Re: Writing new PBeM software and need a programmer

From: rlpowell@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Robin Lee Powell)

Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000

"Steve Pritchard" <steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>See the perl, be the perl, do the perl!
>>
>>Kidding.  I've never written a PBeM, but from my experience with text
>>manipulation in perl and my overall unix geekishness, that was the best
>>estimate I could come up with.  If the designer can come up with a rigerous
>>(sp?) definition of how the game works, maybe only like 2-3 weeks. If the
>>designer is wishy-washy, maybe 1-2 months.
>
>Robin, please, please don't take this a the wrong way as it's certainly not
>meant that way but...

I wasn't planning on it.

>If some one out there can write a definite explanation of how they want a
>PBM to work to the standard that it can be coded in such a short space of
>time, they are fooling themselves. PBM's are great on paper <g> but once you

What I meant when I said that was as rigerous as, say, Monopoly.  I honestly
believe that I could write a fully automated Monopoly PBeM server in perl in
the space of a week or two.  Monopoly is rigourous in the sense that once you
have all the inputs (including random numbers for the dice), what happens is
fully defined, there's no decision making involved.  Galaxy is similar, but
more complex.

>let players lose on them, you'll hit things you could not possibly believe
>would ever happen. Yes, I know this is in the realms of playtesting, but the
>poor programmer gets the messy end of things once this starts. Personally I

Of course.  Much like debugging.

>hate coding with a passion, so anyone that enjoys it is an alien species to
>me, but hey, we're all different. I've never touched UNIX so I can't give
>comment on it's ease of use, just that what I've seen of it from the users
>end is scary enough :)

Ahh, see, I love programming.  And it would be _very_ hard to argue that there
is a non-UNIX-variant system that can deal as well with e-mail as a
UNIX-variant can.

-Robin

--
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be charged for consulting: $500 + $1/byte.

References

Re: Writing new PBeM software and need a programmer
"Steve Pritchard" <steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk>
Fri, 21 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Writing new PBeM software and need a programmer
ar412@chebucto.ns.ca
Sun, 16 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Writing new PBeM software and need a programmer
"Steve Pritchard" <steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk>
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Writing new PBeM software and need a programmer
rlpowell@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Robin Lee Powell)
Thu, 20 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000