Subject: $player and $prog and suchlike.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1992 06:06:00 -0700

Okay.  We've got $player, which has certain limited abilities, and we've got 
$prog which pretty much has everything.  There are other classes out there 
which have more features and handier utilities, but when ya get down to it 
everything that's needed is on $prog.

Is there any reason there couldn't be another class?  Say something like 
$builder?  It could be between $player and $prog, and it could have a more 
robust @create (with $player's create pared down, say, to only allow generic 
players to create $rooms and $things and $containers and so forth).  One 
would need to be a $builder in order to create other things.  Just a thought.

Another thought relates to allowing non-programmers a @chparent which lets 
them use other player classes.  For example, and I know this is a heinous 
example, there are way too many people who want to be Schmoos.  (And, I know, 
I am speaking here specifically of LambdaMOO and not generally, but sue me if 
you don't like it.)  These people who want to be Schmoos will get a $prog 
bit, @chparent to Schmoo, and not understand a damned thing they've just 
done.  An alternative would be to allow the non-programmer to @chparent to 
any player class, and let them suffer the consequences if they can't use the 
programmer-only verbs.

I'm just tossing out ideas, mainly for two reasons:
+ I want to get SOMETHING on Moo-Cows which isn't a request to be on
  Moo-Cows, and
+ I really am interested in what people think about having something
  -different- from the usual $player and $prog pairs.  There's got to
  be -something- besides $player and $prog and $wiz, right?  I wanna hear
  ideas.  (Not that I can -implement- any of them. Heh. But we can talk.)

Blackbriar

---

From: Judy Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1992 14:52:02 -0700

>For example, and I know this is a heinous 
>example, there are way too many people who want to be Schmoos.

I sent mail to *Schmoo on Lambda asking Quinn and the other schmoos
what they think of the idea of maintaining a Simple-Schmoo as a
nonprogrammer alternative that wouldn't have all the cruft that's on
#5803 and #8855 and all the other hacker-type player classes in
between $prog and Schmoo.  It would be a direct child of the base
player class (which is now #3133).  Give it a special "@become this"
verb.  Just a straw man idea, I'm not sure it's the right thing.  Be
sure to generate some traffic on *Schmoo though (now that I've let it
slip I've been reading it :-)

Judy Anderson yclept yduJ     [email-masked]    'yduJ' rhymes with 'fudge'
   Join the League for Programming Freedom, [email-masked]