[MUD-Dev] How much should be offloaded to Scripting?

[Damion Schubert]

From: Raph Koster

> As a concrete example--I'd much rather hardcode the basic combat
> engine, and provide script hooks to embellish its behavior, than
> code the basic combat engine in script. It'll just lead to more
> people touching it than you want, more cruft being added to it,
> and odds are, you don't need the basic combat system to change
> that often once you get it nailed. Plus, you'll want the speed
> anyway.

One warning here - one of the things that really hobbled UO2's
development was that we had too many 'hooks' - code detours which
jumped from C++ to (in our case) Python scripts.  Too many of these
jumps can cause your game code to be slower than if it was all in
Python!  It also can cause some serious code obfuscation and
debugger issues, as your processes wind snakelike between the two
code paths.

Personally, there should be no reason that you couldn't do pretty
much everything in script, especially if you're not planning on
charging for it. The top chokepoints that emerge can be moved to
C++.  For those who worry about performance, a Meridian 59 server
did virtually everything in scripts except manage the net
connections, and it still was easily capable of holding 150-200
people ... back in 1998, when the 486 was a meaty server box.

--d
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