Subject: All that rot

From: [email-masked] (bilding at ncm)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 14:26:58 -0800

...perhaps I missed the point, but from what I gathered,
the applicant wanted to be able to set builtin 'properties'
!r, except by wizard owned verbs, which would control to
that extent how a programmer that info.
While their stated application is 'hiding', they could
just as well be wanting to make major changes to $room,
or containers, or whatnot.  Further, hiding is a desirable
ability on an RPG oriented MOO, thieves hiding in shadows,
etc, etc.

On lambda, !r .contents is not an option, so we have come
up with hackarounds.  The most successful involves using
a meta-room, which is not distributed with the core, but
basically is on $room object which through verb manipulation
gives the effect of many rooms, with exits, descriptions,
'properties', specific enterfuncs, etc, and :contents().
While a programmer can still get .contents, the meta-room
can contain potentially hundreds of sub-rooms, so that
information is not particularly useful or relevant.

The other tack to which WOLFE alludes is not to make most players,
or untrusted players, programmers.  Admittedly restrictive,
but in some MOO situations, it facilitates development by
letting trusted programmers write without adding extra security
code or making verbs !r so noone can see how they did what they
did.  Then you could just hack @who and be done with it.

bild