pockets than the average MOO coder, they'd have a 
good chance of winning.

I'm not trying to make the case that we all work for Xerox, or that Xerox is 
a big, mean, greedy corporation.  I have no idea what Xerox might or might 
not do.  I'm just trying to make the point that it's not clear at all that 
MOO coders would indeed successfully be able to enforce a copyright on their 
code.  This is especially true for MOO code that is publically readable and 
that is attributed to some MOO character instead of to a living, breathing, 
RL person--which describes all the MOO code I've ever seen.

Copyright law for RL software is still in its infancy, and some of the 
precedents to date even seem to contradict each other in some ways, if you 
can believe the pundits in the computer journals.  If copyright is so 
ill-defined in a RL context, you can bet that copyright for MOO code is even 
less clear-cut.

Anyone who writes MOO code with the idea that they will be able to claim it 
successfully as their own is being pretty naive.

Karl Boyken, system programmer, Dept. of Computer Science
303A MLH, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA  52242
voice:  319-335-2730   fax:  319-335-0627
Internet:  karl-boyken@uiowa.edu


From crl.com!blast Thu Nov 18 17:17:25 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "17" "November" "1993" "07:11:35" "-0800" "Tim Keanini" "blast@crl.com" "<Pine.3.87.9311170735.A24580-0100000@crl.crl.com>" "31" "object numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 07:11:35 -0800
From:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: object numbers
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII



I have looked in the manual and this issue of how objects get their 
numbers is really unclear.
For example:

On page 4 of the Programmers manual, it says that object numbers that are 
created, never get reused even if they are recycled.  This is not true 
with 1.7.5 version of Lambda?  It seems that objects that are recycled 
get reused and sometimes that is really tricky with exits where the .dest 
is pointing now to something other than a object of type room.

How can you create a object and get a specific number?
Lets say that max_object() was #76, could you specify the creation of 
object number #100?

Thanks for all the advice in advance.


+====================================================================+
|    Tim Keanini    |"Art is not a mirror. Art is a Hammer" -MediaLab|
|aka blast          |           Come and visit us at bayMOO          |
|                   |                mud.crl.com 8888                |
|                   |            The only rule is RESPECT!           |
|                   |================================================+
|for more info on bayMOO...             <timk@broder.com>            |
|  email blast@crl.com                  <blast@crl.com>              |
+====================================================================+ 




From actlab.rtf.utexas.edu!chiphead Thu Nov 18 17:48:38 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "17" "November" "1993" "05:58:31" "-0800" "Allan Alford" "chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu" nil "28" "Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 05:58:31 -0800
From:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
To:	MOOcows <MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com>
Subject: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I got a nifty idea!

Let's assume that in the ideal MOO world:
1) Everyone credits whoever they lift from.
2) Whoever leaves their code readable, but who does NOT want
   their code copied puts a comment in the code to the effect
   of: "check with me before heisting."

I don't know copyright laws for code, but i do know them for
writing and illustrating.

Essentially, if your work has been 'published' under your name (even if
you didn't get paid for it!), then you can sue for copyright violation
if someone else reprints it.  I don't know if the Net counts as
'published' (I'm sure it would hold up in court), but the fact is that
you can put a 'copyright 1993 by Jane Doe' in with the 'don't heist this'
message, and stand a fair chance of winning a suit.

I have a friend here in Austin who heads a small organization of budding
cartoonists.  Their newsletter essentially serves the purpose of getting
their work in print, so that they can file the original printings away.
If someone else wants to use the stuff later, they HAVE to get permission.

chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu





From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Thu Nov 18 20:04:32 1993
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 14:09:45 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

> I have a friend here in Austin who heads a small organization of budding
> cartoonists.  Their newsletter essentially serves the purpose of getting
> their work in print, so that they can file the original printings away.
> If someone else wants to use the stuff later, they HAVE to get permission.

So, let's make a printed newletter for "nifty code". Distribute it at cost
and poof we have copyrighted work. I think that will do rather nicely.
Now I've got to think of the vgrind definitions for Moo code so they 
look pretty in the newsletter. 

I suppose Pavel will want me to print up the core in the in first 
newsletter. :)

--JRP [Shirgall@a lot of places]


From dus.mountain.net!quinn Thu Nov 18 20:22:43 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "11:45:15" "-0800" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.mountain.net" nil "31" "Re: Ethics of Code Usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 11:45:15 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu, MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics of Code Usage

>The fact is that right now, most people who write MOO code aren't
> getting paid to do it.  It is a hobby right now, for most MOO
> programmers.
 
For most, yes.  So what?  I'm getting paid for it.  Not a lot, but
 enough so that I see a future in MOO/mud as a valid new creative
 medium for writers.
 
>Anyone who writes MOO code with the idea that they will be able to
> claim it successfully as their own is being pretty naive.
 
MOO is simply another medium of expression.  I have as much right to
 claim code I write as my own as you do to claim the email you just
 wrote was written by yourself, regardless of whether or not you own
 uiowa.edu.  Is a painting owned by the canvasmaker?  Is a building
 owned by the steelworks?  Is a book owned by the binder?  MOO is a
 creative workshop explicitly in the public domain.
 
Is it naive to hope to have credit for something you've worked hard
 to produce?  Should we all resign ourselves that whoever owns our
 workspace is gonna steal our work?  Should we not sketch in the city
 park for fear of the government laying claim to our drawings?
 
I grow easily ill of people who accuse idealism of being naivete.
 
>If they wanted to, I suspect that Xerox could make a good case in
> court that all MOO code is theirs in some sense.
 
Obviously they could try to do this.
 
But they aren't.

From uiowa.edu!karl-boyken Thu Nov 18 20:35:24 1993
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 14:15:04 -0800
From:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Quinn says, basically (I lost the original post, so I'm paraphrasing), that 
the desire to copyright MOO code springs from idealism.  Then Allan Alford 
chimes in with, in part:

>Essentially, if your work has been 'published' under your name (even if
>you didn't get paid for it!), then you can sue for copyright violation
>if someone else reprints it.  I don't know if the Net counts as
>'published' (I'm sure it would hold up in court), but the fact is that
>you can put a 'copyright 1993 by Jane Doe' in with the 'don't heist this'
>message, and stand a fair chance of winning a suit.

This is idealism?  Dragging lawyers and copyright laws into MOOdom?  This is 
a meaning of the term 'idealism' that I'm unfamiliar with.

Okay.  Copyright your MOO code.  Hire a lawyer.  Drag MOOers into court.  
Drag Xerox, too, 'cause you'll have to make Xerox disclose the RL names of 
MOOers who swipe your code.  Great fun.  I'm sure it will make everyone 
really eager to use the code you've copyrighted.  People will flock to the 
MOOs for the chance to be sued.  Lawyers will, anyway--since the area has no 
precedent, it's bound to generate case after case, appeal after appeal, and 
tons o' lawyer's fees.

If this be idealism, then give me jaded cynicism any day.

Karl Boyken, system programmer, Dept. of Computer Science
303A MLH, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA  52242
voice:  319-335-2730   fax:  319-335-0627
Internet:  karl-boyken@uiowa.edu


From nyx10.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Thu Nov 18 20:36:54 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "17" "November" "1993" "05:16:37" "-0800" "Nicholas LaFlamme" "nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu" nil "9" "Re: pocket fluff and black holes" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 05:16:37 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
cc:	Chad Wilson <crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu>, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: pocket fluff and black holes
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  My general opionion is that if the code is readable, it is public.  Of
course, as MOO code goes, I have no problem with folks stealing my code,
as that is the main way tha MOOs are improved.  Honestly, I would consider
it an honor for my code to be considered good enought to be copied.

					Nick



From nyx10.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Thu Nov 18 20:39:45 1993
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 05:26:57 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	cschles@lamp0.stanford.edu, crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu,
	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Tue, 16 Nov 1993, Judy Anderson wrote:

> | About the only exception I can think of would be Lambdacore. Since
> | that is routinely put up for public consumption anyway.
> 
> Things get complicated, of course, when we corify a user's code.
> Generally we ask them first though!

  *grin* If someone asked if they could corify my code, I would be deeply
touched(and more than a bit shocked).

> 
> Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
>     [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
>        Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net




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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 05:22:47 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
cc:	mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu, crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu,
	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Tue, 16 Nov 1993, Judy Anderson wrote:

> 
> 						       The point of copyright
>    statutes is to allow the creator of an idea a reasonable length of time in
>    which to profit from his or her creation.  Without that, there is even
>    _less_ incentive to write new and original code!

     Actually, I would write new code even if I was beaten for doing so. 
SOme of us just feel compelled. :)

> 
>    Now, granted, where purely entertainment code is concerned, it could be
>    allowed that there's little practical purpose in enforcing copyright law.

     The Server itself is PD(as far as I know).  It seems tacky to try to
enforce copyright laws on something written on someon elses PD system.

> 
> The practical purpose is *fame*.  Not all profit is in $$$.  Some of it
> is in happiness and some in fame :-)  So when you steal someone's code,
> at least put their name prominently displayed.

  Fame would be nice.  However I would much prefer to see useful code
distributed to those who can use it.
> 
> Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
>     [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
>        Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net
> 




From cc.usu.edu!BRANDON Thu Nov 18 20:56:46 1993
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Subject: Re: reply to credit
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> "Interactive Fiction", even? :)

Quinn and I were just talking about this yesterday, in relation to a discussion
i've had with a few of my English professors, I like the term "Interactive
Cyber Fiction"  Sounds Cooler :)   From there you can be cool and call yourself
a Cyber Poet (ie a poet from the age of computers, using computers--rather than
one from say the Romatic period...)   Sorry :)

From mit.edu!ghudson Thu Nov 18 21:01:07 1993
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Wed, 17 Nov 93 07:11:35 -0800.
             <Pine.3.87.9311170735.A24580-0100000@crl.crl.com>"
Message-ID: <9311182147.AA02796@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 13:47:24 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: object numbers


> I have looked in the manual and this issue of how objects get their
> numbers is really unclear.

I'd ordinarily defer and let someone more experienced answer this
question in more detail, but I feel like preaching on this issue a
bit.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about anything.

When you ask the server to create an object, it assigns it a new
object number which has never been used before.

At some people, people got tired of seeing really large object numbers
on Lambda, and they wanted object numbers to be recycled.  This was
implemented in-db.  If I want, I can set a flag on an object such that
its number won't be recycled, but usually, when I discard an object,
it gets stripped of most of its data and sits around so that it can be
reused when someone else asks to create an object.

I don't know the names of the verbs involved here; I suspect a look at
me:@recycle will be enough to see how it works.

In my opinion, object number recycling is a really bad idea.  As you
mentioned, confusing things can happen if there are dangling
references to an old object and its number is recycled.  While it is
indeed easier to remember smaller object numbers, you really shouldn't
have to remember them at all, just like you shouldn't have to remember
pointer values in a C program.  Ideally, the core database should
provide some symbolic means of access to objects for all operations.
I don't have solutions in mind for every operation which people
normally use object numbers for currently, but I'm sure they're not
too hard to dream up.

--GBH


From nyx10.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Thu Nov 18 21:04:37 1993
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 05:19:46 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	Sting <mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu>
cc:	Chad Wilson <crwilson@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu>, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

  

  MOO, however, is nothing like the real world.

			Nick



From stsci.edu!reppert Thu Nov 18 21:06:37 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "17" "November" "1993" "06:09:58" "-0800" "Peter Reppert" "reppert@stsci.edu" nil "33" "Re: Ethics, VR and Sax - History Iterates!" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 06:09:58 -0800
From:	Peter Reppert <reppert@stsci.edu>
To:	quinn@dus.mountain.net
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics, VR and Sax - History Iterates!


 This discussion seems parallel to the period before writers 
had royaly payments!  Before copyright laws came into effect,
writing was a gentleman's pastime.  Today there is a professional
class of writers and no one would tell a starving writer not to 
expect pay for his work.  

 By the way, Charles Dickens was central in getting royalty payments
instituted.  You probably know he was paid by the word and his works,
originally published in serial form, were then republished as books
without compensation to the author!

  I hope this doesn't make me sound ultraconservative.  I like the
notion of sharing information - it should be free, in the sense of
the public library. But one should also have a right *not* to tell 
the whole planet every personal detail about oneself.  It seems
unfair to be unable, under any circumstances, to get some kind of 
reward for all the work that goes into creating these wonderful MUD 
objects, verbs, etc..  I write and play music as a hobby, and don't
expect to make back what I put in.  But I have friends who are quite
accomplished musicians who would really like to be able to do it for
a living.  Especially tragic is the plight of jazz music - will VR
programmers be like sax players?        


p.s. - can anyone recommend articles or likely journals/newsgroups with 
information on using MUDs for conferences, etc.?  For starters, I want to 
set up a virtual meeting room on my workstation.  (I've copied the lambdaMOO
software with the idea that it's one of the most flexible).  If that flies, 
there are several additional (novel, I think) features I have in mind.


  

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Thu Nov 18 21:18:08 1993
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	I"
Message-ID: <9311182117.AA04388@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 13:17:55 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to object numbers

> I have looked in the manual and this issue of how objects get their 
> numbers is really unclear.
> For example:
> 
> On page 4 of the Programmers manual, it says that object numbers that are 
> created, never get reused even if they are recycled.  This is not true 
> with 1.7.5 version of Lambda?  It seems that objects that are recycled 
> get reused and sometimes that is really tricky with exits where the .dest 
> is pointing now to something other than a object of type room.

There is a difference between @recycle and the builtin recycle(). When
you recycle() an object it is gone forever. @recycle (on some Moos)
does not recycle() the object, instead it just clears the verbs and
properties and then puts it in a pool for @create to reuse.

> How can you create a object and get a specific number?

Well, you can keep creating until you get a number, or you can manually
extract an object from the recycling bin and use it.

> Lets say that max_object() was #76, could you specify the creation of 
> object number #100?

You need to create all the objects from #77 to #99, and toss them in
the recycling bin. :)

> Thanks for all the advice in advance.

Check out $recycler and the code and properties therein.

--JRP [Shirgall@many many moos]

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Thu Nov 18 21:28:49 1993
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 19:34:26 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	quinn@dus.mountain.net, MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics of Code Usage


We love you Quinn, you do know that don't you?

Andyworker.

From ils.nwu.edu!lynch Thu Nov 18 21:59:41 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "17:02:52" "-0800" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" "lynch@ils.nwu.edu" nil "17" "wizard can't edit.  Gak." "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 17:02:52 -0800
From:	lynch@ils.nwu.edu
To:	MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: wizard can't edit.  Gak.

Anybody know a quick fix for:

@edit #327:continue
#50:working_on, line 1:  Verb not found
... called from #51:invoke (this == #50), line 24
... called from #59:@edit (this == #2), line 6
(End of traceback)

I don't care if I blow away an editing session, but I'd rather @chmod
things so the world can hack than screw *everything* up...I have a Friday
11/19 deadline.

HELP!
-- 
--
-- "TANSTAAFL" Rich lynch@ils.nwu.edu


From actlab.rtf.utexas.edu!chiphead Thu Nov 18 22:00:11 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "18:54:54" "-0800" "Allan Alford" "chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu" nil "40" "Ethics O' Code Lifting, Part II" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 18:54:54 -0800
From:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
To:	MOOcows <moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com>
Subject: Ethics O' Code Lifting, Part II
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hmmm.

All of jrp@wildcat.widener.edu's sarcasm aside, that is actually an
interesting point.

PC Magazine and others of its ilk will periodically print out source code
to some of their "nifty" utilities.

There is ALWAYS a copyright blurb on the printed source code.

That might actually, in the eyes of the law, change things in terms of
copyrightability.

The law is new and, as someone else pointed out, often-times conflicting
when it comes to code.

Christopher Stacy brought up another valid point when he asked about
copying the 'look and feel' of another's code.

Pavel COULD certainly copyright the core.  Other could conceivably
copyright their particular applications.  (Look at some of the huge
FoxPro-based apps like SBT Pro for examples of that).

Putting it in print might actually further enable that process.

Either way, back to my original point:

People have the right to be pissy about whether their readable code gets
lifted.   If so, they ought to just put a line in there to the effect of
"check with me first".

Pavel has obviously not made any kind of efforts to limit his core, or to
make money off of it.  In that spirit, I vote we all give credit where
it's due, and respect the wishes of those who, for whatever reason, do not
want their stuff freely copied.

Peace




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Nov 18 22:00:51 1993
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References: <Pine.3.87.9311170735.A24580-0100000@crl.crl.com>
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 17:35:52 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	blast@crl.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: object numbers

> Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 1993 07:11:35 -0800
> From:	Tim Keanini <blast@crl.com>
> 
> On page 4 of the Programmers manual, it says that object numbers that are 
> created, never get reused even if they are recycled.  This is not true 
> with 1.7.5 version of Lambda?  It seems that objects that are recycled 
> get reused and sometimes that is really tricky with exits where the .dest 
> is pointing now to something other than a object of type room.

Remember that the Programmers Manual is only discussing the behavior of the
language and built-in functions themselves, not any code that might be layered
on top of them in the database.  In recent versions of the LambdaCore DB, all
of the standard building commands (@create, @dig, etc.) use $recycler:_create()
instead of the built-in function create().  Symmetrically, the @recycle command
uses $recycler:_recycle() instead of recycle().  $recycler maintains a list of
pseudo-recycled objects and hands them out as a kind of pseudo-creation.

> How can you create a object and get a specific number?
> Lets say that max_object() was #76, could you specify the creation of 
> object number #100?

There isn't any simple and direct way to do this.  The simplest answer for the
specific example you gave is to create (and, perhaps, recycle) 23 objects and
then create one more.  That last one will get number #100.  If you wanted to
create something with a number that's no longer in use but is less than
max_object(), then you'd have to use some combination of renumber() and/or
reset_max_object() along with create() to do it.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Thu Nov 18 22:02:51 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "19:46:28" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "10" "Re: Reply to Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <93Nov18.194631pst.2795@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 19:46:28 -0800
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: masinter.PARC@xerox.com
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Reply to Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

The Library of Congress is preparing to accept electronic media. You
also don't need to publish material to copyright it.

The Library of Congress runs a gopher server with information about
copyright. Try gophering to  marvel.loc.gov, either with your own
gopher client, or: 

goto marvel.loc.gov on your-favorite-gopherslate

It costs $20 to register copyright.

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Thu Nov 18 22:08:12 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "16:05:30" "-0800" "\"Wayne E. Bouchard\"" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "23" "RE: object numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <931118170530.21a012a1@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 16:05:30 -0800
From:	"Wayne E. Bouchard" <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	blast@crl.com
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: RE: object numbers

> On page 4 of the Programmers manual, it says that object numbers that are 
> created, never get reused even if they are recycled.  This is not true 
> with 1.7.5 version of Lambda?  It seems that objects that are recycled 
> get reused and sometimes that is really tricky with exits where the .dest 
> is pointing now to something other than a object of type room.

Well, in actuallity, they are not recycled. LambdaMOO uses the $recycler. 
It is merely a set of verbs that strips all the verbs and properties off of 
an object and changes its parentto the root class, thus reducing its size 
to an absolute minimum. What exactly the rationale behind this is, I was 
never clear on. So, for example, you do ;valid(#90000) and you get 0. But 
you do ;valid(<somegarbageobject>) and you get 1. The object still exists, 
just not in the ofrm it once was.

The reason you get rooms with weird exits is IMO that the $exit:recycle 
verb has a bug. It doesn't remove itself from the room in its .source 
property, if any. Likewise, it doesn't remove itself from the .entrances 
property of the room specified as its .dest.

Hope this helps.

-Wayne (aka Sadric)


From worldbenders.com!tamzen Thu Nov 18 22:12:42 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "20:31:40" "-0800" "Tamzen Cannoy" "tamzen@worldbenders.com" nil "30" "Re: Ethics, VR and Sax - History Iterates!" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 20:31:40 -0800
From:	Tamzen Cannoy <tamzen@worldbenders.com>
To:	Peter Reppert <reppert@stsci.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, Tamzen Cannoy <tamzen@worldbenders.com>
Subject: Re: Ethics, VR and Sax - History Iterates!
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Wed, 17 Nov 1993, Peter Reppert wrote:
> 
> p.s. - can anyone recommend articles or likely journals/newsgroups with 
> information on using MUDs for conferences, etc.?  For starters, I want to 
> set up a virtual meeting room on my workstation.  (I've copied the lambdaMOO
> software with the idea that it's one of the most flexible).  If that flies, 
> there are several additional (novel, I think) features I have in mind.
> 
Well at the risk of blowing my own horn and/or offending anyone, I will 
mention that Meeting Space(tm) ships next week. This is the first 
commercially available software which is a business MUD (that I know of 
anyway).

It is specifically for running a variety of business meetings in a text 
and graphics based virtual reality. Currently it is Macintosh only but we 
have the NT server going and a Windows client not far behind.

We have tossed the idea of putting it up on the INternet at some point 
for interested parties to take a look at. It runs over AppleTalk and 
TCP/IP and (soon) IPX.

It's our own code, written from scratch but keeping a lot of the generic 
conventions of MUDS while moving them to a GUI.

I'll talk about it more if people want, but don't want to go on unless 
there is interest.

Tamzen Cannoy
President, World Benders


From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Thu Nov 18 22:19:13 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "21:23:41" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "36" "object numbers" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Greg Hudson's message of Thu, 18 Nov 1993 13:47:24 PST <9311182147.AA02796@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>"
Message-ID: <9311190523.AA03951@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 21:23:41 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	ghudson@mit.edu
cc:	blast@crl.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: object numbers

Greg is right: object numbers are evil, and one shouldn't have to use
them.  But the fact of the matter is that you *do* have to use them,
and it's already a pain.  With the creation/recycle rate at LambdaMOO
I am certain we would be over 200,000 by now, possibly even higher.
Object number reuse is indeed evil.  I fully understand this, which is
why new players always get fresh new numbers.

Ther are two ways for the current reuse system to work.  The "old
way", present in the LambdaCore.db, is that each player has a
property, .recreate_enabled, which if set to 1, enables reuse of
objects through the $recycler.  If set to 0, objects are actually
destroyed, and creation gets you fresh numbers.  The "new way" uses
the builder-options package, you type @builder-option +bi_create to
disable object number re-use (bi stands for built-in).  This will be
released with the next LambdaCore.

As to the question of controlling what number you get:  Obviously in
the reuse case, since the objects are really still there, you can do
anything you want (in fact $recycler has a request number from this
command to facilitate this).  However with the builtin create
primitive, you always get the next higher number after max_object();
you can't pick.  If you have !valid numbers in the middle of your db
(from having used recycle() before), you can "get back" those numbers
by doing:

foo = create(#1);
renumber(foo);
reset_max_object();

You get the *lowest* invalid number back.  Again, you can't pick this
number.  So if you've recycle()d 500 through 666 and you want 666
back, you have to do the renumber trick on 167 objects...

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
    [ LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 / 13.2.116.36 8888 ]
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From cs.cornell.edu!samuel Thu Nov 18 22:23:53 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "22:11:25" "-0800" "Sam Weber" "samuel@cs.cornell.edu " nil "40" "Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 22:11:25 -0800
From:	samuel@cs.cornell.edu (Sam Weber)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

>Quinn says, basically (I lost the original post, so I'm paraphrasing), that 
>the desire to copyright MOO code springs from idealism.  Then Allan Alford 
>chimes in with, in part:
>
>>Essentially, if your work has been 'published' under your name (even if
>>you didn't get paid for it!), then you can sue for copyright violation
>>if someone else reprints it.  ....
>
>This is idealism?  Dragging lawyers and copyright laws into MOOdom?  This is 
>a meaning of the term 'idealism' that I'm unfamiliar with.
>
> .....
>
>If this be idealism, then give me jaded cynicism any day.
>
>Karl Boyken, system programmer, Dept. of Computer Science

I'm afraid I'm losing my patience with this.  We are talking about people
stealing other people's code.  Yes, it is idealistic to think that
people will never steal other people's work.  But this is the real world,
and that's one of the things that the copyright laws are supposed to
prevent.  

I don't think much of people who steal other people's work, breaking 
the law.  And I have no sympathy with such a criminal who then protests
"How DARE you drag lawyers into this!"  Karl, if you don't want lawyers
involved, then don't try to steal other people's work.

*Sam catches his breath*

Now, a number of people have said that they would be honored if people
wanted to distribute their code.  This, of course, is quite reasonable,
and understandable.  However, I would ask these people understand that
someone else might feel differently. 

I have seen one mud where whose administrators encouraged harassment of
gays.  Isn't it reasonable that I wouldn't want my code to enhance such
a place? 

    -Sam Weber

From cunyvm.cuny.edu!WBWQC Fri Nov 19 00:55:39 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "00:47:12" "-0800" "wbw" "WBWQC@cunyvm.cuny.edu" nil "8" "Just in case..." "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 00:47:12 -0800
From:	wbw <WBWQC@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
To:	moo-cows <moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com>
Subject: Just in case...


Hello.  I don't expect any money from the objects I wrote in LambdaMOO;
I'd just like to prevent copiers from taking author  credit for them.
I wrote some 2D-mapped-rendered, 3D-located, 3D-moving objects in a
multi-billion-coordinate space simulation environment within LambdaMOO.
It has several plots/adventures/puzzles/navigation-maneuvers also.
Drop by and pilot/orbit/travel/crash a ship anytime.
Must dash. Be seeing you...                                 wbw.

From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 01:26:12 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "01:22:27" "-0800" "Ian McFarland" "imf@netcom.com " nil "13" "Re: Ethics of Code Usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 01:22:27 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu, MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com,
	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
Subject: Re: Ethics of Code Usage

At 11:45 AM 11/18/93 -0800, Quinn Avery wrote:
>>If they wanted to, I suspect that Xerox could make a good case in
>> court that all MOO code is theirs in some sense.
> 
>Obviously they could try to do this.
> 
>But they aren't.

I write my code in a word processor, and upload it to the MOO server. :)
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
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From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 01:26:12 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "01:22:15" "-0800" "Ian McFarland" "imf@netcom.com " nil "9" "Re: ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 01:22:15 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage

At  5:22 AM 11/17/93 -0800, Nicholas LaFlamme wrote:
>     The Server itself is PD(as far as I know).  It seems tacky to try to
>enforce copyright laws on something written on someon elses PD system.

Um, paper is public domain. Pencils, too.
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| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
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From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 01:27:22 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 01:22:34 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, karl-boyken@uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

At  2:15 PM 11/18/93 -0800, Karl Boyken wrote:
>Quinn says, basically (I lost the original post, so I'm paraphrasing), that 
>the desire to copyright MOO code springs from idealism.  Then Allan Alford 
>chimes in with, in part:
>
>>Essentially, if your work has been 'published' under your name (even if
>>you didn't get paid for it!), then you can sue for copyright violation
>>if someone else reprints it.  I don't know if the Net counts as
>>'published' (I'm sure it would hold up in court), but the fact is that
>>you can put a 'copyright 1993 by Jane Doe' in with the 'don't heist this'
>>message, and stand a fair chance of winning a suit.
>
>This is idealism?  Dragging lawyers and copyright laws into MOOdom?  This is 
>a meaning of the term 'idealism' that I'm unfamiliar with.

The idealism derives from the hope that people will respect ones
intellectual property. I tend to doubt that a lot of this will end up in
court. It's more likely to arrive in a MOO arbitration, at the very worst.
Of course MOOs do have the death penalty. You can get toaded. (Death does
seem to be more ephemeral in VR, though.)

Is it really so much to ask that someone ask you before they copy your work?
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
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From ai.mit.edu!cstacy Fri Nov 19 02:26:27 1993
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	[nil "Thu" "18" "November" "1993" "15:49:05" "-0800" "Christopher C. Stacy" "cstacy@ai.mit.edu " nil "3" "Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 1993 15:49:05 -0800
From:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)
To:	chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

How about if someone just recreates the functionality of a piece of code,
without lifting the actual source?  How do authors feel about protecting
the look-and-feel of their MOO code?

From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 03:38:33 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "03:28:31" "-0800" "Ian McFarland" "imf@netcom.com " nil "51" "Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 03:28:31 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

At  3:49 PM 11/18/93 -0800, Christopher C. Stacy wrote:
>How about if someone just recreates the functionality of a piece of code,
>without lifting the actual source?  How do authors feel about protecting
>the look-and-feel of their MOO code?

That sounds a lot more reasonable, although it is still probably protected
by copyright. (I recommend people interested in the issues surrounding
interface copyright contact the League_for_Programming_Freedom @
lpf@uunet.uu.net for some well-written arguments against this kind of
copyright.)

My questions would be:

 o  Are they adding value in their modifications?

 o  Does theirs do something new?

If the answer is yes, then they are creating something new. Just because
the interface is the same doesn't mean that it's a copy. (Yes, they would
have benefitted from my design. The main question is did they do some
design of their own. I could then, of course, benefit from their design
improvements in the same manner.)

The Constitution of the United States states that the purpose of copyright
is to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." This sort of
use is consistent with that, as are assurances that credit (whether
monitary or not) will be given to those making to effort to create original
work. 
[The stated purposes are similar elsewhere.]

If the answer is no, then there is little difference whether the code was
copied or just reverse-engineered. Who typed the code is not as important
as who created the code. (Seems obvious, but I mention it anyway.)

In this case I'd expect the community to use the original (and probably
superior) product anyway. (Of course I'm an optimist.)

-Ian McFarland

P.S. I personally _believe_ in looking at other people's code to learn how
to do things (in a general sense, at least). The design really consists of
the funtionality that the designer intended. If you can combine ideas and
algorhythms from the designs of others into a meaningful new creation,
well, that is part of what copyright is designed to encourage. Of course
new inspiration is the best... and credit for inspiration is always
appreciated.
--
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| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
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From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Fri Nov 19 08:34:15 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "05:27:21" "-0800" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "30" "Netmail 2" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 05:27:21 -0800
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Netmail 2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>From my mail of 4 days ago:

>I have a little problem with sending mail from the MOO to the net.
>Every time $network:raw_send is called, it returns:
>Mail sending failed: 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized as
>local
>But... the mail is actually sent. So the MOO thinks it failed, but the mail is
>on its way.

I had a problem. Now I solved it, but I'm left with a puzzle.
I noticed that the mail sent on player creation failed, and the mail
forwarded (netforward option) both half-failed as described above.
But when I used $note:mailme, it worked OK. So $network had to be
customized correctly, right?

I took a look at $note:mailme. The only think I noticed that might be
relevant was that it did a suspend(0) immediately before $network:sendmail.
So I tried to stick a suspend(0) before :sendmail in the other verbs that
call :sendmail.
This didn't work, either.

What works now is: I put the call to :raw_sendmail inside a fork (0);
endfork, in :sendmail.

Why does this work?

(BTW, thanks to Larry and Peter for the comments.)




From nyx10.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Fri Nov 19 11:21:59 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "07:03:03" "-0800" "Nicholas LaFlamme" "nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu" nil "19" "Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 07:03:03 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	Ian McFarland <imf@netcom.com>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, Karl Boyken <karl-boyken@uiowa.edu>
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
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  Well, lets see.  I generally don't have a problem with asking and giving
proper credit.  As a matter of fact I have done so and had authors ask me
why I was bothering to ask.  Unfortunately, there is occassionally some
code that is needed immediately, and the Aurthor is unavailable.  The
Aurthor could remain unavailable for weeks.  This prompts you to simply do
a @dump and be done with it.

  In most cases, Copyright infringement is only prosecuatable where a
profit is made.  The purpose ofa copyright is basically to keep someone
else from making money of someone elses work.  Yes, I think that in many
cases it's somewhat tacky to steal code without asking.  However, I also
tend to consider all code property of the MOO itself, and it is stated as
such on the MOO I run.

					Nick



From nyx10.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Fri Nov 19 11:25:09 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "07:01:42" "-0800" "Nicholas LaFlamme" "nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu" nil "14" "Re: ethics of code usage" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 07:01:42 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	Ian McFarland <imf@netcom.com>
cc:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Fri, 19 Nov 1993, Ian McFarland wrote:

> At  5:22 AM 11/17/93 -0800, Nicholas LaFlamme wrote:
> >     The Server itself is PD(as far as I know).  It seems tacky to try to
> >enforce copyright laws on something written on someon elses PD system.
> 
> Um, paper is public domain. Pencils, too.
> #-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
> | imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
> #-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
> 
   Really!?  I'd love free pencils and paper!  Where can one find such things?



From uiowa.edu!karl-boyken Fri Nov 19 11:50:41 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "06:56:08" "-0800" "Karl Boyken" "karl-boyken@uiowa.edu " nil "49" "Re: Ethics o' Code Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 06:56:08 -0800
From:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code Liftin'
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Okay, hopefully the last thing I'll have to say about this (maybe--no 
guarantees  :) ). I am not advocating indiscriminate copying of MOO code 
without regard to the authors' wishes.  I don't do it, and if anyone I know 
did it, I'd tell them not to--in fact, I have.

But (you _knew_ this was coming) I also am idealistic--I'd like to see MOOs 
remain untrammeled by legalistic squabbles.  I'd like to see us solve our 
own problems without reference to RL legalities.  I'd _really_ like to see a 
VR community that subscribes in spirit to the GNU foundation's copyleft 
concept.  I practice what I preach, in RL as well as in VR--I have a couple 
software packages floating around in RL with my name on them, which are 
freely distributable.  One of them is a package that can be used to help 
manage Novell LANs; given the market, I probably could have gotten some $$$ 
for it, but I chose not to.

I'm not trying to set myself up as a saint.  I've got a good job and am not 
just starting out and trying to get a foothold.  Maybe if I were younger, 
poorer, and (let's face it) more ambitious, I'd be asking for money.

I don't have anything against anyone wanting to be paid for their work.  But 
I believe that if we start dragging RL legalities into VR, it will bite us 
on our collective ass.  Besides the things I've already pointed out, let me 
throw in one more.  I'm assuming that at least some of you have RL 
programming jobs.  It's possible that if you do try to claim RL ownership of 
your MOO code, your employer might claim it instead.  I've worked as an 
application programmer.  Some companies require you to relinquish claim to 
_any_ software you write while employed--even software you write on your own 
time, with your own resources.  Even companies that don't require employees 
to sign such agreements can possibly claim their employees' code, if they 
can show that any of the resources, including training, that the company has 
provided has been used in producing the code.

I know that some of you who want to copyright your MOO code are sitting 
there saying, "Yeah, right--it won't happen to me."  But copyrights _will_ 
eventually lead to court, and when lawyers and judges become involved in 
anything, no one can predict what will happen.  We need to find some VR 
means of allowing authors to control their code if they want to.  By 
dragging RL copyright concepts onto the MOOs, you in effect will be handing 
control over your code to the RL court system.  You risk losing any claim at 
all on your own code.  It _will_ happen, to some of you, sometime.  You 
heard it here first.

Karl Boyken, aka Klaatu (a MOO Cassandra)

Karl Boyken, system programmer, Dept. of Computer Science
303A MLH, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA  52242
voice:  319-335-2730   fax:  319-335-0627
Internet:  karl-boyken@uiowa.edu


From nyx10.cs.du.edu!nlaflamm Fri Nov 19 11:52:42 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 07:09:22 -0800
From:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
To:	"Christopher C. Stacy" <cstacy@ai.mit.edu>
cc:	chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Thu, 18 Nov 1993, Christopher C. Stacy wrote:

> How about if someone just recreates the functionality of a piece of code,
> without lifting the actual source?  How do authors feel about protecting
> the look-and-feel of their MOO code?

  When I steal code(And I have.  I've never considered it a big deal.), I
always tend to gut it and make it my own.  If nothing else, differant MOOS
have differant needs.  That's the Beauty of MOO.  The entire idea of look
and feel is ludicrous.  Ideas are not copyrightable.

					Nick



From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Fri Nov 19 11:58:02 1993
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In-Reply-to: "<199311190916.BAA06693@mail.netcom.com> from \"Ian McFarland\" at Nov 19, 93 01:22:34 am"
Message-ID: <199311191530.JAA71036@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 07:30:17 -0800
From:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
To:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, karl-boyken@uiowa.edu
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
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*grin*
Well, now that we've established that:
	1) The law is kind of vague in this situation,
	and
	2) the only consensus about it among MOO programmers is
	that there is no consensus among MOO programmers,
I'd like to make a suggestion (plea?):

Document your wishes in your code! A simple comment like:

"stupid spam verb written by BeanBreath for RudeDudeMOO"
"Please ask permission before porting"

Just a little something to let the rest of us know what you want.
Personally, I agree with the GNU-minded crowd, but I'll certainly
honor the wishes of any other programmer re: their code.
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* chambles@whale.st.usm.edu

From actlab.rtf.utexas.edu!chiphead Fri Nov 19 12:01:32 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "07:09:41" "-0800" "Allan Alford" "chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu" nil "21" "My last bit on the ethics issue..." "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 07:09:41 -0800
From:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
To:	MOOcows <moo-cows.parc@xerox.com>
Subject: My last bit on the ethics issue...
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O.K.

I was bringing up all the lawyer/copyright bullshit because It seemed that
that is what people wanted to talk about, and because I've got a bit of a
background in that stuff.

Back to reality.

I'm just a fucking hippy anyway.  I love the MOOspace because it's communal.
I have lifted other folk's code for my MOO, and have credited people for what
they have done.

I hope to soon get good enough to where people are lifting my code,
and I certainly expect to get credit for it too.

Fuck the law.  MOO is for kicks, so let's have them!

Chiphead




From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Fri Nov 19 12:44:26 1993
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Message-ID: <9311191838.AA18991@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 10:38:14 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu
cc:	imf@netcom.com, nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: ethics of code usage

   X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	   of Denver.  The University has neither control over nor
	   responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users.
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   Date: 	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 07:01:42 PST
   From: Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>

   On Fri, 19 Nov 1993, Ian McFarland wrote:

   > At  5:22 AM 11/17/93 -0800, Nicholas LaFlamme wrote:
   > >     The Server itself is PD(as far as I know).  It seems tacky to try to
   > >enforce copyright laws on something written on someon elses PD system.
   > 
   > Um, paper is public domain. Pencils, too.

    Really!?  I'd love free pencils and paper!  Where can one find such things?

A common misconception is that Public Domain means Free.

But since you asked, you can find free pencils and paper in any hotel
lobby, handed out by salespeople, doctor's offices, etc...

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ   yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net


From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 12:56:28 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 11:33:17 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

At  9:30 AM 11/19/93 -362012, John William Chambless wrote:
>Just a little something to let the rest of us know what you want.
>Personally, I agree with the GNU-minded crowd, but I'll certainly
>honor the wishes of any other programmer re: their code.

Funny you should mention GNU. GNU *is* copyright, and they still distribute
everything for free. (Write to the eff and get their take on copyright.
eff@eff.org? I think that's the address.)

[Let's not assume that people are going to ba taking people to court over
this. Please?]
--
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#


From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 12:56:28 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 11:31:25 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	image@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Jeff T.P.)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

At  7:37 AM 11/19/93 -0500, Jeff T.P. wrote:
>Original quote by Ian McFarland:
>
>> That sounds a lot more reasonable, although it is still probably protected
>> by copyright. (I recommend people interested in the issues surrounding
>> interface copyright contact the League_for_Programming_Freedom @
>> lpf@uunet.uu.net for some well-written arguments against this kind of
>> copyright.)
>
>Everyone planning on copyrighting their MOO-Code, stay away from my
>code.

Let me quietly point out to you here that the statement of mine you quoted
is an argument against copyright.

>I can't believe the "Idealism" here.  It's MINE MINE MINE.  Listen.  If
>you folks are so selfish that you have to copyright your code, and that
>you're so damn self-centered that you absolutely must have credit for
>your code even if you can't put a simple comment in yourself, then don't

>The Virtual society neither needs nor wants you greedy
>self-serving egotistical fools.
>
Thank you, Mr. Spokes-model for Virtual Society.

>The point is simple. . . yes, ethics dictates that we give credit, and
>ask the owner of the code for permission.

I'm glad we agree on that, at least.

>                                       ...However if you want to hinder
>the development of software by copyrighting it, then please seek
>employment at some backward company such a microsoft and program a new
>version of Windows.  We don't want your "contribution" to the Virtual
>society.  You're not worth the DBSpace you waste!
>
I didn't think most of us are suggesting that. We want to be asked, but I
think mnost of us would say yes with no hesitation.

>--Sorry to all those who feel they are important, but I know to many
>dedicated indiviuals who slave and work their lives away not for pride
>or money incentives, but rather because they are enjoying themselves.
>If you aren't enjoying yourself, then stop!  Duh.  
>
Look, the point is that, if people could make some money out of MOO-coding,
there would be that much more incentive to do it well. I'm pretty sure we
wouldn't have quite a number of useful things without copyright. Why act
like money debases everything. (See the comment about Dickens in a prior
post.)
I myself can't work on the code I've been creating, because I have to go to
'work' now. You know, for money. And I suppose you're independently
wealthy?

>I'm not saying that I take code without asking or without giving credit.
>I don't.  I'm saying that you people are such capitalist pigs that it
>makes even the most law-school intended students cringe.

Um, some of us are not asking for money.

>For those of you making a living by coding, I suggest you continue
>making money. . . that however means you stay on top of the Darwinian
>pile and continue to produce productive code and not sit back and let
>others surpass your "all supreme" works while you collect your
>royalties.

If you really feel that way, I suggest you stop using copyrighted software,
as a matter of principal. (You might find that hard to do though.)
--
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#


From netcom.com!imf Fri Nov 19 12:58:38 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 11:30:40 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage

>> Um, paper is public domain. Pencils, too.

>   Really!?  I'd love free pencils and paper!  Where can one find such things?

You're welcome to make your own. You don't even have to give credit.
--
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
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From feenix.metronet.com!kira Fri Nov 19 12:58:38 1993
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Sender: kira@feenix.metronet.com
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Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
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On Fri, 19 Nov 1993, John William Chambless wrote:

> *grin*
> Well, now that we've established that:
> 	1) The law is kind of vague in this situation,
> 	and
> 	2) the only consensus about it among MOO programmers is
> 	that there is no consensus among MOO programmers,
> I'd like to make a suggestion (plea?):
> 
> Document your wishes in your code! A simple comment like:
> 
> "stupid spam verb written by BeanBreath for RudeDudeMOO"
> "Please ask permission before porting"

Good point.  Although mine would read "Don't port me".  I wonder
if I could make mud.el stick that into my verbs when I edit them.
(and not repeat it if its already there).

My solution to this point has been to set most stuff unreadable
except by wizzes.  Of course that doesn't protect me from wizzes who
think the MOO owns my code, or those untrustworthy siteadmins who
would happily steal my db for their own benefit.  But owell.  It's
just (?) a game...

-j.
(another starving MOO programmer who'd love to get paid to do this.)



From cs.cornell.edu!samuel Fri Nov 19 13:04:29 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 11:11:22 -0800
From:	samuel@cs.cornell.edu (Sam Weber)
To:	imf@netcom.com, nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: ethics of code usage

>From: Nicholas LaFlamme <nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
>On Fri, 19 Nov 1993, Ian McFarland wrote:
>> At  5:22 AM 11/17/93 -0800, Nicholas LaFlamme wrote:
>> >     The Server itself is PD(as far as I know).  It seems tacky to try to
>> >enforce copyright laws on something written on someon elses PD system.
>> 
>> Um, paper is public domain. Pencils, too.
>> #-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
>> | imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
>> #-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
>> 
>   Really!?  I'd love free pencils and paper!  Where can one find such things?

*sigh*  "Alice In Wonderland" is in the public domain.  Do you think that
you can therefore walk into your local bookstore and demand a free copy of
it?  Pencils and paper are PD -- you don't need to get anyone's permission
to make or use a blank sheet of paper, or a pencil.

  -Sam

From media.mit.edu!asb Fri Nov 19 13:38:11 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 12:40:31 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: verbs moving locations


As I might have mentionned, I'm designing a simple programming language
for kids built on top of MOO.  It's going to be called MOOSE.  :-)
Pavel is helping me with it.

In MOOSE, you don't need to specify where a verb is.  Suppose your
room has a "silly-word" and you only want your friends to be able to
change the silly word.  In MOOSE this is:

use here
on new-word word
  if player in my friends
	set my silly-word to word
	tell player "Silly word set to "+word
	announce-all "There's a new silly word!"
   else
	tell player "Sorry, you can't change the silly word."
   endif


I'd like to compile this into MOO code.  The MOO code would look like:

@program here:new-word any none none
  if (player in this.friends)
	this.silly_word = dobjstr;
	player:tell("Silly word set to ", dobjstr);
	this.location:announce_all("There's a new silly word!");
  else
	player:tell("Sorry, you can't change the silly word.");
  endif;


In MOO code, you have to specify where a verb is (if it's not a builtin).  At
the command line, you just call a verb, and the parser hunts through a fixed
sequence of objects to find which verb has been called.  MOOSE code is more
like the command line.  Now, here's the question:

Can I find the location of a verb at compile time, or does it have to be done
at run time?

The call to "announce" got compiled to "this.location:announce".  If later I
add a new announce verb higher in the precedence sequence (say on my player
object rather than the room), it isn't going to get called.  There's also some
confusion about how the compiler figured out to call announce on this.location
instead of on the specific room number.

This is really only an issue in cases in which the object the verb is on is
not one of the arguments.  (The room isn't an argument supplied to announce or
say, for example).  In the example of tell, the player is supplied as an
argument, so there's never any confusion.

One solution is to find the location of every verb at run time, not
compile time.  This means I've really got more of an interpreter, rather
than a compiler.  Maybe that's the right thing to do... I'm not sure.

Another solution is to let things behave weirdly under certain unusual
circumstances-- like someone adding a "say" verb to their character.  The code
generated then depends on the compile environment. (Eek!)  So a key question
is: How often do circumstances like that come up?

-- Amy



From dus.mountain.net!quinn Fri Nov 19 15:09:49 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "12:53:44" "-0800" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.mountain.net" nil "13" "Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <199311192053.AA00700@DUS.Mountain.Net>
Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 12:53:44 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu, imf@netcom.com
cc:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

"stupid spam verb written by BeanBreath for RudeDudeMOO"
"Please ask permission before porting"

And also put a sign in your front yard reading "I'd rather you
 not steal my stuff and rape my grandmother without asking."

And when you take an exam, make sure you write in big bold red
 ink at the top: "Please don't copy off of me!"

And when you're reading a story to everone in your creative
 writing class, tell them AGAIN and AGAIN that you don't want
 them to xerox the story and sell it themselves.


From dus.mountain.net!quinn Fri Nov 19 15:55:43 1993
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Message-ID: <199311192211.AA00902@DUS.Mountain.Net>
Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 14:11:27 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	chambles@whale.st.usm.edu, quinn@dus.mountain.net
cc:	imf@netcom.com, karl-boyken@uiowa.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'

I believe I have over a THOUSAND verbs on LambdaMOO alone.

Should I go through each and add a comment, perhaps adding 80k of
 needless space to the db?

I don't care if people use my code.  I -do- care if they use my
 code and at the same time insult me or my work.  I -do- care if
 they use my code for profit and don't cut me in.  Not because
 I'm a greedy little bastard, but because this is what I'd like
 to do for a living.

I've put a hell of a lot of work into some of my projects, and I
 would at the very least expect some respect and credit.

I have no desire to !r my code.  That's rude and against the very
 collaborative nature of MOO.  I want people to learn from, and to
 use my code.  But I want credit, and if they make money on it, I
 want some of that money myself.

-quinn (rambling and repetitive)

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Fri Nov 19 16:02:35 1993
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	[nil "Fri" "19" "November" "1993" "13:55:29" "-0800" "John William Chambless" "chambles@whale.st.usm.edu" nil "28" "Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <199311192154.PAA57060@whale.st.usm.edu>
Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 13:55:29 -0800
From:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
To:	quinn@dus.mountain.net (Quinn Avery)
cc:	imf@netcom.com, karl-boyken@uiowa.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
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In an earlier message, Quinn Avery said something like:
> 
> And also put a sign in your front yard reading "I'd rather you
>  not steal my stuff and rape my grandmother without asking."
> 
> And when you take an exam, make sure you write in big bold red
>  ink at the top: "Please don't copy off of me!"
> 

I think you're missing the spirit of the thing. All the examples you give 
are of things that are pretty clearly immoral -- most people would
prefer that you not rape their grandmother.

But in the MOO community, there is a spirit of helping one another, or at
least there is among some members of said community.

MOO lets you set permissions to your code for that very reason--to
give the creator the option of sharing his/her work or not.

The whole point of my suggestion was to let the creator's wishes be known.
There are many software developers who would rather not re-invent the wheel,
and would like to help others avoid re-inventing it.

Adding a comment or two to let people know how you feel is a simple precaution.

-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* chambles@whale.st.usm.edu

From whale.st.usm.edu!chambles Fri Nov 19 16:04:36 1993
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Date:	Fri, 19 Nov 1993 14:53:00 -0800
From:	John William Chambless <chambles@whale.st.usm.edu>
To:	quinn@dus.mountain.net (Quinn Avery)
cc:	quinn@dus.mountain.net, imf@netcom.com, karl-boyken@uiowa.edu,
	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'
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I certainly agree with you about the right to get credit for your
work. I was really just suggesting a procedure we can all follow for new
work to makeit simpler in the future.

Knowing how you feel about your stuff, and knowing that the little bit of
your code I've seen was at least identified as yours, it's easy for me to check
with you before using it.

But what does one do with code that's not identified, or when one cant find
the creator?
-- 
* In Real Life: Billy Chambless		    University of Southern Mississippi 
* chambles@whale.st.usm.edu

From conrad.appstate.edu!AB3588 Sat Nov 20 00:28:44 1993
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Subject: Next Server Wish: size()
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I think the next version of the MOO server should have some kind of
 built-in function for measuring object, verb, and property sizes in
 bytes instead of having to approximate it really slowly from in-DB.

--- Dov Sherman
    AB3588@Stat.Appstate.edu


From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Sat Nov 20 09:47:08 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "November" "1993" "09:38:48" "-0800" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " "<9311201735.AA01215@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>" "84" "Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 09:38:48 -0800
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Encapsulation
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I had an idea for a change to the MOO basic functioning, that would allow
for a relatively easy implementation of one aspect of object-orientedness
that MOO lacks - encapsulation.
Being a biologist, I have only a vague idea of what encapsulation really
implies...
...but I understand that, in a system with encapsulation, objects control
the information they store (properties, in our case), so that other objects
can't freely read it, or write on it.
Where MOO stands now, object A can just use B.propname to get that info,
and if the expression B.propname is at the left side of a "=", it just
writes into it. (all this, controlled by permissions, OK, but this is not
the main point now)
If encapsulation was there, A would have to 'send a message' to B asking
for the value in 'propname', or telling B to assign a new value to
'propname'.
In fact, 'propname' could even just be undefined on B. From A's point of
view, what B does is irrelevant, as long as it gives the requested
info/accepts the given info.

After all this... my proposal:

(1) Whenever the server finds a reference (in a verb on object A) to a
'property' defined on 'this' (A), it treats it as usual. (an object
accesses its info naturally)
(2) Whenever the server finds a reference (in a verb on object A) to a
'property' defined on another object (B), it checks for the presence of a
callable verb with the same name as the 'property'.
    (2a) If there isn't such a verb, the treatment is as in (1).
    (2b) If there is such a verb, it is called, and its return value is the
value of the 'property'.
(3) If the reference to the property is on the left side of a "=", the verb
is called with one parameter: the value to assign to the property. In all
other cases (that is, when the property information is being retrieved) the
verb is called without parameters.


Examples:

For verbs defined on object #A, assuming (this != player), just for the example:

The code you write           What it does in fact
...
foo1 = this.bar;       \
foo2 = #A.baz;            No changes... the object is using
this.bar = foo2;          internal information.
#A.baz = foo1;         /
...

...
foo1 = player.bar;    ==>   foo1 = player:bar();
foo2 = #B.baz;        ==>   foo2 = #B:baz();
player.bar = foo2;    ==>   player:bar(foo2);
#B.baz = foo1;        ==>   #B:baz(foo1);
...

The :propname verb would default to:

if (args)
  this.(verb) = args[1];
else
  return this.(verb);
endif


As you can see, now any object/object-class can control access to its
internal information.
It simply has to define a verb named accordingly.
In fact, an object now can 'provide' answers for properties it doesn't even
define. As stated above, when A asks B for the value of some property, it
needn't be concerned about whether B really defines it.
If B has a suitable verb...

I think most of the existing MOOcode wouldn't crash with such a change, but
I haven't probed too deeply.
In fact, no little work has already been done in this direction. Examples
are use of :description, :all_sorts_of_msg, etc.


How difficult would it be to implement this?
Do people think it would be useful?
Would it break existing code too badly? Would such a change mean server 2.1.1?




From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Nov 20 12:50:48 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "November" "1993" "12:31:44" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "25" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 12:31:44 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

> Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 09:38:48 -0800
> From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
> 
> for a relatively easy implementation of one aspect of object-orientedness
> that MOO lacks - encapsulation.
> 
> I think most of the existing MOOcode wouldn't crash with such a change, but
> I haven't probed too deeply.

I think you're wrong here.

> How difficult would it be to implement this?

It would be more-or-less straightforward to implement this.

> Do people think it would be useful?

I might agree that it was a good idea, if I were working from a clean slate; as
I am not doing so, I think it's too wildly incompatible for consideration.

> Would it break existing code too badly?

I believe so.

	Pavel

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Sat Nov 20 13:01:48 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "November" "1993" "12:54:11" "-0800" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu" nil "35" "Reply to Ethics O' Code Lifting, Part II" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Thu, 18 Nov 93 18:54:54 PST\"
             <Pine.3.07.9311182054.A8497-b100000@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>n"
Message-ID: <9311202054.AA19162@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 12:54:11 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	Allan Alford <chiphead@actlab.rtf.utexas.edu>
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Ethics O' Code Lifting, Part II

> Hmmm.
> 
> All of jrp@wildcat.widener.edu's sarcasm aside, that is actually an
> interesting point.

Hee hee. I was only being naughty. :) By the way, it's "WIDCAT" as in
"Widener Catalog". :)

> PC Magazine and others of its ilk will periodically print out source code
> to some of their "nifty" utilities.
[...] other good points about copyrights deleted

This is where the principle of "fair use" comes into play. If I buy
a CD, for example, it is considered "fair use" for me to copy it to 
a cassette for my personal listening enjoyment. It is not considered
"fair use" for me to copy it to cassette and give it to my girlfriend.
(If it were my wife, however, and the CD were community property, it
gets a little fuzzy).

We can easy copyright Moo code, if we follow the necessary steps:

1) Make sure the copyright message is seen by all users that might use
the code. This can be accomplished simply by putting the message
"Accessed programs may be protected by copyright" on the login screen,
specific copyright messages in the documentation and source code, and
perhaps even an offline printed copy of the code, dated of course.

2) Take actions to enforce the copyright. If someone copyrights code
but doesn't try to prevent it from being copied, or ignores obvious
violations of the copyright, then it legally doesn't exist.

You could even go so far as to register the copyright on it, but that
costs money. :)

--JRP [Shirgall@lotsa places]

From netcom.com!imf Sat Nov 20 13:54:23 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "November" "1993" "13:50:29" "-0800" "Ian McFarland" "imf@netcom.com " nil "50" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 13:50:29 -0800
From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

At 12:31 PM 11/20/93 -0800, Pavel Curtis wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 09:38:48 -0800
>> From: bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
>> 
>> for a relatively easy implementation of one aspect of object-orientedness
>> that MOO lacks - encapsulation.
>> 
>> I think most of the existing MOOcode wouldn't crash with such a change, but
>> I haven't probed too deeply.
>
>I think you're wrong here.
>
>> How difficult would it be to implement this?
>
>It would be more-or-less straightforward to implement this.
>
>> Do people think it would be useful?
>
>I might agree that it was a good idea, if I were working from a clean slate; as
>I am not doing so, I think it's too wildly incompatible for consideration.
>
>> Would it break existing code too badly?
>
>I believe so.
>
>        Pavel

I personally think that encapsulation is of enough value that the problems
are worth looking at. Another possibility is for the programmer to set an
'encapsulation bit' which says to the interpreter that access is restricted
to the encapsulation model. This could be done in two ways:

1) an object could have an encapsulation bit, or

2) each property could have an encapsulation bit.

This sort of explicit declaration (via chmod) should allow the interpreter
to work normally with all previous code. Shouldn't it?

What are some of the problems you forsee? I'm sure we MOO-Cows types would
do our best to solve them.

I would love encapsulation.

-Ian (Hannes@Lambda, IanM@Media)
--
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#
| imf@netcom,com  or  imf@tatertot.com                Jeste pivo, prosim! |
#-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-#


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Nov 20 15:16:12 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "November" "1993" "15:08:43" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "16" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <199311202144.NAA13036@mail.netcom.com>
Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 15:08:43 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	imf@netcom.com
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

> Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 13:50:29 -0800
> From:	imf@netcom.com (Ian McFarland)
> 
> 1) an object could have an encapsulation bit, or
> 
> 2) each property could have an encapsulation bit.
> 
> This sort of explicit declaration (via chmod) should allow the interpreter
> to work normally with all previous code. Shouldn't it?

Yes, but I object to adding yet another bunch of hair on top of an already too
hairy object model.  I think that the current permissions systems gives
programmers enough flexibility in the encapsulation department that it's not
worth adding more hair for it to the language.

	Pavel

From canth.hacks.arizona.edu!WEB Sat Nov 20 16:33:20 1993
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	[nil "Sat" "20" "November" "1993" "16:26:06" "-0800" "\"Wayne E. Bouchard\"" "WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu" nil "14" "RE: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sat, 20 Nov 1993 16:26:06 -0800
From:	"Wayne E. Bouchard" <WEB@canth.hacks.arizona.edu>
To:	MOO-COWS.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: RE: Encapsulation

Well, as far as hunting for a verb first, thats easy enough to do from a DB 
standpoint.. Many verbs do this already. The code is simple granting that
there are slightly different ways to go about this. Here's one 
possiblility:

verb set !d with the following somewhere in it.

foo_prop = object:foo  | object.foo;

Simple eh? It's merely up to the programmer to make sure that the verb 
doesn't accidentally get set +d blowing the whole thing out the window. :)

-Wayne (aka Sadric)


From genmagic.genmagic.com!bloom Sun Nov 21 10:38:12 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "10:38:37" "-0800" "Christopher Bloom" "bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com " "<93Nov21.103759pst.43014@lane.parc.xerox.com>" "46" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 10:38:37 -0800
From:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
To:	imf@netcom.com, Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

At  3:08 PM 11/20/93 -0800, Pavel Curtis wrote:
>...
> I object to adding yet another bunch of hair on top of an already too
>hairy object model.  I think that the current permissions systems gives
>programmers enough flexibility in the encapsulation department that it's not
>worth adding more hair for it to the language.
>
>        Pavel
The current permissions systems are all about security, they do not have
anything to do with flexibility.  And the flexibility we are looking for
here is the extra level of abstraction provided by the verbs or "getters"
as they are called in some other object oriented languages.  I can tell you
that from personal experience with this feature that once you have it you
wonder how you were able to develop objects that could react properly to
the variety of interactions that are demanded of it.   Of course this
feature can be had by disallowing direct access to any attributes and 
provide operations to be used for access instead.   Pavel, is this what you
were referring to by "flexibility"?  It is also useful to provide verbs for
setting the attributes of an object.    

Philosophically speaking,  as an object I would personally want to be
congnizant of any attempts to access my internal "organs"  and react
algorythmically to the setting or getting of any of them.   And I too
believe that it could put a serious dent in the number of MOO server
crashes.   But anyway, how else am I, as an agent with a will to live life
to its fullest supposed to evolve  into an autonomous entity that can roam
the universe of MOO which is my home and  my prison,  at least until
someone provides ny house with a door  that will encode me when I step
through, carry me as a bag of bits over the wire to another MUD which will
decode the bag of bits which is me into my instance, and set me free on a
thread to reestablish a connection with my client (if I have one) and
continue on my mission (if I have one) as if I had just moved from one
place to another from within the same MUD.   And hey, although this has
nothing to do with verbs, isn't it the ultimate form of encapsulation?   
Transcending the traditional confines of RPC programming with agent
technology should be high on the list of things to do.


--->CBB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Christopher Barkley Bloom              (415)966-6290
General Magic                                       bloom@genmagic.com
CyberLife Enthusiast
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--


From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Nov 21 11:17:15 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "11:07:57" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "38" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 11:07:57 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

Er:

|>...
|> I object to adding yet another bunch of hair on top of an already too
|>hairy object model.  I think that the current permissions systems gives
|>programmers enough flexibility in the encapsulation department that it's not
|>
|>        Pavel

> Philosophically speaking,  as an object I would personally want to be
> congnizant of any attempts to access my internal "organs"  and react
> algorythmically to the setting or getting of any of them.   And I too
> believe that it could put a serious dent in the number of MOO server
> crashes.   But anyway, how else am I, as an agent with a will to live life
> to its fullest supposed to evolve  into an autonomous entity that can roam
> the universe of MOO which is my home and  my prison,  at least until
> someone provides ny house with a door  that will encode me when I step
> through, carry me as a bag of bits over the wire to another MUD which will
> decode the bag of bits which is me into my instance, and set me free on a
> thread to reestablish a connection with my client (if I have one) and
> continue on my mission (if I have one) as if I had just moved from one
> place to another from within the same MUD.   And hey, although this has
> nothing to do with verbs, isn't it the ultimate form of encapsulation?   
> Transcending the traditional confines of RPC programming with agent
> technology should be high on the list of things to do.
>
>  Christopher Barkley Bloom              bloom@genmagic.com

Woah!  Reality check people!  Ok, MOO can't manage encapsulation, fine, let
it suffer.  If you want encapsulation use a DIFFERENT language, like C-- from
ColdMUD for instance.  Can you believe JaysHouse is going to come back as a
MOO?!

Style note:  If you don't smile, people think you're an asshole. ;)

Andy.  "Yer average 'good idea' lasts about 3 years."



From aero.org!cal Sun Nov 21 12:14:49 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "05:22:18" "-0800" "cal@aero.org" "cal@aero.org" nil "216" "Notes on changing complex software systems" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 05:22:18 -0800
From:	cal@aero.org
To:	moo-cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Notes on changing complex software systems


Gustavo's suggestions ("wouldn't it be nice if ...") and Pavel's response
("yes, and it would not be hard, but existing code would break ...") are an
example of a problem that shows up in all computing application areas: the
albatross of existing code.  Those people and organizations who cannot afford
to wait until they can write or buy the "last" version of a system or language
are forced to write the "first" version instead: they must make some design
decisions that they would prefer not to make.  It is in the nature of many of
those decisions that at a later time they might be made differently, except
for the existing code that would be broken.  I'm going to offer some
suggestions for a change in attitude about producing code.  They are not
criticisms of MOO; ALL long-lived programs or programming systems eventually
have the same problem.  Programs built by many people are especially subject
to this problem because different people prefer different styles of
programming.

I work in an application area (space systems) in which very large systems are
routinely millions of lines of code, take years to produce and live for
decades; we face this problem in every project.  Not only do many people (even
many companies) cooperate to write these programs, but they contain many
different programming styles because they perform many different kinds of
functions.  Because there are no good methods for producing code of this
magnitude and heterogeneity, and no methods of any kind for revising it on the
fly, this albatross problem of Software ReUse is particularly important to us.
We have been conducting basic research in this area for some years, and I
think it might be useful to this community to read some of what we have
learned.

What we have been doing in our research is to begin with this aspect of
computing, and take multiplicity as a fundamental characteristic of the system
that must be supported by our software infrastructure.  Our goal in this
research is to determine the kinds of infrastructure needed to manage this
complexity.  Another way to describe this fundamental characteristic is to
note that no one model suffices to describe a complex system; no one
programming methodology; no one programming language.  There is even ample
evidence that people do not use one hierarchy of simple objects (see George
Lakoff's book "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", which reports on some
interesting research of Eleanor Rosch).  One result is that whenever we think
of a way to do something, we must choose whether or not it is the "last" way
we will use; almost always it is not.  So the question becomes "How can we
maintain the flexibility we think we will need, so that all of these questions
can be given different answers as we learn more about the processes required?"

Though it is sometimes hard to tell in our business, there have been some
fundamental advances in the practice of computing over the last 30 years.  The
layering that makes computer networks as ubiquitous as they are now is one way
to manage certain kinds of complexity.  Another is the object style of
modeling the components of a program.  Another is the ease with which
programming language interpreters and compilers can be built for simple
languages.  Another is the notion of "meta-", that is, explicit knowledge
bases that contain declarative knowledge about processes in the program.  For
you non-historians out there, all of these are between 20 and 30 years old;
they have been greatly refined in the interim, but not fundamentally changed.

OK, enough background; here is what I recommend for infrastructure in complex
systems.  We call it the "wrapping" approach; there are lots of papers now
about it.  I will come back to MOO TOO 8-) at the end.

First, every part of a system is a "resource" that provides some kind of
"information service".  This includes tools, programs, external files,
databases, user interfaces, other communication interfaces, etc.
(Everything!).  Then every resource has one or more "wrappings", which are
explicit machine-processible descriptions of the uses of the resource.

The wrapping descriptions are used for the "Intelligent User Support"
functions: "Selection" (which resource should be used for a particular
problem), "Assembly" (how is it used: data formats and protocols, the
syntactic information), "Integration" (when should it be used: assumptions and
limitations, the semantic information), "Adaptation" (how is it set up for a
particular kind of problem), and "Explanation" (why was it used in this
context).

The processes that read and interpret wrappings are equally important, since
they organize the information services provided by the resources.  Our notion
of problems deals with context as an explicit part of the problem study
process.  Therefore, problem study always occurs after a context is chosen and
a problem is posed.  The basic problem study sequence is monitored by a
resource called the "Study Manager", which has the following simple steps:

	interpret problem:
		match resources
		resolve resources
		select resource
		adapt resource
		advise poser
	apply resource
	assess results

"Matching" resources means finding a set of resources that might apply to the
current problem in the current context.  It is intended to allow a superficial
first pass through a possibly large Knowledge Base of wrappings.  "Resolving"
resources means eliminating those that do not apply.  It is intended to allow
negotiations between problem poser and wrapping about each resource to
determine whether it can be applied.  "Selecting" a resource is simply making
a choice of which of the remaining candidate resources (if any) to use.
"Adapting" a resource is setting it up for the current problem and problem
context.  "Advising" the poser is notifying the problem poser (who could be a
user or another part of the system) of what resource was chosen and how it was
set up.  "Applying" a resource is using it to provide its information service,
either doing something or presenting something.  "Assessing" results is
determining if the application succeeded or failed, and helping to decide what
to do next.

OK, so far this is just a simple-minded planner-type algorithm.  Several
additional design features make it a framework for something more.  First, all
of the wrapping processes are themselves wrapped.  Second, the processing is
completely recursive: "Posing" a problem is itself a problem, and is solved
using the same steps, as is "finding" a context and "applying" a resource and
ALL of the other steps listed above.  The simple-minded form is just the
bottom of the recursion.  These two things mean that every new planning idea
that applies to a particular problem domain (which information would be part
of the context) can be written as a resource that is selectable according to
context; it also means that every new mechanism we find for adaptation or
every specialization we have for application can be implemented as a separate
resource and selected at an appropriate time.

Furthermore, since the Study Manager steps above are the only ones that
interact with the Wrapping Knowledge Base (WKB), we can use completely
different syntax and semantics for different parts of the WKB in different
contexts, and select the appropriate processing according to context.
Finally, the Study Manager is only one of a family of processes called
"Problem Managers", each of which is wrapped and selectable according to
context, and each of which can pose problems and organize their study in
different ways.  For example, the original context and problem that starts the
processing are problems

	find context
	pose problem

posed by the Coordination Manager.  The kinds of resources that might be
chosen to apply to these problems would be menus or other requests to the
human user to make a choice of context and problem.

All of this is layered on top of a message-passing mechanism that keeps track
of which resource is interested in which messages, how to apply the resources
(the interface between the application request and the operating system), and
how to deliver messages; it collects and distributes messages accordingly.

Many more details can be found in the references below; this is not a complete
theory; it is more like a framework for a theory, and we think it makes a very
good approach to the problem of software infrastructure for large system
integration (nothing says the resources have to be software).

For the MOO, what this approach offers is the following intriguing property:
changing the fundamental nature of the programming language, not by replacing
the old one with a new one, but by adding a new one to work side by side with
the old one, with context information used to disambiguate if the expressions
themselves do not.  There would be "little languages" with little parsers to
make the connection between language expressions and activity in the server or
the database, and ALL of those choices would be variable.  Compatibility is
not an issue; NO one language can express all the things we might want to
express, so there cannot be one comprehensive compatible organization; we have
to start with the notion that there will be multiple partially incompatible
languages.  As I have now come full circle to the point with which this note
began, I will stop here.  Comments are welcome.

more later,
cal

			Christopher Landauer
			Systems Planning and Development Division
			The Aerospace Corporation
			cal@aero.org
			(703) 318-1666

References

Kirstie L. Bellman,
	``An Approach to Integrating and Creating Flexible Software
		Environments Supporting the Design of Complex Systems'',
	Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence in Logistics Meeting,
	8-10 March 1993, Williamsburg, Va.,
		American Defense Preparedness Association (1993)

Kirstie L. Bellman,
	``The Challenges in Testing Heterogeneous Software Environments'',
	Proceedings AIAA Computers in Aerospace 9 Conference,
	19-21 October 1993, San Diego (1993)

Kirstie L. Bellman, April Gillam, Christopher Landauer,
	``Challenges for Conceptual Design Environments:
		The VEHICLES Experience'',
	Rev. Int. de CFAO et d'Infographie, Hermes, Paris (September 1993)

Christopher Landauer,
	``Applications of the Wrapping Approach in Software Engineering'',
	Proceedings AIAA Computers in Aerospace 9 Conference,
	19-21 October 1993, San Diego (1993)

Christopher Landauer, Kirstie Bellman,
	``Integrated Simulation Environments'' (invited paper),
	Proceedings of DARPA Variable Resolution Modeling Conference,
	5-6 May 1992, Herndon, Virginia, 
	Conference Proceedings CF-103-DARPA, published by RAND (March 1993);
		shortened version in
	Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence in Logistics Meeting,
	8-10 March 1993, Williamsburg, Va.,
		American Defense Preparedness Association (1993)

Christopher Landauer, Kirstie L. Bellman,
	``The Role of Self-Referential Logics in a Software Architecture
		Using Wrappings'',
	Proceedings of ISS '93: the 3rd Irvine Software Symposium,
	30 April 1993, U.C. Irvine, California (1993)

Christopher Landauer, Kirstie L. Bellman,
	``Designing Testable, Heterogeneous Software Environments'',
	Proceedings AAAI '93 Workshop on Verification and Validation
		of Knowledge-Based Systems,
	12 July 1993, Washington, D.C. (1993)

Christopher Landauer, Kirstie L. Bellman, April Gillam,
	``Software Infrastructure for System Engineering Support'',
	Proceedings AAAI '93 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence
		for Software Engineering,
	12 July 1993, Washington, D.C. (1993)

From pepperoncini.gac.edu!eostrom Sun Nov 21 13:23:54 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "13:12:09" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu" nil "24" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Sun, 21 Nov 1993 10:38:37 PST.\"
             <93Nov21.103802pst.14738(2)@alpha.xerox.com>digihere do "
Message-ID: <9311212112.AA04736@gac.edu>
Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 13:12:09 -0800
From:	Erik Ostrom <eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu>
To:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

> The current permissions systems are all about security, they do not have
> anything to do with flexibility.  And the flexibility we are looking for
> here is the extra level of abstraction provided by the verbs or "getters"
> as they are called in some other object oriented languages.

@prop foo.bar 0 ""

If a property has none of the r, w, and c bits set, is readable and
writable only by the owner of the object on which it is defined.  The
object should then define getters and setters for manipulation of the
property.

It would be better if this (the !c part, at least) were default.  It
would probably be better if it were mandatory and there were no
permissions bits.  It would be better if access were limited to the
object defining the property, rather than that object's owner.

You do, however, have significant flexibility.

>							      And I too
> believe that it could put a serious dent in the number of MOO server
> crashes.

I'm curious--what leads you to this belief?

From genmagic.genmagic.com!bloom Sun Nov 21 13:25:34 1993
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 13:19:52 -0800
From:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com, Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

At 11:07 AM 11/21/93 -0800, Andrew Wilson wrote:
 
>Woah!  Reality check people!  Ok, MOO can't manage encapsulation, fine, let
>it suffer.  If you want encapsulation use a DIFFERENT language, like C-- from
>ColdMUD for instance.  Can you believe JaysHouse is going to come back as a
>MOO?!
>
Yuck!  What an unfortunate response to an otherwise productive thread with 
long term potential.   MOO can and does handle encapsulation to a limited
extent.   If it has truly reached its limit then yeah, I gues another
language must be considered.   But otherwise, those in the know might
consider what it would take to  provide support for more extreme levels of
encapsulation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Christopher Barkley Bloom              (415)966-6290
General Magic                                       bloom@genmagic.com
CyberLife Enthusiast
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--


From genmagic.genmagic.com!bloom Sun Nov 21 13:39:56 1993
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 13:35:25 -0800
From:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
To:	Erik Ostrom <eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu>
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

At  1:12 PM 11/21/93 -0800, Erik Ostrom wrote:
>> The current permissions systems are all about security, they do not have
>> anything to do with flexibility.  And the flexibility we are looking for
>> here is the extra level of abstraction provided by the verbs or "getters"
>> as they are called in some other object oriented languages.
>
>@prop foo.bar 0 ""
>
>If a property has none of the r, w, and c bits set, is readable and
>writable only by the owner of the object on which it is defined.  The
>object should then define getters and setters for manipulation of the
>property.
>
>It would be better if this (the !c part, at least) were default.  It
>would probably be better if it were mandatory and there were no
>permissions bits.  It would be better if access were limited to the
>object defining the property, rather than that object's owner.
>
>You do, however, have significant flexibility.
>
You write as if getters and setters are already a part of the language.  I
was under the impression that it was just an idea that was being discussed.
  Maybe I am out of context.

>>                                                             And I too
>> believe that it could put a serious dent in the number of MOO server
>> crashes.
>
>I'm curious--what leads you to this belief?

The ability to define getters and setters is all by itself: nothing.  But
the proper use of them can protect an object from improper use by others by
providing a layer of code in between which can check in the case of setters
to make sure that the value being used to to assign to an attribute is of
the right type, in a range, is one of a list of allowed values, etc.    And
in the case of getters there are things that can be done to ensure that the
value being handed out should be handed out, is initialized, is in the
proper state, knows it is being handed out, etc.   So, these things may not
directly save the server from crashing, but indirectly it provides a level
of meta-"typechecking" (for lack of a better term) whose worth cannot be
denied.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Christopher Barkley Bloom              (415)966-6290
General Magic                                       bloom@genmagic.com
CyberLife Enthusiast
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--


From pepperoncini.gac.edu!eostrom Sun Nov 21 14:03:39 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "13:55:37" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu" nil "36" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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             <9311212132.AA14632@>e < socksiz"
Message-ID: <9311212155.AA05008@gac.edu>
Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 13:55:37 -0800
From:	Erik Ostrom <eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu>
To:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

> You write as if getters and setters are already a part of the language.  

They are part of the language, but not explicitly, and not in
widespread use.  (Getters in particular are very rare.)  They are part
of the language in that the language provides the permissions feature
required to enforce a certain kind of access restriction, and in that
getters and setters are a subset of the `verb' concept provided by the
language.

A getter is a verb that provides access to a property, and possibly
does other things.

A setter is a verb that allows manipulation of a property, and
possibly does other things.

By making a property's permissions "", you can enforce the use of
getter and setter verbs, rather than direct access, by everyone except
yourself.

What's been asked for, in terms of encapsulation, is a way of
disguising getters and setters as direct property manipulation.  That
is, "foo.bar" is supposed to be invisibly turned into foo:get_bar().

What I'm talking about is the fact that you can simulate
encapsulation, except for the ownership problem, but it's not
invisible; reading a property looks like foo:get_bar(), and setting a
property looks like foo:set_bar().  I don't consider it inappropriate
that calling a verb should look like calling a verb.

>						     So, these things may not
> directly save the server from crashing, but indirectly it provides a level
> of meta-"typechecking" (for lack of a better term) whose worth cannot be
> denied.

Right.  But please don't inflate their worth by making claims about
server crashes.

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Sun Nov 21 14:50:32 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "14:44:20" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" "<9311212244.AA05870@diamond.cm.cf.ac.uk>" "93" "Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 14:44:20 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)


Mmm,

	some general thoughts and a few opinions on encapsulation.

o	MOO hasn't got it, but for the most part this doesn't matter because
	you really can mess with property access rights to protect an object's
	implementation from prying eyes and from possible misuse.

	Noone in their right mind would prefer:

		#foo.prop = value

	over

		#foo:set_prop(value)

	The possiblility for unchecked abuse is too great.  It makes sense to
	provide 'getters and setters' rather than relying on other objects
	to assign the correct values to properties etc.

	I'm sure we've all seen code like:

		@program #foo:set_name
		name = args[1];
		if (typeof(name) != STR)
			return E_TYPE;
		endif;
		this.name = name;
		.

	there is no excuse for not using such mechanisms.

o	An object model should not be confused with a permissions system and
	should, as much as is possible be divorced from considerations of the
	design of any language which will be used to manipulate it.  In his
	frankly excellent post [Notes on changing complex software systems]
	Christopher Landauer (cal@aero.org) hinted at what I believe to be the
	the the real problem which should be addressed.

	The MOO programming system will have to evolve or it will die, or
	at the very least become obsoleted by a succession of similar
	systems which are currently being developed.  The advantages
	offered by the new systems over those of MOO are primarily a result
	of the extended programming language syntax (multiple inheritance,
	formal encapsulation) and platform-friendly server implementations
        (disk basing).  MOO loses out because it is older and because its
	user-base has presented its designers with too much inertia to be able
	to make fundamental design changes.

o	Encapsulation is really a syntactic 'armour' designed to sit on top
	of an unprotected object server.  No matter how permissive the underlying
	object model may be, ideally it should be designed without ANY regard
	for security considerations, it can be ably protected by a well designed
	access language which itself makes use of underlying object-oriented
	language primatives.  MOO's permissions system is largely implemented
	in-server, ColdMud's is largely implemented in-core with a single $sys
	object, analagous to #0, providing the only real interface between
	the core permissions system (whatever form the core designers choose
	it to be) and the underlying server.

o	Rather than adopt the position of MOO as a glorified backend to the MOO
	language (surely the most complex wordprocessor ever devised), I
	believe that MOO should grow apart from the MOO language and its
	associated permissions system.  The package as it exists now might
	evolve into two distinct parts:

	o	a permissive object server with its own set of object access
		primitives which may be used by any higher-level language

	o	a programming language, like the one we use now, which
		enforces the current MOO permission system mind-set

o	I use UNIX, but I'm not tied to any one programming language to
	solve problems.  Tools as distinct as C and Prolog are able to
	co-habit a UNIX environment without complaint, and I think that
	the same should be true if you consider MOO as a platform instead
	of just the embodyment of a single language.

o	MOO can have encapsulation, MOO can have anything it wants but first
	it has to grow up and ditch a second class language.

o	Of course if MOO ever does evolve enough to go it alone then one day its 
	users will be able to take a text-dump of an existing ColdMUD database,
	design an access language with the same expressive powers as C--, and
	port the whole lot onto MOO.

This is a smiley -> ;) <-  Ok?

Andy (Networker).

ps.	Just for the record, C-- 'aint all that hot either.  Just so's you know.
	A.

From mit.edu!ghudson Sun Nov 21 19:26:54 1993
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From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com, Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Encapsulation


Andrew Wilson writes:
> Woah!  Reality check people!  Ok, MOO can't manage encapsulation,
> fine, let it suffer.  If you want encapsulation use a DIFFERENT
> language, like C-- from ColdMUD for instance.  Can you believe
> JaysHouse is going to come back as a MOO?!

Christopher Bloom writes:
> Yuck!  What an unfortunate response to an otherwise productive
> thread with long term potential.  MOO can and does handle
> encapsulation to a limited extent.  If it has truly reached its
> limit then yeah, I gues another language must be considered.  But
> otherwise, those in the know might consider what it would take to
> provide support for more extreme levels of encapsulation.

I don't think that Andrew made an "unfortunate response," although it
certainly does deserve qualification.

Jay is certainly correct that Coldmud is not a viable server at the
moment for a serious project.  There is, actually, a permanent running
Coldmud at the moment, although it's part time, but it's not really a
complete system right now.  People are still finding bugs in Coldmud,
and there are a lot of issues to work out in core development.  It is
a young system, and people who want to use it as a tool for something
other than Coldmud development just now are going to be disappointed.

Also, although I think Coldmud is technically superior to MOO in a
number of respects, I don't think it's the be-all and end-all of
language environments or even of mud language environments.  I enforce
a very strong form of encapsulation as a matter of principle, and I
think this will lead to more robust objects in the long run, but it is
frustrating to programmers at times, and I'm not sure it's appropriate
in all situations.  Similarly, I provide multiple inheritance because
I think it's important to the kind of modeling done by muds, but I
recognize that it leads to considerable language complication.  I've
always been suspicious of implicit inheritance, for that matter;
perhaps my next language will not support it.

But is it such a terribly idea to suggest that something should
succeed MOO in the long run?  I don't think so.  I just don't see MOO
as a terribly good substrate; it's encumbered by old ideas and
needless complication.  It was written before programmable mud servers
were commonplace and before people knew how they would be used and
what problems would arise.

What I'm seeing here is a suggestion that Pavel add one more piece of
cruft into the language--one more bit on objects, or on properties,
one more conditional in the semantics of the language.  This may seem
perfectly reasonable if you're already familiar with the language as
it stands, but it doesn't take many changes of this sort before your
language becomes difficult to learn, difficult to understand, and
difficult to maintain code in.  I think Pavel is correct in his
assertion that adding more hair to the object system is a bad idea.

--GBH


From dus.mountain.net!quinn Sun Nov 21 20:28:20 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "20:10:00" "-0800" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.mountain.net" "<199311220410.AA06655@DUS.Mountain.Net>" "73" "bf experimenting" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 20:10:00 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: bf experimenting

Here's my stab at a builtin function.  I'd appreciate any warnings
 and programmatical suggestions.  Particularly, I wanna know if it'll
 cause any memory leaks or other terrible things.

 
static package
bf_fill(Var arglist, Byte next, void *vdata, Objid progr)
{   Var         r;
    char        *string, *filled, *str;
    char        filler = ' ';
    int         i, l, s, a, width;
 
 /* fill(string, width[, filler]) */
 /* Pad the given string to `width' characters. */
 /* If width is negative, right justify, else flush to the left. */
 /* `filler' defaults to a space. */
 
    string = arglist.v.list[1].v.str;
    width = arglist.v.list[2].v.num;
 
    if (arglist.v.list[0].v.num == 3)
      filler = *arglist.v.list[3].v.str;
 
    free_var(arglist);
 
    if (width == 0)
      return make_error_pack(E_INVARG);
 
    a = ((width < 0) ? -width : width);
 
    /* prevent failed malloc crashes */
    if (a > 1024)
      return make_error_pack(E_RANGE);
 
    s = strlen(string);
 
    if ((l = a - s) < 0) {
      r.type = TYPE_STR;
      r.v.str = string;
      return make_var_pack(substr(r, 1, a)); }
 
    filled = mymalloc(a * sizeof(char), M_STRING);
 
    for (i = 0; i < l; i++)
      filled[i] = filler;
 
    filled[a] = '\0';
 
    str = mymalloc((s + l + 1) * sizeof(char), M_STRING);
 
    if (width < 0)
      sprintf(str, "%s%s", filled, string);
    else
      sprintf(str, "%s%s", string, filled);
 
    str[s + l + 1] = '\0';
    r.type = TYPE_STR;
    r.v.str = str;
 
    return make_var_pack(r); }
..
    (void) register_function("fill", 2, 3, bf_fill, TYPE_STR, TYPE_NUM, TYPE_STR);

Also-- How and when is free_var to be called?  Should I free all my
 variables?  Should the above code work right?  It seems to include
 garbage in the returned string sometimes.

Has anyone written any server mods and put them out for ftp?  I'd like
 to learn by example.  Interested in an iassoc() hack.

Thanks for anything..

-quinn

From fenchurch.mit.edu!strata Sun Nov 21 22:38:20 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "22:30:27" "-0800" "M. Strata Rose" "strata@fenchurch.mit.edu " nil "130" "Virtual City Network update" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 22:30:27 -0800
From:	strata@fenchurch.mit.edu (M. Strata Rose)
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Virtual City Network update
Reply-to: strata@fenchurch.mit.edu


Virtual City Network(tm) Status Report, 11/21/93

Greetings, in some cases long overdue.

If you are reading this directly (ie, not as a mailing list or netnews),
your mail has been received and you have been either added to the
virtual-citizens mailing list or preregistered for the Virtual City 
Network.  I apologize for the delay in acknowledging correspondence
from everyone.  Here is a brief status report:

Roughly a week after the initial announcement of Virtual City Network,
I took a supposedly short term (one month) systems architect contract to
generate income so that I could continue working on VCN.  This allegedly
3/4-time position quickly turned into a 1 and 1/4 time position and
will last until the first week of January.  This has resulted in most
of the substantive coding work on VCN being postponed in favor of 
design work which can be done offline, research and meetings
with various interested parties, business contacts, fellow researchers,
etc.

For the last few months, virtual.net has been occupying a corner of
a workroom at a friendly company and unofficially sharing a T1 net link.
Unfortunately for us, this firm is expanding and needs the space for
their own use.  I have been exploring various options for office space
and sharing network bandwidth to meet their deadline for moving the
system.

When the first of the recent sendmail bug announcements hit the
Internet, we had a breakin and I had to spend a substantial amount of
time going over the server to make sure nothing had been compromised.
Thursday morning I logged in as usual to find that we had
had *another* breakin on the server, this time much more serious than
the first.  Someone was allegedly using virtual-city.virtual.net as
a link in a chain of telnet sessions, ultimately ending up on IRC and
behaving offensively and objectionably.   I am still investigating this
incident.

Having two (or possibly more) crackers on the system within a 3 week
time period has been something of a last straw.  Since I had a hard
deadline of December 1st to move the system anyway, I took it offline
on Friday evening (Nov 19th).

At this point, the server is shut down and sitting in my livingroom.  I
will be bringing it up again in the next few days, and am arranging a
56K line to the house for access; right now we only have PPP 14.4Kbps 
service at home.  I am setting up an MX server so that mail to
virtual.net will continue to be delivered, that should be in place by
Tuesday evening.  Virtual-city.virtual.net is going to get a complete
system upgrade and security overhaul before it comes back online.

I will be installing a LISTSERV style mail handler for registration 
and automated handling of queries.  I will send an announcement when
the software is in place, probably sometime during the Thanksgiving
weekend.  I will not be turning on the virtual-citizens mailing list
until the LISTSERV is set up, as I cannot respond to add and delete
requests in a timely fashion while I am contracting on outside work.

Mail to virtual.net will not be working until the MX record and my
secondary server are both in place, so please send mail to me at either
of the following addresses:

strata@fenchurch.mit.edu
strata@hybrid.com

Please continue to send me questions and suggestions, I will respond
to each and every one, albeit rather slowly.  Thanks for being patient.

Even though I won't be able to do much in the way of power coding
until early January, I have been getting a lot accomplished.
This thing has a lot of moving parts, so I'm doing comprehensive
design rather than hacking stuff together.  Once some of the low-level
stuff is actually coded and not just on paper we should hit critical
mass within a fairly short time and VCN will start living up to its 
potential.  I am hoping to open the service to City Builders and 
Freelance Architects in mid to late January.

New Year's Party in the Virtual City Plaza?  Could still 
happen, but probably not with most of the interactive multimedia
originally planned, we're running about a month or two behind.
But you never know, I'm looking into some great Tcl/Tk stuff that
may not be hard to get running in the short term, even with the
massive constraints on my time right now.  I will send out updates
as I know more, and invite all of you to test features as they
materialize.

I hope to make documentation available soon on the design of VCMTA and
the VCNCoreLib.  Right now I am pretty deep into designing the 
underlying structure of VCMTA, so I will be outsourcing a fair chunk
of the actual MOO hacking on the server structure.  At this point I
have design specs for various VCNCoreLib features (the built-in 'bot 
specs, Eliza handlers, etc) and am interested in contracting out
the actual implementation-- I am still a novice at low-level MOO 
coding and want to make sure this stuff is very clean and very solid!

I have some limited funding available for server hacking, especially
the load and unload core functions, so if you are an experienced MOO 
coder who would like to do some moonlighting, please contact me.  The
pay isn't great, but you'll be getting paid to write public-domain
MOO code that will be part of something Way Cool, and to potentially
co-author a paper on extensible server design that will be submitted
to a major VR conference next year.  Think of it as being a grad 
student at a non-accredited virtual university.  Not to mention
your name in virtual lights on the Marquee in every CityKit that 
goes out.  :-)

Those of you who have pet projects or ideas about facilities that should
be included in the Virtual City Network, please send me mail, especially
if you're interested in building them yourself and making them available
for others to use.  People who are interested in designing spaces in 
the city should start to design them on paper/in bits now so that they
can upload them easily once VCN opens.  We will be supporting HTML
documents as well as plain text for room descriptions, and will be 
setting up a Rogue's Gallery of players for browsing.  The Rogue's
Gallery will be accessible via Gopher and WWW as well-- you can work
on the text of your character's description and create GIF files of the
character, your planned virtual spaces, etc, right now and then have
them readily available to upload later.  Feel free to get started now!
Design your virtual spaces and the objects that should be in them, 
get busy on that artwork, and watch for more mail from us.

Closing the gap between Theorem Et Practicum,
_Strata

M. Strata Rose
Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information 
Virtual City Network
strata@virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@fenchurch.mit.edu

[Virtual City Network is a trademark of VirtualNet and M. Strata Rose.]

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Sun Nov 21 23:46:28 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "23:39:41" "-0800" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "46" "Encapsulation 2" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 23:39:41 -0800
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Encapsulation 2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello again.
First I want to say I was encouraged by Pavel's "It would be more-or-less
straightforward to implement this.", and by some positive responses.
On the other hand, I was surprised to see how many people plainly didn't
understand the idea, and also by the reluctance to work on making possible
"a simple change" that would add (IMO) strength to the language.

In my first posting, I proposed that to set/get property foo, you would be
calling, in fact, :foo, if present, and with/without arguments, the only
argument being the new value for the setting.

I asked: will existing code break down? I received only positive answers,
but no examples.
When would code fail? By definition, when there is already an object
defining/inheriting a property and a verb with the same name, and if this
verb didn't conform to the model I described.
I agree that there are probably quite some such cases.

Some of the answers talked about 'getters' and 'setters'. It took me a
little more reading to understand what was meant by that. (as I said, my
computer background is long but amateurish)
But those answers talked about :get_foo and :set_foo, which I hadn't
mentioned at all... then I understood that THAT was exactly the solution.

What do I mean by this? I'm sure that a prefix can be found, such that
there's *not even one case* of an object defining/inheriting both .foo and
:prefix_foo.
I'm quite confident, too, that such a prefix can be found to be meaningful
too, not just some prefix="@%^&@%".
Maybe :input_foo/:output_foo? Just ideas.
Should this be a prefix? Maybe a suffix? Maybe both, or either?
Whatever it be, notice that such a change could be done *and* be 100%
compatible with existing code. The MOO language would be then a bit
stronger and more flexible, more true to the object-orientedness. If you
want, call that another layer of cruft. I won't.
>From the moment of the change, programmers could start building truly
encapsulated objects, and the object classes could be restructured easily,
if there's a will (and time). All of it, compatible all the time.

Notice too, I was thinking of *one* verb to do both get/set, but I agree
that it might be sounder to separate these functions.

Your comments will be very welcome, again.




From mailhost.unidata.com!uso01 Mon Nov 22 07:03:36 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "21" "November" "1993" "15:45:47" "-0800" "Steven Owens" "uso01@mailhost.unidata.com" nil "94" "Ethics o' Code-Liftin'" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 15:45:47 -0800
From:	Steven Owens <uso01@mailhost.unidata.com>
To:	nlaflamm@nyx10.cs.du.edu
cc:	imf@netcom.com, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com, karl-boyken@uiowa.edu
Subject: Ethics o' Code-Liftin'


>  In most cases, Copyright infringement is only prosecuatable where a
> profit is made.  The purpose ofa copyright is basically to keep someone
> else from making money of someone elses work.  Yes, I think that in many
> cases it's somewhat tacky to steal code without asking.  However, I also
> tend to consider all code property of the MOO itself, and it is stated as
> such on the MOO I run.

	Hm... I've been staying out of this mostly due to lack of
time, but I feel a need to make a few comments.  This is mostly from
my own casual knowledge of copyright law.  I'm not a lawyer, go hire
one if you want real advice.  I am, however, a professional writer,
which means I do pay a little attention to what the copyright laws
are.

	First, copyright infringement is prosecutable whenever you
infringe on my copyright by exceeding "fair use" (a nice, vague term).
Most of the time prosecutionis practical when your theft of my
copyright infringes on MY ability to make money.  Hence, if you copy
my book and print it and distribute it at cost or even free (losing
money in the process), it's irrelevant; you have lessened my ability
to make money by reducing the available market.  THAT is what I can
sue you for.  Even if you don't distribute many copies, I can still
sue your for punitive damages.

	Second, copyright law is an incredibly fluid thing as law
goes, particularly with respect to international copyrights.  The laws
within the United States seem to change from year to year (sort of
like tax law, hm?) and not all countries abide by the same copyright
laws.  Some countries require different measures to protect your
copyright.

	Given that rather broad caveat, I'm going to summarize some of
the things I know about copyrights.  Keep in mind that some or all of
these may have already changed.

	A copyright is protection of the EXPRESSION of an idea.  Hence,
you could not copyright "Gee, wouldn't it be great to have a program that
mathematically compresses data for easier archiving?" but you COULD 
copyright an algorithm that expresses that idea.

	As soon as you create an expression of an idea, you have the
copyright on it.  However, it may not be too easy to successfully
defend that copyright.  There are various measures you can take; the
most commonly known measures are a) including copyright notices in
your work, and b) REGISTERING your copyright with the library of
congress, for $20 or so.  (Registering is not "buying" a copyright,
it's merely paying the LoC for the paperwork to keep track of the fact
that you HAVE a copyright).

	Different countries have different definitions of what
constitutes a legal copyright notice.  Generally, the more you can
do, the better.  A date, the name of the creator, and the word
or phrase "copyright" or some such is generally a good start.  A
c-in-a-circle is valid some places, not valid other places, and
the only valid notice in yet other places.  The phrase "All rights
reserved." may be helpful in some countries.

	There're also various methods called "poor man's copyright",
like mailing yourself a copy of the work via registered mail, or
leaving a copy with a notary.  These aren't generally regarded as very
effective.  Publication with an accompanying copyright notice IS
rather effective, since it results in a rather large body of witnesses
and a paper record of the work's existence and your copyright.  That's
probably what those cartoonists mentioned earlier were up to.

	There are ways to "lose" your copyright.  Generally, if you
publish a work without taking measures to protect the copyright (i.e.
no notice, etc), you risk placing it in the public domain.  If you
allow others to publish a work without taking measures, you may be
allowing them to place it in the public domain (which is why some
organizations and companies are rather vicious about going after those
who infringe).

	What's fair use?  That's a very vague and ill-defined thing at
best, and since I recall some major court cases about this issue a
couple of years back, I wouldn't be prepared to assume that even the
traditional definition of "fair use" still holds.

	
	Summing up, if you want to feel certain about how copyrights
work, pick up a *current* book or publication about the matter, or
even better, ASK A LAWYER.


	It is, however, my untrustable and ill-qualified opinion that
you could put a copyright statement in your code and have at least an
ethical, if not a strong legal, leg to stand on if somebody copied it.

	Caveate emptor; this advice is guaranteed to be worth only
what you paid me for it.

Steven J. Owens
uso01@unidata.com

From uiowa.edu!karl-boyken Mon Nov 22 07:33:09 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 07:20:13 -0800
From:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
To:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom),
	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation
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We can have encapsulation right now, if we provide verbs to access and/or 
modify object properties, and if we clearly document the programming 
interfaces of our objects, and if we include a warning that accessing or 
modifying our objects' properties directly is not supported.  Of course, 
programmers who don't subscribe to this encapsulation discipline can write 
code that might break.  But they will have been warned.  And code written by 
programmers who do conform to the discipline will be more easily modifiable 
and extensible.

Karl Boyken, system programmer, Dept. of Computer Science
303A MLH, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA  52242
voice:  319-335-2730   fax:  319-335-0627
Internet:  karl-boyken@uiowa.edu


From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Nov 22 07:48:30 1993
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Message-ID: <9311221539.AA02299@widcat.widener.edu>
Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 07:39:00 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu
To:	karl-boyken@uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Reply to Encapsulation

> We can have encapsulation right now, if we provide verbs to access and/or 
> modify object properties, and if we clearly document the programming 
> interfaces of our objects, and if we include a warning that accessing or 
> modifying our objects' properties directly is not supported.  Of course, 
> programmers who don't subscribe to this encapsulation discipline can write 
> code that might break.  But they will have been warned.  And code written by 
> programmers who do conform to the discipline will be more easily modifiable 
> and extensible.

I do this, except I also make the properties on the objects wiz-only, 
essentially removing their access to the outside world.

--JRP [Shirgall@many places]

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov 22 10:10:01 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 09:50:20 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il,
	imf@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

> Of course this feature can be had by disallowing direct access to any
> attributes and provide operations to be used for access instead.  Pavel, is
> this what you were referring to by "flexibility"?

Yes.

> Philosophically speaking,  as an object I would personally want to be
> congnizant of any attempts to access my internal "organs"  and react
> algorythmically to the setting or getting of any of them.   And I too
> believe that it could put a serious dent in the number of MOO server
> crashes.

Excuse me?  Can you explain this belief?  Essentially zero of the MOO server
crashes in recent memory were due to any feature of the code in the database.

	Pavel

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov 22 10:30:03 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:07:37 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)

> Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1993 14:44:20 -0800
> From: Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
> 
>       The MOO programming system will have to evolve or it will die, or
>       at the very least become obsoleted by a succession of similar
>       systems which are currently being developed.

I think it clear that MOO will eventually die.  It is clearly wrong-headed in
many ways when you consider such notions as scaling to globally distributed
seamless systems, and I think it would be a mistake to attempt to evolve this
language to address such goals.  MOO is not a sufficiently simple or flexible
basis for such an evolution.

>       The advantages offered by the new systems over those of MOO are
>       primarily a result of the extended programming language syntax
>       (multiple inheritance, formal encapsulation) and platform-friendly
>       server implementations (disk basing).

I do not believe that any of the currently available or announced systems is
going to be a particularly important successor to MOO precisely because they do
not sufficiently well address the scaling problem.  I believe that a
fundamentally different approach is required to move significantly in this
direction.

	Pavel

From widcat.widener.edu!jrp Mon Nov 22 10:36:34 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "November" "1993" "10:11:54" "-0800" "Joshua R. Poulson" "jrp@widcat.widener.edu " nil "13" "Server Crashes (was Encapsulation)" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:11:54 -0800
From:	jrp@widcat.widener.edu (Joshua R. Poulson)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Server Crashes (was Encapsulation)


Folks,

I definitely have to agree with Pavel. The majority of server crashes are
related to events external to the server, mostly running out of memory.
The ones that are particularly annoying, though, are the use of the "@"
and "{}" operators to make gigantic structures that don't eat ticks, and
can runaway easily. 

Any "for" operation that can grow my server 100Mb (in memory) in the span
of 5 minutes is just plain evil.

--JRP [Shirgall@many many many worlds]

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov 22 10:37:34 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:29:56 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	quinn@dus.mountain.net
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: bf experimenting

> Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 1993 20:10:00 -0800
> From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
> 
> static package
> bf_fill(Var arglist, Byte next, void *vdata, Objid progr)
> {   Var         r;
>     char        *string, *filled, *str;
>     char        filler = ' ';
>     int         i, l, s, a, width;
>  
>  /* fill(string, width[, filler]) */
>  /* Pad the given string to `width' characters. */
>  /* If width is negative, right justify, else flush to the left. */
>  /* `filler' defaults to a space. */
>  
>     string = arglist.v.list[1].v.str;
>     width = arglist.v.list[2].v.num;
>  
>     if (arglist.v.list[0].v.num == 3)
>       filler = *arglist.v.list[3].v.str;
>  
>     free_var(arglist);

You can't free arglist yet, since you're still using parts of it (the storage
for `string').  You should either bump the reference count for that part (by
saying `string = var_ref(arglist.v.list[1]).v.str;' above) or hold off freeing
arglist until later.  I recommend the former course.

>     if (width == 0)
>       return make_error_pack(E_INVARG);
>  
>     a = ((width < 0) ? -width : width);
>  
>     /* prevent failed malloc crashes */
>     if (a > 1024)
>       return make_error_pack(E_RANGE);

This comment is, of course, wrong, since any allocation request at all could be
one to fail.  The style of the rest of the language is not to impose artificial
limits on the lengths of strings, lists, etc., so I'd remove this line.

>     s = strlen(string);
>  
>     if ((l = a - s) < 0) {
>       r.type = TYPE_STR;
>       r.v.str = string;
>       return make_var_pack(substr(r, 1, a)); }

You would need a free_var(r) here after the call to substr() to avoid leaking
`string', assuming you did the `var_ref' call above.

>     filled = mymalloc(a * sizeof(char), M_STRING);

This is off by one; you need space for a null byte at the end of the string.
Remember, `l' could be equal to `a'.  Actually, though, you want `l + 1' here,
not `a' at all.

>     for (i = 0; i < l; i++)
>       filled[i] = filler;
>  
>     filled[a] = '\0';

This is the line that stores into the extra byte you didn't allocate.  In any
case, based upon what happens later, you want `filled[l]' here, anyway.

>     str = mymalloc((s + l + 1) * sizeof(char), M_STRING);

The sum here could be more simply written as `a + 1'.  Also, it's a shame that
you're allocating two strings when one would do.

>     if (width < 0)
>       sprintf(str, "%s%s", filled, string);
>     else
>       sprintf(str, "%s%s", string, filled);
>  
>     str[s + l + 1] = '\0';
>     r.type = TYPE_STR;
>     r.v.str = str;
>  
>     return make_var_pack(r); }
> ..
>     (void) register_function("fill", 2, 3, bf_fill, TYPE_STR, TYPE_NUM, TYPE_STR);

Finally, I have to say that I wouldn't bother making this function into a
built-in, since it almost certainly isn't where the majority of any task's time
is going.  Even if it were, I'd make the built-in out of $string_utils:space
instead, since that's a much more generally-useful primitive in terms of which
this function could efficiently be written.

> Also-- How and when is free_var to be called?  Should I free all my
>  variables?  Should the above code work right?  It seems to include
>  garbage in the returned string sometimes.

You want to call `free_var' whenever you're certain that you're done with some
reference to a MOO value.  Similarly, you want to call `var_ref' whenever you
want to `create' another, independent reference to such a value.  These two
functions manipulate the reference counts for strings and lists, freeing the
storage for them (and, in the case of lists, free_var-ing the elements) when
and if the reference count goes to zero.

> Has anyone written any server mods and put them out for ftp?  I'd like
>  to learn by example.  Interested in an iassoc() hack.

Release 1.8.0 will contain, finally, mechanisms whereby MOO programmers can
figure out just where all of the time/ticks are being spent in their code, so
that people can finally have some real information concerning which MOO verbs
could profitably be made into built-in functions.  My guess is that iassoc()
isn't such a candidate, but we shall (finally) see.

	Pavel

From dus.mountain.net!quinn Mon Nov 22 12:49:56 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 12:32:26 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com, quinn@dus.mountain.net
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: bf experimenting

Well, as I said, it's mainly experimentation.  If I go by tick usage
 alone, it would save much time in looping sorts like a WHO-listing,
 or graphing data.

Anyway, it seemed a simple enough way to start.

-quinn

From allink.com!paul Mon Nov 22 14:39:06 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 14:51:09 -0800
From:	paul@allink.com (paul reiber)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Fundamental approach of MOO

Pavel> From pavel@parc.xerox.com Mon Nov 22 13:36:09 1993
Pavel>
Pavel> I think it clear that MOO will eventually die.

This saddens me.  MOO is one of the few environments I've grown to respect.

Pavel> It is clearly wrong-headed in many ways when you consider such
Pavel> notions as scaling to globally distributed seamless systems,

Why would MOO's application development and user interaction layer(s?)
need to change/differ (other than subtly) if the server was integrated
with ODBMS's, CORBA interfaces, et al. ?  While the existing inter-MOO
networking mechanisms may leave something to be desired, I don't see MOO
itself as the culprit w.r.t. scaling.

Pavel> and I think it would be a mistake to attempt to evolve this
Pavel> language to address such goals.  MOO is not a sufficiently
Pavel> simple or flexible basis for such an evolution.

I, for one, prefer the MOO paradigm by a long shot over the vast majority
of other approaches extant...  Is it that:
	MOO's implementation is not sufficiently simple/flexible to evolve
or:	MOO's application paradigm is not simple/flexible enough to evolve?

I'm a strong believer in simple and consistent application development
frameworks/environments/paradigms, and in my book MOO rates right up there
with the best of them.

Pavel> I do not believe that any of the currently available or announced systems
Pavel> is going to be a particularly important successor to MOO precisely 
Pavel> because they do not sufficiently well address the scaling problem.

Agreed.  However, only the cream of the crop top-dollar commercial systems
(like HP's Distributed Smalltalk over ParcPlace VisualWorks) even attempt
to address that issue today, so don't feel bad!

Pavel> I believe that a fundamentally different approach is required to
Pavel> move significantly in this direction.

Again, I'm not sure whether you're speaking of the implementation or the
application/user-interface paradigm.  IMHO you'd be hard pressed to find
a better text-based object-oriented application paradigm.

You say MOO's not simple/flexible enough to evolve into a seamless globally-
distributed system. I've never seen more power packaged as simply, and I'll
be disappointed by anything more complicated or less powerful no matter how
well distributed.

Just my $0.02 ...

-Paul
 +---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+
 | Paul B. Reiber, Jr. | NYNEX Allink Company   | "To Invent, you need a good |
 |  (914)  644 - 7729  | 4 Gannett Drive,       |  Imagination and a Pile of  |
 |   paul@allink.com   | White Plains, NY 10604 |  Junk."     - Thomas Edison |
 +---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Mon Nov 22 15:49:52 1993
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 15:42:11 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	paul@allink.com
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Fundamental approach of MOO

> Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 14:51:09 -0800
> From:	paul@allink.com (paul reiber)
> 
> Pavel> I think it clear that MOO will eventually die.
> This saddens me.  MOO is one of the few environments I've grown to respect.

All things must die sometime.

> Pavel> It is clearly wrong-headed in many ways when you consider such
> Pavel> notions as scaling to globally distributed seamless systems,
> 
> Why would MOO's application development and user interaction layer(s?)
> need to change/differ (other than subtly) if the server was integrated
> with ODBMS's, CORBA interfaces, et al. ?  While the existing inter-MOO
> networking mechanisms may leave something to be desired, I don't see MOO
> itself as the culprit w.r.t. scaling.

MOO's mechanisms in the areas of security, resource management, scheduling,
distribution, modularity, and performance (among others) are simply too crude
or crippled to support a truly global distributed social VR.  Just to pick one
for illustration, the MOO currently provides tasks with atomic access to all
data in the database while they're running and, if they run too long, simply
kills them.  Neither of these is workable in a scaled-up system where
distribution makes concurrency the norm, not the exception, and where running
out of resources must be a recoverable problem with many possible solutions
(e.g., adding more resources to the system, allowing the application to abort
parts of its computation, etc.).  Trying to graft these notions onto MOO would
be crazy; the only advantage would be some vague kind of compatibility with
existing code.  That compatibility is almost impossible to achieve, though, and
in any case there isn't any MOO code at all right now in comparison to the
amount that would be written in a global-scale system, so there's little point
in trying to preserve it directly.

> I, for one, prefer the MOO paradigm by a long shot over the vast majority
> of other approaches extant...

I intend no offense by this, but I think this statement shows more about your
knowledge of the state of the art in both programming languages and distributed
systems than it does about the state of the art itself.  There are a number of
better, more flexible bases for future development than MOO.  Don't get me
wrong, I think that MOO is a pretty good MUD server, but we must go far beyond
such toy systems to reach the kinds of systems and applications I'm
envisioning.

>  Is it that:
> 	MOO's implementation is not sufficiently simple/flexible to evolve
> or:	MOO's application paradigm is not simple/flexible enough to evolve?

The former, as I outlined above.

> Agreed.  However, only the cream of the crop top-dollar commercial systems
> (like HP's Distributed Smalltalk over ParcPlace VisualWorks) even attempt
> to address that issue today, so don't feel bad!

I doubt very much that either of those systems is attempting to address truly
global distributed systems issues.  They would have to be insane to try to do
so in a commercial environment at the current time.

> Again, I'm not sure whether you're speaking of the implementation or the
> application/user-interface paradigm.  IMHO you'd be hard pressed to find
> a better text-based object-oriented application paradigm.

This illustrates exactly my point from above: what I'm trying to support goes
light years beyond a simple `text-based object-oriented application paradigm'.

	Pavel

From mit.edu!ghudson Mon Nov 22 20:18:14 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "November" "1993" "20:17:12" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "35" "Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now) " "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Nov 93 10:07:37 -0800.
             <93Nov22.100739pst.58389@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 20:17:12 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now) 


> I do not believe that any of the currently available or announced
> systems is going to be a particularly important successor to MOO
> precisely because they do not sufficiently well address the scaling
> problem.

While it's certainly the case that I haven't seen any announcement of
a server which had globally distributed seamless systems in mind
(except, perhaps, Unter, which wasn't really seamless), I question
that this is the only direction in which muds can go.

I may seem stunningly small-minded in saying thiat, but I don't think
that integration and distributed systems are really that much of an
improvement over the status quo of small niche systems.  In fact, I am
quite suspicious of the viability of systems like LambdaMOO: in
addition to being a much harder technical problem than the small
backyard MUD, such systems tend to be socially incohesive and seem
less dispensable to their users.

I am much more interested in muds as programming environments.  As
programming environments go, they are a fantastically difficult
problem, even without the constraints of global seamless
distributability: a programmable mud system must be completely
dynamic, must deal with multiple people working on it at the same
time, must deal with limited resources, and must deal with untrusted
programmers.  The problem is largely unsolved and probably unsolvable,
but working on it yields considerable insight into simpler real-world
problems.

Even in such a limited, niche world, I think MOO is a long way from
perfection, and deserves a successor.  There are several candidates
with varying degrees of potential; I think they all deserve a look.

--GBH


From dus.mountain.net!quinn Mon Nov 22 20:31:17 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "22" "November" "1993" "20:20:07" "-0800" "Quinn Avery" "quinn@dus.mountain.net" nil "9" "Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 20:20:07 -0800
From:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
To:	ghudson@mit.edu, Pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)

>Even in such a limited, niche world, I think MOO is a long way from
>perfection, and deserves a successor.  There are several candidates
>with varying degrees of potential; I think they all deserve a look.
 
Just what are these systems?  Many of us know about Greg's coldmud,
 and maybe traumahound's Interlude.  Is there a catalog of new mud
 servers somewhere?  I'd like to taste `em all.
 
-quinn

From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Mon Nov 22 20:40:47 1993
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In-Reply-To: Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>
       "Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)" (Nov 22,  8:20pm)
X-Phone: 505-835-4235
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Date:	Mon, 22 Nov 1993 20:42:09 -0800
From:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
To:	Quinn Avery <quinn@dus.mountain.net>, ghudson@mit.edu,
	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation (you can get pills for it now)

A catalog of new systems?  Not really.  Xmosaic would be a cool place to
put one.  :)  Also, the mudlist at caisr2.caisr.cwru.edu tries to stay up
to date.


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Nov 23 09:15:12 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "23" "November" "1993" "09:05:15" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "23" "quick way to find an ascii value" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:05:15 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: quick way to find an ascii value


I've been writing a little hash table for verb lookup.  One problem I've
encountered is that the whole idea of a hash table depends on a fast way to go
from a character to a number.  MOO doesn't have that as a built in function.

There's an easy hack around it.  You just define a property with the letters
of the alphabet on it and then find the position of the character in that
list.  i.e.:

letter in {"a", "b", "c", ...}

The problem of course is that the whole idea of a hash table is to avoid
looking up things in long lists!  Even using the silly method described,
lookup is sped up by a factor of as much as 8 for the worst case (the thing
not being there at all)-- 224 ticks with the table, 1868 without it.

In any case, there is a question lurking here: Seems like it would be pretty
easy to patch the server to add a new built in to go from a letter to its
ascii value.  How would I do that?

Thanks.

Amy

From dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il!bmgustav Tue Nov 23 09:36:04 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "23" "November" "1993" "09:27:03" "-0800" "Gustavo Glusman" "bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il " nil "15" "Re: quick way to find an ascii value" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:27:03 -0800
From:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: quick way to find an ascii value
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Instead of:

>letter in {"a", "b", "c", ...}

Try:

index("abcdefg.......",letter)

Or:

index($string_utils.alphabet,letter)
index($string_utils.ascii,letter)




From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Nov 23 09:56:36 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "23" "November" "1993" "09:48:10" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "5" "quick way to find an ascii value" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Gustavo Glusman's message of Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:27:03 PST <9311231723.AA27745@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>"
Message-ID: <9311231748.AA14513@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:48:10 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: quick way to find an ascii value

Actually you need index($string_utils.ascii,letter,1) if you want to
distinguish lower from upper.  :peers at $string_utils.ascii.  Hm,
really you should add 32 to the result if you want the true ascii
value of a character.
						yduJ

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Nov 23 12:54:13 1993
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             <9311231723.AA27745@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>44:24 Pome
	(Lik"
Message-ID: <9311232044.AA03967@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 12:44:18 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman)
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com, asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: Re: quick way to find an ascii value



Thanks, [1] is marginally faster.  It's 8 ticks, 0 seconds.
Instead of 8 ticks, 1 seconds for [2] and [3].

[1] index("abcdefg.......",letter)
[2] letter in {"a", "b", "c", ...}
[3] index($string_utils.ascii,letter)

But my point is that this should be one tick--it should be a builtin.
How would I patch the server to do that?

(It may well not be worth it.  I'm curious how to do it as much as anything.)

-- Amy

From harlequin.com!kmp Tue Nov 23 20:08:37 1993
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From:	kmp@harlequin.com
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: quick way to find an ascii value

I think that people should not be telling Amy about things like "in" and
"index" which are functionally ok but are computationally too slow.  Even
if faster than what Amy was using before, and hence perhaps an incremental
improvement, these things do search and (ticks aside) search is inherently
slower than direct code access, which the underlying system clearly has
the information to be able to do.  I can't imagine that "index" or "in" is
going to be faster on average than the ascii function she's requesting.

You can't build a hash table that works in anywhere close to usefully
efficient time if you can't build hash table keys efficiently.  Making a
hash table that is only algorithmically fast (i.e., in big-O notation) but
that has a huge `constant' factor attached to the front is not very
exciting except to theorists.  [And even then it's only `constant' if
typical keys are of some bounded size.]

Of course, it wouldn't hurt MOO to have some form of table lookup
primitively.  Perhaps by making generic tables and then optimizing the
cases where keys are densely packed ranges of integers, characters, or
even pointers.  But in the absence of that, which seems like a bigger
thing, providing toascii and tochar and $max_ascii.  [I'd have suggested
modifying tonum instead of making a new function toascii, but apparently
tonum("a") already returns 0 (sigh...).]

From parc.xerox.com!masinter Tue Nov 23 20:10:48 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "23" "November" "1993" "20:02:24" "-0800" "Larry Masinter" "masinter@parc.xerox.com" nil "42" "Re: Netmail 2" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Gustavo Glusman's message of Fri, 19 Nov 1993 05:27:21 -0800 <9311191323.AA27354@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>"
Message-ID: <93Nov23.200239pst.2732@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 20:02:24 -0800
From:	Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Netmail 2

>>>>> On Fri, 19 Nov 1993 05:27:21 -0800, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il (Gustavo Glusman) said:

>>I have a little problem with sending mail from the MOO to the net.
>>Every time $network:raw_send is called, it returns:
>>Mail sending failed: 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized as
>>local
>>But... the mail is actually sent. So the MOO thinks it failed, but the mail is
>>on its way.

> I had a problem. Now I solved it, but I'm left with a puzzle.
> I noticed that the mail sent on player creation failed, and the mail
> forwarded (netforward option) both half-failed as described above.
> But when I used $note:mailme, it worked OK. So $network had to be
> customized correctly, right?

> I took a look at $note:mailme. The only think I noticed that might be
> relevant was that it did a suspend(0) immediately before $network:sendmail.
> So I tried to stick a suspend(0) before :sendmail in the other verbs that
> call :sendmail.
> This didn't work, either.

> What works now is: I put the call to :raw_sendmail inside a fork (0);
> endfork, in :sendmail.

> Why does this work?

When you put the call to :raw_sendmail inside a fork(0); endfork, you
are basically ignoring ALL error returns.

$network:sendmail and $network:raw_sendmail are documented as:

"Returns 0 if successful, or else error condition or string saying why not."

(I've had to resort to this convention in a couple of places.)

If you put the :raw_sendmail inside a fork, though, you're returning
0 immediately, without waiting to see if you can actually open the
connection to the maildrop, send the mail, etc.


 


From nova.decio.nd.edu!jonathan Wed Nov 24 07:26:04 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "November" "1993" "07:15:50" "-0800" "Jonathan Bradshaw" "jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu " nil "10" "Re: Netmail 2" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <9311241515.AA00235@nova.decio.nd.edu>
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 07:15:50 -0800
From:	jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu (Jonathan Bradshaw)
To:	masinter@parc.xerox.com (Larry Masinter)
cc:	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il, MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Netmail 2
Reply-to: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu
Content-Type: text

A small hack to fix the problem is NOT to send your hostname when doing
a 'HELO' command. In my case, mine would be 'HELO nova.decio.nd.edu', by
editing the :raw_Sendmail and removing the hostname and just sending
'HELO' the problem goes away.

-- 
 Jonathan Bradshaw | Preferred E-Mail is: Jonathan.Bradshaw@nd.edu | Ham N9OXE
 WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend IN | Opinions stated are mine and not of my employer
 PGP Key is available from keyservers or mail me using the subject  'send key'
 "If any girl rejects you, don't you doubt it's part of the .plan" - D. Gibson

From genmagic.genmagic.com!bloom Wed Nov 24 10:31:10 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "November" "1993" "10:30:10" "-0800" "Christopher Bloom" "bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com " nil "25" "Re: Encapsulation" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Illegal-Object: Syntax error in Message-Id: value found on alpha.xerox.com:
	Message-Id:	<9311241827.AA03939@>
					    ^-illegal subdomain in domain
Message-Id: <93Nov24.103102pst.43021@lane.parc.xerox.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 10:30:10 -0800
From:	bloom@genmagic.genmagic.com (Christopher Bloom)
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il,
	imf@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Encapsulation

At  9:50 AM 11/22/93 -0800, Pavel Curtis wrote:
 >> And I too  believe that it could put a serious dent in the number of
MOO server
>> crashes.
>
>Excuse me?  Can you explain this belief?  Essentially zero of the MOO server
>crashes in recent memory were due to any feature of the code in the database.
>
>        Pavel

No, not really.   I cannot think of an example of encapsulation that would
keep the server from crashing.   And anyway, the server should never crash,
no matter how badly unencapsulated and prone to misuse and abuse a pile of
code is, right?  

Sorry for the false call,  but hey, I an learning alot.

---->CBB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Christopher Barkley Bloom              (415)966-6290
General Magic                                       bloom@genmagic.com
CyberLife Enthusiast
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Nov 24 10:47:51 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "November" "1993" "10:39:19" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "9" "Re: quick way to find an ascii value" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <9311231723.AA27745@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il>
	<9311231748.AA14513@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 10:39:19 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: Re: quick way to find an ascii value

> Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:48:10 -0800
> From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
> 
> Actually you need index($string_utils.ascii,letter,1) if you want to
> distinguish lower from upper.  :peers at $string_utils.ascii.  Hm,
> really you should add 32 to the result if you want the true ascii
> value of a character.

Actually, you want to add 31...  :-)

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Nov 24 10:52:22 1993
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "November" "1993" "10:40:34" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "10" "Re: quick way to find an ascii value" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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	<9311232044.AA03967@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 10:40:34 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com, bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: Re: quick way to find an ascii value

> Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 12:44:18 -0800
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> But my point is that this should be one tick--it should be a builtin.
> How would I patch the server to do that?

Take a look at the code mentioning some other simple built-in function, like
`bf_index' or `bf_length' and do likewise.

	Pavel

From ccs.neu.edu!nop Wed Nov 24 11:25:04 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "24" "November" "1993" "11:22:59" "-0800" "Jay Carlson" "nop@ccs.neu.edu" nil "26" "Re: quick way to find an ascii value " "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 24 Nov 93 10:39:19 PST."
             <93Nov24.103920pst.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 11:22:59 -0800
From:	Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	yduj@cs.stanford.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com,
	bmgustav@dapsas1.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: Re: quick way to find an ascii value 

>> Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:48:10 -0800
>> From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
>> 
>> Actually you need index($string_utils.ascii,letter,1) if you want to
>> distinguish lower from upper.  :peers at $string_utils.ascii.  Hm,
>> really you should add 32 to the result if you want the true ascii
>> value of a character.

> Actually, you want to add 31...  :-)

[looking at $string_utils.ascii]: that's not riiiiiight, there's no
tab in there.

Sigh.  This is what we get for adding non-printables to the MOO
character set.  Anyway, note that the character set is no longer
contiguous in ASCII coding.

A while back, I was considering doing ISO Latin-1 MOO, but it kinda
got put on the back burner.  Client issues got thorny.

Jay Carlson
nop@io.com    nop@ccs.neu.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman



From ocf.nms.unt.edu!darren Sat Nov 27 14:30:54 1993
Status: RO
X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil]
	[nil "Sat" "27" "November" "1993" "16:13:58" "-0800" "Darren Loher" "darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu" "<Pine.3.87.9311271858.A5489-0100000@ocf.nms.unt.edu>" "21" "Moving a database from one machine to another" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sat, 27 Nov 1993 16:13:58 -0800
From:	Darren Loher <darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Moving a database from one machine to another
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I have been running MOO-1.7.6 from a SunOS machine for a couple of months 
now.  I just recomplied the server on FreeBSD v1.02.  It works great!  

The problem is I cannot login to the database I copied over from the 
SunOS machine to the FreeBSD machine.  I can create new characters, but I 
cannot use the characters that were created on the SunOS side.  

My guess is that the MOO server uses a system call to do encryption on the
passwords and FreeBSD uses different encryption than SunOS, so passwords 
never match correctly with the old characters.  

Is there a way to fix this?  Since I have no wizard on the new machine 
I'm completely stuck...  Help!

(you can login to the slightly broken databsae at:  ocf.unt.edu 7777 )

--
Darren Loher                           
darren@ocf.unt.edu



From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sat Nov 27 16:18:25 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sat" "27" "November" "1993" "16:09:41" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "48" "Re: Moving a database from one machine to another" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <Pine.3.87.9311271858.A5489-0100000@ocf.nms.unt.edu>
Date:	Sat, 27 Nov 1993 16:09:41 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Moving a database from one machine to another

> Date:	Sat, 27 Nov 1993 16:13:58 -0800
> From:	Darren Loher <darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu>
> 
> My guess is that the MOO server uses a system call to do encryption on the
> passwords and FreeBSD uses different encryption than SunOS, so passwords 
> never match correctly with the old characters.  
> 
> Is there a way to fix this?  Since I have no wizard on the new machine 
> I'm completely stuck...  Help!

Well, it's a library routine, not a system call, but it sounds like you've
probably correctly diagnosed the problem.  It's a shame the makers of FreeBSD
didn't bother to make it compatible in this respect.

Anyhow, there isn't any very nice way to work on this problem (there will be in
1.8.0, where it'll be possible to start up the server in a special mode that
automatically gives you wizard access to the database, precisely for such
emergencies as this one), but there is a nasty way to fix it.

You're going to have to edit the database file by hand.  First, make a safe
copy of it in some other place.  Then, get the original into your favorite text
editor and search forward for the lines

	#2
	Wizard

(Or whatever the name of your original wizard character is.)  Scroll forward
from there looking for some lines like these:

	2
	naW7FGr1S8RCk

(where the `2' will be there, but you'll have some other encrypted string after
it).  Those represent the encrypted value of the wizard's password.  Replace
those lines with

	0
	0

which represents a .password value of the number 0, which means not to insist
on a password.  Save the file and restart the server.  You should be able to
log into the wizard character now without giving a password.  Once you're in,
you'll have to figure out for yourself what to do about resetting the passwords
of all of the other players, but at least you'll be in a position to do so.

Good luck,

	Pavel

From mit.edu!ghudson Sun Nov 28 11:06:11 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "November" "1993" "11:05:31" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "30" "Re: Moving a database from one machine to another " "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 27 Nov 93 16:09:41 -0800.
             <93Nov27.160948pst.58373@mu.parc.xerox.com> 
Content-Length: 1371
Date:	Sun, 28 Nov 1993 11:05:31 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:	darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Moving a database from one machine to another 


>> My guess is that the MOO server uses a system call to do encryption
>> on the passwords and FreeBSD uses different encryption than SunOS,
>> so passwords never match correctly with the old characters.

> Well, it's a library routine, not a system call, but it sounds like
> you've probably correctly diagnosed the problem.  It's a shame the
> makers of FreeBSD didn't bother to make it compatible in this respect.

The ITAR restricts the export of the standard crypt() outside of the
US.  This is not a big problem for commercial operating systems, but
free operating systems (which are often developed partially or largely
outside the US) like to be exportable.  I don't know exactly how
FreeBSD deals with this, but Chris Provenzano, who is on the NetBSD
development team (and is playing Netrek on the machine to my left)
tells me that NetBSD distributes a separate crypt library that
contains the real crypt routine; this library is not exportable.  I
assume FreeBSD does something similar.

If you link without -lcrypt, your program will successfully link, but
will get a different crypt which does something trivial enough to be
exportable.

I suggest that, rather than modifying the database, Darren recompile
his MOO with -lcrypt (after obtaining libcrypt, if necessary), since
the encryption routine the MOO is currently using is probably not
useful.

--GBH


From sun4.math.uah.edu!thomas Sun Nov 28 11:19:33 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "November" "1993" "10:51:40" "-0800" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" "thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu" nil "17" "Compiling on OS/2" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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	From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu (Rob Thomas 890-7097 Mathematical Sciences	Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville))
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Date:	Sun, 28 Nov 1993 10:51:40 -0800
From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Compiling on OS/2

I have been trying for a while to make the server compile under OS/2 2.1.
I have a unix emulation package, and GCC 2.3.3 with all the tools I can ftp.
The problem is, the only version of sh I can find won't run the configure
file properly. It gets just past "checking for sqrt" then stops with the
error: "Input line too long."  I'm not a shell-script guru by any stretch of
the imagination, and I've done the only thing I can think of, check for 
unreasonably long text lines in the file. I didn't find any, and I'll bet it
means something significantly more cryptic than that anyway.

Anyhow, if anyone can think of anything that would help me in this respect,
I would really appreciate it.. (IE, what am I looking for to fix in the 
script, CAN I fix the script, is it just a shoddy version of sh? If it is, 
is there any way I could build the makefile, or even compile the server (ick,
ick) Manually?)

Thanks,
====Rob, Gelfin@a MOO or three.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Sun Nov 28 19:05:59 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "November" "1993" "18:58:19" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "20" "Re: Compiling on OS/2" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <9311281851.AA24758@sun4.math.uah.edu>
Date:	Sun, 28 Nov 1993 18:58:19 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Compiling on OS/2

> Date:	Sun, 28 Nov 1993 10:51:40 -0800
> From:	thomas@sun4.math.uah.edu
> 
> I have been trying for a while to make the server compile under OS/2 2.1.
> I have a unix emulation package, and GCC 2.3.3 with all the tools I can ftp.
> The problem is, the only version of sh I can find won't run the configure
> file properly.

You can do the configuration stuff manually.  First, copy `raw_config.h.in' to
`raw_config.h' and use the comments in that file to change the appropriate
`#undef' directives into `#define's to reflect the realities of your system.
Then copy `Makefile.in' to `Makefile' and fix the three variable definitions at
the very top to properly identify your C compiler, any extra libraries that
might be necessary, and your YACC equivalent.

Given this, you should be able to `make' and get a lot further.  If you
succeed, please send me the two files you edited and I'll try to fold something
like them into the release.

	Pavel

From media.mit.edu!asb Sun Nov 28 20:06:17 1993
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	[nil "Sun" "28" "November" "1993" "19:58:10" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "29" "bug humor" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Sun, 28 Nov 1993 19:58:10 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: bug humor


Here's a little technical humor to rouse you from your post-Thanksgiving
slumber:

Item 1: Today someone sent a "subscribe listname" command to 
a MOO mailing list.  (It had to happen eventually....)

Item 2: Remember last week I asked a question about my hash
function?  Well, while I was testing it to index some verbs,
it ran out of ticks.  The function basically just finds a number for
each character in the verb name and adds them together.  Figured
out yet what could make it run out of ticks?  Why, the antisocial
feature, of course!  I hadn't counted on verb names like:

"eye_msg grump_msg feh_msg pat_msg paperwork_msg line_msg poke_msg eyeball_msg
mess_msg wake_msg rtfm_msg ignore_msg waggle_msg Blake_msg glare_msg toy_msg
pound_msg silly_msg gag_msg frown_msg prod_msg unplease_msg WhiteRabbit_msg
unamused_msg peer_msg snooty_msg face_msg growl_msg tongue_msg ridicule_msg
bury_msg sigh_msg pout_msg pave_msg BillyBragg_msg bop_msg EPOXY_msg
waffle_msg postage_msg mmt_msg rael_msg cough_msg ice_msg flame_msg roll_msg
divine_msg disembowel_msg Buddy_msg defenestrate_msg neuter_msg handcuff_msg
hoop_msg blame_msg dist_msg sycophant_msg smoke_msg salad_msg report_msg
gatorade_msg Snideley_msg sledge_msg tile_msg wither_msg alpO_msg
hit-on-warily_msg crush_msg deconstruct_msg"

(Yes, that's one verb name.)  Now I have it processing just the first
five characters, and that works fine.

-- Amy

From cm.cf.ac.uk!Andrew.Wilson Mon Nov 29 06:58:42 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "November" "1993" "06:46:56" "-0800" "Andrew Wilson" "Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk" nil "64" "Re: Moving a database from one machine to another" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Nov 1993 06:46:56 -0800
From:	Andrew Wilson <Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk>
To:	paul@isl.cf.ac.uk, MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Moving a database from one machine to another


Hi,

	I know one of the FreeBSD core developers and he says, of MOO password
problems:

> From paul@isl.cf.ac.uk Mon Nov 29 10:05:58 1993
> From: paul@isl.cf.ac.uk (Paul)
> Subject: Re: Moving a database from one machine to another
> To: Andrew.Wilson@cm.cf.ac.uk (Andrew Wilson)
> Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 10:05:37 +0000 (WET)
> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
> Content-Type> : > text> 
> Content-Length: 1919
> 
> In reply to Andrew Wilson who said
> > Paul,
> > 	this is about some guy, Darren, having a database with SunOS encrypted
> > passwords and then trying to port the same database (the actual data ie
> > encrypted pwds) onto FreeBSD.  Pavel is the head honcho of the database server
> > design team.  Is this something you can say anything about, ie, FreeBSD being
> > incompatible with other U**X systems in this respect?  There are a lot of people
> > porting their dbs onto FreeBSD/Linux type PC boxes so this is quite an important
> > consideration as far as they're concerned.
> > 
> > Send me some e-mail and I'll frig up a reply to Pavel and the rest of these
> > database people.
> 
> Ok, the problem is quite simple but not easy to solve :-)
> 
> FreeBSD is shipped (i.e. binaries) with a simple text scrambler for
> encrypted passwords. SunOS uses DES encrypted passwords so a Sun
> password database won't make sense on a FreeBSD system.
> 
> The reason FreeBSD is shipped with a non DES encryption method is that
> US export restrictions forbid the exportation of DES technology because
> of possible military use -- it's a totally braindead law but that's the
> US for you. 
> 
> Having said that, we do supply DES encryption for FreeBSD if you're in
> the US and all non-US users who know the score use DES too. You just have
> to pick up the DES code from a site outside the US which isn't exactly
> hard. We are aware of the situation and what is needed is an official
> distribution site for FreeBSD ouside the US so we can put up the DES
> system for ftp.
> 
> If anyone wants to know the details of getting DES into FreeBSD then
> pass them onto me. I can supply the code and explain the problem.
> 
> What is this database project, if they're using FreeBSD maybe you could
> put then in touch with me and I'll sort out any problems they're having.
> 
> -- 
>   Paul Richards, University of Wales, College Cardiff
> 
>   Internet: paul@isl.cf.ac.uk
>   JANET: RICHARDSDP@CARDIFF.AC.UK
> 

So now you know.  I recommend that those of you concerned should drop Paul a
line.

Andy.


From sigallah.dhhalden.no!borrel Mon Nov 29 11:46:57 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "November" "1993" "11:28:29" "-0800" "Borre Ludvigsen" "borrel@dhhalden.no" nil "12" "MOO on NeXT" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Nov 1993 11:28:29 -0800
From:	Borre Ludvigsen <borrel@dhhalden.no>
Sender: borrel@sigallah.dhhalden.no
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: MOO on NeXT
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


I have a NeXT Dimensions cube left over soon and need some information on
the availability of MOO to run on it.

Can anyone help  -  please?

- Barre Ludvigsen (Ostfold Regional College, Norway)


 



From ocf.nms.unt.edu!darren Mon Nov 29 14:11:21 1993
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	[nil "Mon" "29" "November" "1993" "14:01:55" "-0800" "Darren Loher" "darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu" nil "8" "Re: Moving a database from one machine to another" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Mon, 29 Nov 1993 14:01:55 -0800
From:	Darren Loher <darren@ocf.nms.unt.edu>
To:	MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Moving a database from one machine to another
Content-Type: text

I have lost the message from the one who 
suggested adding the -lcrypt flag when compiling.  This has worked
for me for now.  

I believe I already have the DES encryption libraries for BSD
installed on my system.  Hrm.  Anyways, it's working great now.
Thanks for all the help!


From sphinx.nmt.edu!schlake Mon Nov 29 14:29:22 1993
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       \\\"unsubscribe\\\" (Nov 29,  2:13pm)"
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Date:	Mon, 29 Nov 1993 14:23:59 -0800
From:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
Sender: schlake@sphinx.nmt.edu
To:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: unsubscribe

	
	Yo"
To: jlewis@as.arizona.edu (Jeff Lewis), MOO-Cows.parc@xerox.com
Message-ID: <9311292224.AA09922@sphinx.nmt.edu>

I propose that people who send mail to moo-cows instead of
moo-cows-requset be forced to remain on the list until they figure
moo-cows-request.

Not to pick on you, Jeff, but, well, I see this so often in this group
it's kinda silly.  Someone posts to be removed, and someone follows up to
use moo-cows-request.  Then, before you know it, it happens again.  And
again.  And again.  And again.  Does anyone get the picture?


-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

From pitt.edu!wjrst1+ Tue Nov 30 05:42:51 1993
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Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 05:27:59 -0800
From:	William J Rehm <wjrst1+@pitt.edu>
To:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu
cc:	moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: unsubscribe
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 29 Nov 1993 schlake@minos.nmt.edu wrote:
> I propose that people who send mail to moo-cows instead of
> moo-cows-requset be forced to remain on the list until they figure
> moo-cows-request.
> 
> it's kinda silly.  Someone posts to be removed, and someone follows up to
> use moo-cows-request.  Then, before you know it, it happens again.  And
> again.  And again.  And again.  Does anyone get the picture?

So you think the folowing scenario is an improvement?

Someone posts to be removed. Then, before you know it, it happens again.
And again. And again. What's wrong with this picture? :)

Later,
Bill
 _______oOOo________oOOo_______________________________________________
|                                                      Bill Rehm
|"Somedays, it's all I can do just to hold on."        wjrst1+@pitt.edu





From cs.stanford.edu!yduj Tue Nov 30 10:25:47 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "09:23:34" "-0800" "Judy Anderson" "yduj@cs.stanford.edu" nil "27" "unsubscribe" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "William J Rehm's message of Tue, 30 Nov 1993 05:27:59 PST <Pine.3.03.9311300854.A16112-a100000@unixd3.cis.pitt.edu>"
Message-ID: <9311301723.AA11763@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 09:23:34 -0800
From:	Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>
To:	wjrst1+@pitt.edu
cc:	schlake@minos.nmt.edu, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
Subject: unsubscribe

I have a reminder message that I send in private mail to nearly all
people who incorrectly post to the mailing list asking to be removed.
(Not just moo-cows, every mailing list I'm on.)  Sometimes I get
flamed, but usually I get thanked, because they really *don't*
understand what they're doing, and my message helps them to figure it
out.  I've been developing this form letter for some years, adapting
it to new net conventions and deeper levels of cluelessness.  FYI:

------
To subscribe or unsubscribe from an internet mailing list, you should
never send mail to the list itself.  There are two main conventions
for subscription handling.  The first is to simply append "-request"
to any mailing list name.  As example, if you were trying to
communicate to the maintainer of the list foo@uni.edu, you would send
mail to foo-request@uni.edu instead.  The second is to interact with a
LISTSERV server.  For that, you would send mail to the user listserv
at the site with the list.  For our example above, we would send mail
to listserv@uni.edu.  Listserv is a program, rather than a person as
the -request addresses typically are, and has specific command sets.
With our example above, usually, SUBSCRIBE FOO will do the trick.

Please remember this tidbit for future mailing lists with which you
may interact.  Don't send to the list, only send to the appropriate
address.

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ  yduJ@cs.stanford.edu  'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
       Join the League for Programming Freedom, lpf@uunet.uu.net

From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Nov 30 11:26:36 1993
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Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 10:32:16 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: DIAC 94


(Apologies to those who get multiple copies.)


DIAC (Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing) is a small conference
sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.  It will be in
Boston in April (immediately before CHI).  The last DIAC was inspiring, and
this one should be even better, since they're gearing up to take a serious
look at the National Information Infrastructure.

The social implications of MUDs is one of the topics for the conference.

 ------- Forwarded Message

Please post and distribute to interested colleagues.

                         Call for Workshop Proposals

       Developing an Effective and Equitable Information Infrastructure

    Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (DIAC-94) Symposium
                           Cambridge, MA, USA     
	                   April 23 - 24, 1994

The National Information Infrastructure (NII) is being proposed as the next-
generation "information superhighway" for the 90's and beyond.  Academia,
libraries, government agencies, as well as media and telecommunication
companies are involved in the current development. Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility (CPSR) and other organizations believe that critical
issues regarding the use of the NII deserve increased public visibility and
participation and is using the DIAC Symposium to help address this concern.

The DIAC-94 symposium is a two-day symposium and will consist of
presentations on the first day and workshops on the second day.  The DIAC
Symposia are held biannually and DIAC-94 will be CPSR's fifth such
conference.  We encourage your participation both through attending and
through conducting a workshop. We are currently soliciting workshop
proposals. We suggest proposals on the following themes but any topic
relating to the symposium theme is welcome.

 Systems and Services              Policy
   + Community networks              + Funding
   + Information services            + Role of government
   + Delivery of social services     + Economic modelling of networks
   + Privacy (including medical)     + Commercialization of the NII
   + Educational support             + Universal access
   + Meeting diverse needs           + Freedom of expression and 
				 	community standards

 Electronic Democracy              Directions and Implications
   + Access to information           + Ubiquitous computing
   + Electronic town meetings        + Global hypertext and multimedia
   + Threats to democracy            + Computing in the workplace
   + Economic and class disparities  + Computing and the environment

 International Issues              Traditional and Virtual Communities
   + Language differences            + MUDs
   + Cultural diversity              + Communication ethics, values, and styles
   + National and international      + Gender relations in cyberspace
       priorities  
   + Cooperative projects            + Networking for indigenous peoples

Workshops will be an hour and half in length.  The proposal should include
title, presenter, purpose of workshop, references, and plan.  Workshops
should substantially involve the audience and proposals in which some group
product or action plan is created are preferred.  As the proposals may be
collected into a book, workshop proposals should be clear and informative to
people who don't participate in the workshop.  Proposals are due February 15,
1994 and acceptance and rejection notices will be sent by March 15, 1994.  To
discuss workshops or to submit proposals for workshops contact the program
chair, Doug Schuler, doug.schuler@cpsr.org.  Electronic submissions are
encouraged but paper versions are also acceptable (send them to CPSR/Seattle
- - - - DIAC '94 Workshop Submission, P.O. Box 85481, Seattle, WA 98145-1481).

        Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsbility

Potential co-sponsors are being sought.  Please contact us if your
organization would like to help with this event.  For more information on
co-sponsorship or on general issues, contact conference chair, Coralee
Whitcomb, cwhitcomb@bentley.edu.




- - ------- End of Forwarded Message



- ------- End of Forwarded Message


------- End of Forwarded Message


From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Nov 30 12:48:07 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "12:27:25" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" "<9311302027.AA24274@media.mit.edu>" "36" "lexical scope of dobj, player, etc" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Message-ID: <9311302027.AA24274@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 12:27:25 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu
Subject: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc


Wow!  I hadn't realized that you can just set the value of dobj in one verb,
and that will carry over to other verbs.  It seems that player always gets
reset (see example below), so that behavior is a bit different.  Maybe I
missed it, but I didn't see this in the manual.

Are these implemented just as global variables?  Is their scope restricted to
the player, or are they really global, for everyone?

If I understand this correctly, this means that any verb that might suspend
should do something like my_var = dobj; so it's guaranteed not to change.  Is
this correct?

Sample code follows.

-- Amy


@program thing:test
player:tell("dobj: ", dobj);
player:tell("player: ", player);
.

@program thing:hack
dobj = "Hacked!";
player = #2;
this:test("args passed");
.

> hack thing
dobj: Hacked!
player: #75
>


(#75 is me)

From mit.edu!ghudson Tue Nov 30 15:21:46 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "15:10:14" "-0800" "Greg Hudson" "ghudson@mit.edu" nil "39" "Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of Tue, 30 Nov 93 12:27:25 -0800.
             <9311302027.AA24274@media.mit.edu>"
Message-ID: <9311302310.AA26341@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 15:10:14 -0800
From:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc


>From the MOO programmer's manual, under "Calling Built-in Functions
and Other Verbs":

	[...] the various built-in variables have the following
	initial values in the called verb:

	    [Initialization rules for this, verb, args, caller, and
	    player deleted]

	All other built-in variables (`argstr', `dobj', etc.) are
	initialized with the same values they have in the calling
	verb.

And under "Variables":

	   Variables are also "local" to a particular verb; every verb
	has its own set of them.  Thus, the variables set in one verb
	are not visible to the code of other verbs.

In particular, note the following test code's result:

	> @list me:test
	#950:"test"   this none this
	 1:  dobj = "foobar";
	> ;if (1) player:tell(dobj); player:test(); player:tell(dobj); endif
	#-1
	#-1
	=> 0

That is, you can only change your local copy of dobj, not your
caller's value, although verbs you call after changing your local copy
will get the value you set it to.

So no, you don't need to store the value of dobj if your task is going
to be suspended.

--GBH


From media.mit.edu!asb Tue Nov 30 15:32:26 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "15:19:06" "-0800" "asb@media.mit.edu" "asb@media.mit.edu" nil "5" "Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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             <9311302310.AA26341@deathtongue.MIT.EDU>ytne
	>with"
Message-ID: <9311302319.AA11899@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 15:19:06 -0800
From:	asb@media.mit.edu
To:	Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
cc:	asb@media.mit.edu, moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc


Thanks.  That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking was
going on!

-- Amy

From pepperoncini.gac.edu!eostrom Tue Nov 30 16:53:14 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "16:43:05" "-0800" "Erik Ostrom" "eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu" nil "19" "Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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In-Reply-to: "Your message of \"Tue, 30 Nov 1993 12:27:25 PST.\"
             <9311302027.AA24274@media.mit.edu> in yokey, All"
Message-ID: <9312010043.AA13776@gac.edu>
Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 16:43:05 -0800
From:	Erik Ostrom <eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc

>					    It seems that player always gets
> reset (see example below), so that behavior is a bit different.

It's worth knowing that any verb can set `player' within itself; and
wizardly code can set `player' and have the new value passed along to
verbs it calls, and so on.  So:

@program me:foo
player = #2;
this:tell(player);
this:bar();
.

@program me:bar
this:tell(player);
.

If the player who enters this ("me") is a wizard, e'll see "#2" twice;
if not, e'll see "#2" and then eir own object number.

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Tue Nov 30 19:21:09 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "18:12:11" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "65" "Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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References: <9311302027.AA24274@media.mit.edu>
Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 18:12:11 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	asb@media.mit.edu
cc:	moo-cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: lexical scope of dobj, player, etc

> Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 12:27:25 -0800
> From:	asb@media.mit.edu
> 
> Wow!  I hadn't realized that you can just set the value of dobj in one verb,
> and that will carry over to other verbs.  It seems that player always gets
> reset (see example below), so that behavior is a bit different.  Maybe I
> missed it, but I didn't see this in the manual.

Here is the relevant section from the manual:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Verbs can also call other verbs, usually using this syntax:

     EXPR-0:NAME(EXPR-1, EXPR-2, ..., EXPR-N)

EXPR-0 must return an object number; `E_TYPE' is returned otherwise.  If the
object with that number does not exist, `E_INVIND' is returned.  If this task
is too deeply nested in verbs calling verbs calling verbs, then `E_MAXREC' is
returned; the limit in LambdaMOO at this writing is 50 levels.  If neither the
object nor any of its ancestors defines a verb matching the given name,
`E_VERBNF' is returned.  Otherwise, if none of these nasty things happens, the
named verb on the given object is called; the various built-in variables have
the following initial values in the called verb:

    `this'
          an object, the value of EXPR-0

    `verb'
          a string, the NAME used in calling this verb

    `args'
          a list, the values of EXPR-1, EXPR-2, etc.

    `caller'
          an object, the value of `this' in the calling verb

    `player'
          an object, the same value as it had initially in the calling verb
          or, if the calling verb is running with wizard permissions, the same
          as the current value in the calling verb.

All other built-in variables (`argstr', `dobj', etc.) are initialized with the
same values they have in the calling verb.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The description of the variable behavior is, I admit, a bit subtly presented,
but it's there.

> Are these implemented just as global variables?  Is their scope restricted to
> the player, or are they really global, for everyone?

They aren't global at all.  Rather, you should think of them as
implicitly-passed parameters to each verb.  Thus, it's as though each verb's
`dobjstr' parameter got the calling verb's `dobjstr' variable's value passed to
it.  So each verb has its own variable storage space and it can be assured that
it won't be changed by any other code in the MOO.  My verb's `dobjstr' is it's
own and your verb's is it's, but mine will be initialized to the value of yours
when you call me.

> If I understand this correctly, this means that any verb that might suspend
> should do something like my_var = dobj; so it's guaranteed not to change.  Is
> this correct?

No, see above.  No MOO variables ever change their values out from under the
verb that they're in.  They are *always* local variables.

	Pavel

From csugrad.cs.vt.edu!mwilson Tue Nov 30 23:18:41 1993
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	[nil "Tue" "30" "November" "1993" "23:08:23" "-0800" "Mike 'Hiccup' Wilson" "mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu " nil "23" "Adding Built-ins" "^Date:" nil nil "11"])
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Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 23:08:23 -0800
From:	mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Mike 'Hiccup' Wilson)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Adding Built-ins

Well,  I'm certainly not a C guru, but I do know how to fiddle a bit.  Recently
I've undertaken a project to start *yet another* MOO for the internet at large.
This particular project will deal a lot with moving of objects in a virtual
3-d Spherical space.  Several functions that our MOO programs will call
heavily we wish to put into the server to increase speed.  
I've been scanning the code, and have a *very* vague idea of what the
'Var'  datatype is  and can *almost*  understand it. (actually, I understand
the structure, just not how it is used within the program.)  For example,
from the MOO program I want to be able to issue this:

rec = rec2sph({bearing,elevation,range});

bearing elevation and range are all ints  that describe position to some
stationary point.  rec2sph should return {x-coord,y-coord,z-coord} each of
which is an int (thereby translating from spherical coordinates to rectangular
coordinates).  I know that the initial list is past as a Var datatype.  But,
how exactly do I refenence it?

arglist.v.list[1].v.num    just confused the hell out of me.  I hope I'm not
rambling incoherently, but the whole project depends on the ability to put
these routines in server.  Thank you for your time.

Mike Wilson  (Zaphod @ most MU*'s)

From bigdog.engr.arizona.edu!web Wed Dec  1 10:38:40 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "December" "1993" "10:26:21" "-0800" "Wayne E. Bouchard" "web@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu " "<9312011826.AA02945@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu>" "168" "Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions (FAQ)" "^Date:" nil nil "12"])
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Date:	Wed, 1 Dec 1993 10:26:21 -0800
From:	web@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Wayne E. Bouchard)
To:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked MOO Questions (FAQ)

[Last updated November 24, 1993]

Database and Programming:
------------------------
1) Q: I want to start my own MOO. Where do I get the source?

   A: The standard MOO archive is parcftp.xerox.com in the directory pub/MOO.

      The file `LambdaMOO-X.Y.Z.tar.Z' (for a current server version of
      X.Y.Z) is a compressed tar file containing the complete source code,
      installation instructions, and a copy of the `Minimal' LambdaMOO
      database.

      The file `LambdaCore-DDMMMYY.db' (for some date DDMMMYY) is a
      LambdaMOO database file containing the `core' of the running LambdaMOO
      database as of the specified date.  This is almost certainly the
      easiest place for you to start from in creating your own MOO, since
      this includes such useful things as the various generics (room,
      player, exit, thing, container, note, etc.), the MOO text editors, the
      MOO mail system, etc.

      The `binaries' subdirectory contains already-compiled executables of
      the current release for various machines.

2) Q: What is this programmer's manual everybody talks about and where
      can I get it?

   A: The "LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual" is a complete reference for all
      database-independent aspects of the LambdaMOO system, including the
      programming language, built-in functions, and command parser.

      The Programmer's Manual is availible via anonymous FTP at
      parcftp.xerox.com in the directory /pub/MOO/. The file name is
      `ProgrammersManual.*' where `*' is the format tag. It is availible in
      DVI, PostScript, TeXInfo, and plain text formats.

3) Q: Is there a way to incorporate new features of LambdaCore into my
      MOO's DB?

   A: There is no easy way to merge databases. The easiest thing to do is
      just snag the code from LambdaMOO or somewhere and build/rebuild
      the objects by hand. (For information on how to do so, see `help @dump'
      on LambdaMOO.)

4) Q: Objects like $room and $player are part of the `core' of the
      MOO. How do I add new ones?

   A: As documented in section 3.1.10 of the LambdaMOO Programmer's
      Manual, `$' object refferences such as `$player' are created by
      adding a property of that name to the system object (#0) and
      storing the appropriate object's number in that property. For
      example, refferencing $room is the same as refferencing #0.room.
      When the verb `make_core_database' is run, it searches the
      system object for these links in order to determine which objects
      belong in the core. Newer releasess of the LambdaMOO core include
      the wizard verb `@corify' which will add the specified object to
      the core in the manner illustrated  as well as checking additional
      features such as an `init_for_core' verb being programmed on the
      object.

5) Q: How do I do execute a verb automatically each time the server starts?

   A: When the server starts, it calls the verb #0:server_started.
      Create/alter that verb to have it call the verb you want to execute.
      
      (NOTE: If a task has suspended or forked, and its execution is
      still pending when the server checkpoints or is shutdown, that
      task is saved along with the rest of the database. Thus, when
      the server is restarted, that task will be resumed.)

6) Q: How can I make an object in a room "listen" to everything that's
      being said?

   A: When something is said in a room, each object in that room is sent
      that text via the verb `tell'. You can hack this verb to do whatever
      you want it to whenever anything is said or done in a room.

7) Q: My MOO checkpoints every hour. I want to change this but I don't
      know where to look.

   A: Change the value of the property #0.dump_interval to the desired
      number of seconds between dumps; the change will take effect after the
      next checkpoint.

      This is documented in the LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual, section 4.2.2,
      Database Checkpointing Frequency.


Server Related:
--------------

1) Q: What are the minimum requirements for running a MOO?

   A: The LambdaCore database is approximately 2 megabytes in size. The
      source and executable for MOO will likely occupy another 1-2 Megs. In
      its current state, MOO resides entirely in resident memory when
      running. The process size is going to be roughly 2-3 times the
      size of the database file on disk. Your mileage will vary from
      system to system.

2) Q: I'm running a MOO on a NeXT but every once in a while it crashes
      with a 'vm_allocate failed' error. What's wrong?

   A: This is a bug in the NeXT's operating system and not in the MOO
      server.  The current best guess as to the cause is massive
      fragmentation in either the virtual memory system or in the memory
      managed by malloc() and free().

3) Q: I've heard a lot about the next release. When is it due out?

   A: It is unpredictable when each new version of the server will be
      released. Pavel Curtis (The developer of LambdaMOO) has
      estimated that 1.8.0 might well be out sometime in the fall of this
      year (1993), but no specific date can confidently be relied upon.

Miscellaneous:
-------------

1) Q: What are some good clients to use with MOO?

   A: Most people prefer to use TinyFugue or the emacs client, mud.el.
      mud.el is availible at parcftp.xerox.com in the directory
      pub/MOO/clients/. As for other clients, you might try poking around at
      ftp.math.okstate.edu in the directory pub/muds/clients/.

2) Q: What are all the MOOs currently out there?

   A: Its hard to keep an accurate list of all public MOOs, but here's
      my best info:

	Name               Address                 Numeric Address Port
	---------------------------------------------------------------
	LambdaMOO          lambda.parc.xerox.com   13.2.116.36     8888
         (The original)
        BayMOO             mud.crl.com             165.113.1.30    8888
        Harper's Tale MOO  netman.widener.edu      147.31.1.51     8888
	JanusMOO           sun10.sep.bnl.gov       130.199.50.6    8888
	MagicMOO           panama.aston.ac.uk      134.151.18.2    7777
	OpalMOO            cc.brynmawr.edu         130.58.85.1     7777
	PMC-MOO            dewey.lib.ncsu.edu      152.1.24.90     7777
	ScrabbleMOO        next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   7777
	TechMOOseum        whyanext.com            156.151.253.1   8888
        ThinkTankMOO       next2.cas.muohio.edu    134.53.14.112   8888
	VampireMOO         pluto.cs.trinity.edu    131.194.131.20  7777
	ZenMOO             cheshire.oxy.edu        134.69.1.253    7777

      [ EDITOR'S NOTE: Some MOOs have been purposely omitted at the request
        of their administrators. If you wish to add _your_ MOO to this list,
        please send mail to the address listed below. ]

3) Q: How do I subscribe to/unsubscribe from this list?

   A: Send an email message to MOO-Cows-request.PARC@Xerox.com with your
      request to be added to or deleted from the MOO-Cows mailing list.

4) Q: How can I obtain additional copies of this list?

   A: The MOO-Cows FAQ is availible via anonymous FTP from
      bahamut.HACKS.Arizona.EDU in the directory pub/docs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "MOO Frequently Asked Question List" is maintained by
Wayne E. Bouchard (web@HACKS.Arizona.EDU).  Direct all questions or
comments concerning this list to him.  Submissions and questions are
welcome and appreciated.  This list will be posted again on the first
of next month.


From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Dec  1 11:59:46 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "December" "1993" "11:50:13" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "43" "Re: Adding Built-ins" "^Date:" nil nil "12"])
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Message-ID: <93Dec1.115026pst.58372@mu.parc.xerox.com>
References: <9312010708.AA25154@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Dec 1993 11:50:13 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Adding Built-ins

> Date:	Tue, 30 Nov 1993 23:08:23 -0800
> From:	mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Mike 'Hiccup' Wilson)
> 
> For example, from the MOO program I want to be able to issue this:
> 
> rec = rec2sph({bearing,elevation,range});
> 
> bearing elevation and range are all ints that describe position to some
> stationary point.  rec2sph should return {x-coord,y-coord,z-coord} each of
> which is an int (thereby translating from spherical coordinates to
> rectangular coordinates).  I know that the initial list is passed as a Var
> datatype.  But, how exactly do I refenence it?
> 
> arglist.v.list[1].v.num    just confused the hell out of me.

First, `arglist' is, as the name might suggest, a *list* of the arguments.
Thus, in MOO syntax, `arglist' is

	{{bearing, elevation, range}}

This is probably the wrong thing, from a design point of view.  You should
probably have the programmer type

	rec2sph(bearing, elevation, range)

without the extra layer of list.

The representation of lists in the server is straightforward, given this
understanding.  The only obscure piece is that the length of the list is stored
in its zero'th element.  Suppose that `x' is a `Var' variable holding a MOO
list of length 3.  Then

	x.type == TYPE_LIST
	x.v.list[0].type = TYPE_NUM
	x.v.list[0].v.num = 3

and the n'th element of the list is in

	x.v.list[n]

Does that make it clearer?

	Pavel

From csugrad.cs.vt.edu!mwilson Wed Dec  1 12:28:20 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "December" "1993" "12:27:53" "-0800" "Mike 'Hiccup' Wilson" "mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu " nil "18" "Re: Adding Built-ins" "^Date:" nil nil "12"])
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	id AA03583; Wed, 1 Dec 1993 15:27:53 -0500
Message-Id: <9312012027.AA03583@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Dec 1993 12:27:53 -0800
From:	mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Mike 'Hiccup' Wilson)
To:	Pavel@parc.xerox.com
Cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Adding Built-ins

yes, getting the args is now clear.  However,  I will need to pass back
a list (since a function can't return 3 values) ... this would be something
like this?
Var R;
R.type = TYPE_LIST;
r.v.list[0] = 1;
r.v.list[1].type = TYPE_LIST;
r.v.list[1].v.list[0] = 3;
r.v.list[1].v.list[1..3].type = TYPE_NUM;
r.v.list[1].v.list[1..3].num = (my 3 ints);
return make_var_pack(r);

(does that look basically right?)

also ... while I'm writing, to save me the time of digging more in the code,
how and do I need to malloc (or call your malloc) to allocate the list that
I intend to return?
-Mike

From parc.xerox.com!pavel Wed Dec  1 14:56:53 1993
Status: RO
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	[nil "Wed" "1" "December" "1993" "14:42:39" "-0800" "Pavel Curtis" "Pavel@parc.xerox.com" nil "36" "Re: Adding Built-ins" "^Date:" nil nil "12"])
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References: <9312012027.AA03583@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>
Date:	Wed, 1 Dec 1993 14:42:39 -0800
From:	Pavel Curtis <Pavel@parc.xerox.com>
To:	mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu
cc:	MOO-Cows.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Adding Built-ins

> Date:	Wed, 1 Dec 1993 12:27:53 -0800
> From:	mwilson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Mike 'Hiccup' Wilson)
> 
> yes, getting the args is now clear.  However,  I will need to pass back
> a list (since a function can't return 3 values) ... this would be something
> like this?
> Var R;
> R.type = TYPE_LIST;					/**/
> r.v.list[0] = 1;					/**/
> r.v.list[1].type = TYPE_LIST;				/**/
> r.v.list[1].v.list[0] = 3;				/**/
> r.v.list[1].v.list[1..3].type = TYPE_NUM;
> r.v.list[1].v.list[1..3].num = (my 3 ints);
> return make_var_pack(r);
> 
> (does that look basically right?)
> 
> also ... while I'm writing, to save me the time of digging more in the code,
> how and do I need to malloc (or call your malloc) to allocate the list that
> I intend to return?

Replace the lines marked with `/**/' above with

		r = new_list(3);

That does the allocation and the boilerplate part of the initialization for
you.  Then, in the remaining two lines, remove the `.v.list[1]' part near the
beginning; what you've got there manipulates nested lists, which you don't
have.  You want this:

		r.v.list[1..3].type = TYPE_NUM;
		r.v.list[1..3].v.num = (your 3 ints);

OK?

	Pavel

