Server Help

[divine.216]

I'm mulling over shorthand naming conventions for subspace protocols. The protocol labels in this many-server mud-puddle has been a hurdle that every new subspace developer eventually must cross. But I'd like to make it a little less confusing.

ASSS uses C2S / S2C for player -> zone, zone -> player packets. And for billing conversations, it uses S2B / B2S.

Client/Server labels are useful to clarify, in a technical sense, who listens and who initiates connections between any 2 ends of a conversation.

But "Players" connect to listening "Zones", and "Zones" connect to listening "Billers". (And to make it more confusing, players conceptually "login" to billers -- but there is no direct connection between players and billers.)

So Zone's are servers for Player clients, but Billers are also servers to Zone clients. It does violence to the mind to label a billing client as "server".

So I'd prefer to use P2Z / Z2P / Z2B / B2Z.

But I'm not. My sense is that a sizable chunk of developers are comfortable with S2C/C2S for player/zone communications, and they would be baffled by P2Z/Z2P. Plus, some zone settings explicitly use the S/C naming convention.

So I'm thinking to use C2S / S2C / Z2B / B2Z.

If anyone has thoughts on this, or has other examples of conventional uses, I'd love to hear them.

[Dr Brain]

I think it's perfectly clear, especially since your average developer isn't working in the billing section of the code.

I think since the S is already in wide use with S2C and C2S, it'd actually make it more confusing to remove it from the S2B and B2S.
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[Samapico]

*agrees with Brain*

Who initiated the connection between the zone and the biller is mostly meaningless when you just want to know the lag between the two. The "server" should always refer to the zone server, in the average developer/player's head
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[CypherJF]

With my biller - I use the notation's B->S and S->B. I don't think it really matters as brain mentioned.
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