Server Help

[Gus.]

Once someone makes a decent point that gives TWCore a reason to be in the battle i will edit him in.

[Bak]

java is easy to code in

[Cerium]

Its the only java core that has bots already developed.
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There are 7 user(s) ignoring me right now.

[Grelminar]

[Bak]

I would like a player position callback.

[Cerium]

I would like you to stop using multiple identifiers for the same purpose.

IE:
- ? and * for the same commands
- Char 10 and 13 for packet delimiters in chatnet.


=(

[Muskrat]

* is only used in the sgcompat module...

[Grelminar]

Bak: Ok, I noted it as a feature request. But no comments about the other stuff? You're allowed to say "both of those options suck" (although that doesn't mean anything will change).

Cerium:
If I could get rid of * for commands, I would, but that's a question of backwards compatibility.

As far as chatnet delimiters, I consider that an instance of the well-accepted principle of network communications: be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you produce. asss itself will always produce line feeds (10s), so that's all you have to accept, if you want. And you can write your code to produce just line feeds also. Overall, no more complex code than if I just picked one.

And accepting both means I can telnet to the chatnet port, log in, and hold a conversation, without any client.

[Bak]

Adding real packet support would be useful, if it's not too hard to do. Although for something like player position packets it would slow down the execution significantly, the capability could be useful for other packets. I would suggest putting a note near the function that says to use it conservatively in python and a short reason. Let the programmer shoot themselves in the foot if they want to.

As for the pyglue solution, it's better than recompiling pymod, but still not ideal. I'll need to look more into how pymod works before I can suggest a better alternative.

[Cerium]

Grel, for the most part I was just giving you shit, as I dont use ASSS or chatnet primarily. Though, the little work I have done with them, I noticed those quirks and I found it to be somewhat annoying.

Anyway:
Why even have hardcoded/designated command characters? Why not let modules/command classes/whatever decide how to determine what a command is by processing the message directly, or by registering a prefix with the command manager or such.
Besides, the '?' is so 1997.

With ChatNet, it bothered me because when I was processing the stream, I was left wondering how exactly you broke up the packets. Did you use a system-defined line break character/variable, or did you specify 10 or 13 (or both)? Should I expect it to change from system to system? What about the bit of overhead to check and dismiss empty packets resulting from doubled up delimiters? How about fubar'd data from a missed/skipped delimiter?
I eventually decided to default to 10 and provided a function to toggle it, banking on the assumption that you didnt use both. Maybe next time Ill just ask you.

[Grelminar]

Cerium: it's better for users for there to be some consistency between what is interpreted by the server and what gets sent in pub chat. I wouldn't want to use a server where stuff I typed in the chat box may or may not get sent to the rest of the arena, depending on what set of modules happen to be loaded.

I thought the protocol was pretty clear as far as delimiters go: either 10 or 13 or any combination of those can end a message.

[Cerium]

Well it pretty much goes without saying that commands should follow some kind of uniform definition, but what if I want to use a ! in my zone, or even ? for player commands, * for admin commands and ! for arena-specific commands? Even newbie developers will use (mostly) the same syntax for their commands.

Indeed, I read the protocol and got 99% of my chatnet knowledge from it. But whats wrong with a simple null character? or even always using 10 OR 13, not both? Why leave it so open ended and force the clients to add some unnecessary overhead to properly parse packets? I dont see why you use these dynamics in a communications protocol but not in something like the command manager; seems backward imo.

[Mine GO BOOM]

[Cerium]

I never said it was hard, but its literally twice the work necessary if the other end is only using 0x13. Im very nazi-ish when it comes to wasting instructions when you dont/shouldnt need to.
To be honest though, I never saw chatnet as a protocol for telnet clients, despite all the signs, nor did anyone else Ive had this discussion with. I guess if thats what the intention for chatnet is I can just accept it for what it is, but meh, whatever.

Thats stupid. If some zone wants to use 18 tildes for their command prefixes, why stop them? Obviously they have a reason to want to set it up that way, be it preference or mental retardation. If I were to setup a zone, it would probably be setup how I described above. I find it to be more organized, and would probably make setting up player access easier.

[Dr Brain]

[Cyan~Fire]

[Cerium]