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He liked the NICE language the best.

He liked the NICE language the best.

I have swapped caps-lock and cnrl, i thought everyone did: how can you use emacs with the cnrl key over there? http://www.cabochon.com/~stevey/blog-rants/effecti ve-emacs.html

This guy seemed to like it ok:

http://www.cabochon.com/~stevey/blog-rants
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/

From what I've seen, Groovy's a half-baked programming language and unfinished product. See this criticism for a start.

If you want to do embedded scripting in Java, I suggest Bean Shell instead. As a library, Bean Shell is about 280K, Groovy is about 1.7M. And Bean Shell has been around for a lot longer.

I'd like to see Sun add closures and better support for lists/maps in Java itself (e.g. a map function). I'm hoping that pressure from Ruby will make the language grow. C# already made them change their mind about Generics.

I would really like to know what in particular makes Ruby a better designed language, honest question, not flamebait!

For starters, here's Steve Yegge of Amazon.com on languages, including Ruby.

Stevey Tours (and bashes) C, C++, Lisp, Perl, Ruby, Python.
Stevey on Languages: A Quick Tour of Ruby

And some more non-Ruby-specific, but interesting articles there, like this one.

I would really like to know what in particular makes Ruby a better designed language, honest question, not flamebait!

For starters, here's Steve Yegge of Amazon.com on languages, including Ruby.

Stevey Tours (and bashes) C, C++, Lisp, Perl, Ruby, Python.
Stevey on Languages: A Quick Tour of Ruby

And some more non-Ruby-specific, but interesting articles there, like this one.

I would really like to know what in particular makes Ruby a better designed language, honest question, not flamebait!

For starters, here's Steve Yegge of Amazon.com on languages, including Ruby.

Stevey Tours (and bashes) C, C++, Lisp, Perl, Ruby, Python.
Stevey on Languages: A Quick Tour of Ruby

And some more non-Ruby-specific, but interesting articles there, like this one.

The result: Lisp is pure DNA. You can build anything with it, and you always have the ability to evolve even large existing systems in new directions. And that's exactly what you need, because your problem domain is unique.

Wyvern is a free 2D MMORG coded in java and jython.

I remember reading about a MMORPG a while ago whose server was completely independent from the client, so the client game could be graphical, or text-based, or whatever. It *might* have been Wyvern, but I'm not certain.

Anyway, it's a really cool idea, if someone could do it right and have a client for every available platform while retaining whatever makes the game fun.

IANAMMORPGDE (I Am Not A MMORPG Design Expert) but I am an admin on a graphical MUD. It seems like there'd have to be some ongoing expenses to cover: bandwidth, server maintenance, game staff, designers, etc. I guess if they sell enough copies, that'll cover it...while they're selling copies.

From some of the things described in the interview (e.g., "But once you form a party and go on a quest, you and your friends get your own unique copy of the quest...") I'm wondering if they've got a completely different client-server model, with more stuff pushed onto the client side, and maybe direct client-to-client communication for some stuff to reduce the bandwidth requirements for the servers. But those both have some security implications, i.e., never put anything important on the client or it'll get abused.

The sharp zaurus is one of the best tools ever. I have used it in many different situations where before I would have had to grab my laptop. Using Minicom I have programmed routers with the nifty serial cable. I have spent many hours playing Dopewars and Wyvern (a pretty nifty graphical mud). The sharp image comes with Opera and is readable even at the furthest zoom (-4 or something.) My options are NOT restricted by sharp, there is even OpenZaurus (or OZ as the Z junkies call it.) The walkthroughs on the pages are mostly made for Linux noobs.

It runs Kismet (with the special socket drivers I can run low power for about 2 hours.) The software library is always growing, and the developers are happy to share their techniques for cross compiling/QT developing.

The wonderful thing about the Zaurus, is people already have developed and even COMPILED programs for the arm that run just fine on the Z, (mostly Ipaq/other linux SA device developers) but that means an even BIGGER software library.

The community is so helpful, you may be asking questions in the #zaurus channel in irc.openprojects.org and the person answering your question, just might have been the one developing the program you are asking about. It is not infrequent to hear "#Zaurus:So_and_so Yeah here that version is kinda buggy, I just compiled the new one here."

I have to mention Zauruszone even though it is no where near the community it used to be, there still are useful links

Not quite on topic, but the game Wyvern is well worth checking out. It is a massively multiplayer online game similar to Gauntlet in some respects. It runs under java, so it tends to be pretty platform friendly.

Substantial character death.

Like this in Wyvern?

Wyvern players who've died the most.
Last updated: Fri Jan 17 21:31:22 PST 2003

1. blank 2402 halfling
2. mikenewbie 1984 human
3. immortal 1459 human
4. lilriki 1262 pixie
5. justice 1052 human
6. dragthire 890 human
7. lords 784 human
8. ted 784 dark elf ....

Substantial character death.

Like this in Wyvern?

Wyvern players who've died the most.
Last updated: Fri Jan 17 21:31:22 PST 2003

1. blank 2402 halfling
2. mikenewbie 1984 human
3. immortal 1459 human
4. lilriki 1262 pixie
5. justice 1052 human
6. dragthire 890 human
7. lords 784 human
8. ted 784 dark elf ....

I don't know if spoiled is quite it. More to the point, I think some games spend too much attention on graphics, sounds, special effects, and not enough on making a good, playable game. That's true of all game genres, not just multi-player online games.

If you're looking for a MUD, even a text-based one, they're still out there:

• NetHack - successor to Rogue, the granddaddy of them all
• Falcon's Eye - a graphical version of NetHack
• Wyvern - a Java/Jython MUD with graphics

For those of you looking for a fun Online RPG, check out Wyvern. It's written in Python and Jython. I'm not sure if the engine code is open source, but the author funds the server himself and only asks for contributions if you can spare them. If you know Jython, you can become a wizard and write your own additions to the game (new maps, towns, monsters, items, etc.).