Not going to make this long. Just something I was thinking about. Remember that when you're reading this I'm not pointing any fingers or such. It's just "food for thought" as it were. Everyone who decides to work on a mud has a certain amount of experience with things that help them to do it properly. Some people have a good deal of coding experience in a non-c language, so it helps them to have a basis in learning. Some people have been professional c coders or students using the language for some years. Some people have relatively little experience. Some people are fluent and interesting with written and spoken langauge. Others have a difficult time with spelling, grammar or vocabulary . . . or even just holding anyone's attention with their prose. Some people lack the ability to "see the big picture" while others know how to combine things in order to make a cohesive persistent world. Some people are in love with technology and will mix and mash things which don't function well together at all, while others feel that technology is merely a means to an end . . . not something just to be used because one can! The point I'm trying to draw your attention to here is that there are always going to be implementors who are unable to figure out "simple" errors or "fundamental" problems. It's important for those of us who aren't able to figure out things that those of you with erperience generously try to assist us. Because believe it or not, I bet 95% of us already read the part where it says: "don't do this if you don't know c, a mud is not a learning project" . . . yet we're doing it anyway for some reason. Telling us to go read a book on c is not likely to produce some amazing epiphany in us. :) Do I know how to code c? No. I have a vague idea of how things manage to affect each other. I can follow the flow of something. I cannot, however, determine what the right syntax or punctuation is on various things. Not yet. And I appreciate everyone who takes the time to reply to issues I'm having, even when the reply isn't as clear to me as I might like. At least you took the time out of YOUR life to assist me. -Mathew [P.S. For those of you who care enought about the why of me, keep reading. I'm a 27 year old American living in The Netherlands waiting for my residence permit. Since I have time, I'm working on my ideas for a mud. The fact that I work on the mud from about 3am EST to noon EST means that coordinating with folks from the US becomes exceedingly difficult. That assumes that I could find a coder who was willing to listen to my design and implement it without throwing in their own "special touches" (worked with too many programmers to trust any of them to follow a spec) . . . it's not that such coders don't exist, it's just that you're all working on your own projects. On the topic of c books, as I do not read Dutch it becomes difficult to find books locally. (I left mine in the States when I moved, it's mothering heavy and I decided I wanted clothing.) Imported manuals are very expensive in the stores which are few and far between for English speakers. Mailorder is bad as well (Amazon charges about 20EU+ for shipping a large text) and as noted, I'm waiting on a permit so I can't work. So, I do what I can with reading the code, looking at example sites, and asking questions. Incidentally, such things cost money, since here we have metered dialup rates. So I try not to waste time with things I have any clue about. The other folks whose c skills lack probably have interesting stories about why they're working on a mud as well. ;) Thanks for your time.] -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAQ: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html | | Archives: http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html | | Newbie List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/circle-newbies/ | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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