View source for Prog Section 0

 = Why Prog? =

The first thing anyone (at least, anyone with any taste) who plays a stock ROM/Merc/DIKU is the lack of interactivity. Other than the default interactions of attacking, selling/buying, or practicing, thereâ€™s really not a large number of ways players can interact with mobiles, or vice-versa. There are even fewer things that pcâ€™s can act, or be acted on, by objects or rooms. This is a glaring lack, since it several restricts a playerâ€™s interaction with his world, along with the playerâ€™s expectations about the limits of the game. Consider: In stock ROM, none of the following are possible:

* A mobile remembers multiple people who have attacked it, and will attack them should it meet them in the future. 
* You want to have a door that is opened by pulling a lever. 
* You have a sword that talks to the player, saying different things depending on the playerâ€™s attributes, or current status. 
* You want a mobile which rewards you for returning a specific item to it. 
* You want a guard that can be bribed into letting you into a locked room. 
* You want a room that randomly teleports players who enter it. 
* You want a magic genie, which appears when certain words are said. 
* You want your mobiles to fight and use the advanced skills present on your mud. 
* Etc. 

Itâ€™s a big list, and in reality, itâ€™s a lot bigger. So, given that thereâ€™s a need, how do we fill it? 

Ideally, we want to have a system that doesnâ€™t involve constant changes to the code base. We also want something that is relatively secure (we donâ€™t want holes in the prog system to let people exploit the actual server!). Additionally, we want something thatâ€™s relatively straightforward, and to have an interface that even non-coders can use.

The answer to these concerns is to have a prog language which is actually interpreted and run by the mud code. This interpreted prog language is very similar to pseudocode (english language descriptions of a programâ€™s logic), making the logic of it easy to understand, without imposing undue syntactical constraints. And, since it is a language which is only executed within the confines of a running mud process, its scope can be easily limited [and, steps can be taken to prevent the progs from crashing the entire mud which donâ€™t involve rewriting major commercial compilers!].

By making it something executed from within the mud, you also make it easy to prog things from within the gameâ€™s OLC. This is a perk, as it gives you a ready made, and (relatively) intuitive interface.