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<H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing </LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Matthew Mihaly <<A HREF="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 20:34:12 -0700 (PDT)</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 1999 16:21:28 -0700 (PDT)
> Matthew Mihaly <diablo#best,com> wrote:
>
> > Actually, on that note generally, I have read some talk on here,
> > in the past, about how some of your servers can handle a LOT of
> > users online at once without having speed problems.
>
> > How the heck do you manage that?
>
> Careful design mostly. I know what things cost, how much they cost,
> and how often I absolutely have to do them. This is one of the few
> areas where all that CS math you (should have) done in grad school
> comes in *really* handy, but is still not really necessary.
Yes, this is definitely a problem for me. 1) I did not go to grad school.
2) My undergrad degree is in political philosophy. 3) Except for some
BASIC in high school, I had never coded a thing before starting Achaea. It
honestly never occurred to me, until about a year ago, that speed would
EVER be a problem in a text game. No graphics I thought? Hell, how much
processing power can that take?? *doh*
>
> > We use an interpreted engine (which I realize is inherently
> > slower)...
>
> That's a dangerous and often massively misleading assumption.
> Interpreted languages need not be either slow or performance
> bottlenecks. LP and BatMUD demonstrate this rather clearly.
> LambdaMOO demonstrates rather clearly that this _can_ be a problem
> given poor design and implementation. BatMUD shows part of the
> other side: that given good and careful work, the performance hit is
> a strawman.
Yeah, I was a wiz on batmud ages ago. That's what I was thinking of when I
was questioning our player problem (as back when I played them, they'd
have 250 people online, and people lining up to get in. No idea what it's
like now). I just assumed that interpreted languages would be slower I
guess becuase of the extra layer.
>
> > I suspect that our player routines (mainly movement) tend to be
> > significantly more complicated than most muds (again, mainly
> > movement, due to the enormous number of database searches that
> > need doing to check for all sorts of stuff everytime someone
> > moves)...
>
> I smell sloppy thinking here. Yes, there is good reason for having
> motions trigger cascading state checks. I do it myself, and I
> suspect do it to a far greater degree than you do (I've counted over
> 2,000 state checks resulting from a single most-pessimal move). No,
> there is no reason for those state checks not to short circuit
> extremely cheaply in the common cases. A heck of a lot of the time
> you can determine far more cheaply whether or not you need to make a
> variety of checks, than you can do the checks themselves.
Yes, you're probably right about the sloppy thinking. I don't really know
what I'm doing as far as elegant coding goes. Also, I'm not quite sure
what a state check is, but I'm guessing it is checking the state of a
particular piece of data?
One particularly serious problem that I suspect we have are players
following other players around. Right now, a following player goes through
nearly every routine that the leading player goes through, effectively
doubling the time it takes. If you've got 5 players following a single
player, it can get ugly, especially with those blasted speedwalks.
Anyway, thanks for the advice!
--matt
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist - MUD-Dev#kanga,nu
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<li><strong><A NAME="00735" HREF="msg00735.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> J C Lawrence <claw#varesearch,com></li></ul>
<li><strong><A NAME="00706" HREF="msg00706.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Petri Virkkula <pvirkkul#iki,fi></li></ul>
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<LI><STRONG><A NAME="00659" HREF="msg00659.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> J C Lawrence <claw#varesearch,com></LI></UL></LI>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
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<LI><strong><A NAME="00612" HREF="msg00612.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Tue 08 Jun 1999, 22:17 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00642" HREF="msg00642.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Greg Miller <a href="mailto:gmiller#classic-games,com">gmiller#classic-games,com</a>, Wed 09 Jun 1999, 22:35 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00652" HREF="msg00652.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Thu 10 Jun 1999, 00:14 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00659" HREF="msg00659.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#varesearch,com">claw#varesearch,com</a>, Thu 10 Jun 1999, 02:56 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00682" HREF="msg00682.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Thu 10 Jun 1999, 06:14 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00706" HREF="msg00706.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Petri Virkkula <a href="mailto:pvirkkul#iki,fi">pvirkkul#iki,fi</a>, Thu 10 Jun 1999, 17:31 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00716" HREF="msg00716.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Thu 10 Jun 1999, 21:58 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00739" HREF="msg00739.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Petri Virkkula <a href="mailto:pvirkkul#iki,fi">pvirkkul#iki,fi</a>, Fri 11 Jun 1999, 03:46 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00763" HREF="msg00763.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Parsing</A></strong>,
Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Fri 11 Jun 1999, 18:12 GMT
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