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Andrew Plotkin | 2 Sep 23:25

Re: Number handling in RPCs

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Doug Orleans wrote:

> Andrew Plotkin writes:
> > * First case: we accept that RPCs coming from the client will never
> > contain <int> values. I tweak my Python referee code to convert floats to
> > ints where possible (before type-checking occurs).
>
> On second thought, I think I prefer this solution.  If we're going to
> enforce (or strongly encourage) UIs to be written in ECMAScript, we
> should use its type system as the type system of rulesets, and let
> everything else deal with that.  And frankly I favor type systems
> where numbers are just numbers and you don't have to care about the
> internal representation.
>
> Or actually, I think I would prefer a more general solution: any
> parameter or return value that is defined by the ruleset to be a
> "number" may either be an <int> or <double> in the Jabber-RPC payload,
> and clients and referees must be able to handle both as input (but can
> choose to output either one).  This gives implementations a little
> more leeway, so they could send <int>s if they really wanted to.  Or
> maybe it would be simpler to just discard the <int> type altogether.  I
> don't have a strong opinion about this at the moment.

Getting back to this: I have updated the wiki to explain that clients may 
send numbers as either <int> or <double> (whether they're sending RPC 
method arguments or replies). I've updated my Python ref code to 
accomodate this. As I understand it, the Perl ref code shouldn't need 
updating.

I did not make the same claim about other channels (anybody -> client,
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Jason McIntosh | 4 Sep 02:02
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Another similar effort

Probably the closest yet: Game Gardens, from the Puzzle Pirates people.

http://gamegardens.com/

Looks like a literal "Open Yahoo Games", to quote Andy. Not as much
emphasis on players as I'd like to see in Volity, though they do
mention match-finding in their about page. I'd investigate it myself,
but I can't get any games to work on my Tiger installation...

--

-- 
  Jason McIntosh             jmac <at> jmac.org
Somerville, MA, USA       http://www.jmac.org

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Andrew Plotkin | 4 Sep 02:44

Re: Another similar effort

On Sat, 3 Sep 2005, Jason McIntosh wrote:

> Probably the closest yet: Game Gardens, from the Puzzle Pirates people.
>
> http://gamegardens.com/
>
> Looks like a literal "Open Yahoo Games", to quote Andy. Not as much
> emphasis on players as I'd like to see in Volity, though they do
> mention match-finding in their about page.

Hrm. That *is* unpleasantly close.

Can't make it work either (also Tiger).

One thing a lot of these game systems have, which we don't, is remote 
object handling. You write *one* script, and the system facilities 
magically keep the client side and the server side in sync. Whether this 
is a win for them or for us depends on how magic the magic is. The 
fact that the first FAQ in gamegardens is "how not to break this" fills me 
with some smugness.

(Mind you, we *could* write a generic Volity game UI -- all the graphics 
would be manipulated remotely by the referee. I wouldn't recommend it but 
it might be good to have as an option.)

So, what client features will make Volity really player-friendly? What 
kind of parlor-browsing and chat-browsing should come up automatically 
when you start Javolin?

--Z
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Doug Orleans | 4 Sep 03:39
X-Face

Re: Another similar effort

Andrew Plotkin writes:
 > One thing a lot of these game systems have, which we don't, is remote 
 > object handling. You write *one* script, and the system facilities 
 > magically keep the client side and the server side in sync.

Of course it's not just a script you have to write, it's a full Java
application.  One of the advantages of Volity is that the protocol is
language neutral, so you can write your referee and UI in whatever
languages are best for the task.  Another advantage is that there can
be multiple referee and UI implementations for the same ruleset.
There's more moving parts that can get out of sync, but overall I
think the flexibility of interchangeable parts is a big win over their
monolithic architecture.

--dougo <at> place.org

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Jason McIntosh | 4 Sep 19:51
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Re: Another similar effort

As a preface: I've since learned that Three Rings is apparently doing
this as a nice-nice freebie side thing to their money-earners, using
technology they happened to have lying around from PP development, and
don't seem to be chasing it as hardcore as many of us are chasing
Volity. So I think again our best stance is "Ah, another interesting
thing to learn from" and not "OMG we've been scooped", though the
things I learn about _do_ seem to be getting closer each time...

On 9/3/05, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath <at> eblong.com> wrote:
> 
> Hrm. That *is* unpleasantly close.
> 
> Can't make it work either (also Tiger).

You apparently need some Java 1.5 stuff, and Apple hasn't made this
available in a Software Update yet. But it's obtainable with extra
effort. Which i haven't expended yet.

> So, what client features will make Volity really player-friendly? What
> kind of parlor-browsing and chat-browsing should come up automatically
> when you start Javolin?

We haven't given the UI much thought yet, but the most bare
description is in the Game Finder page in the Wiki.

Some ideas I've had for a while:
* You can add parlors to your roster (possible now), and Javolin
should automatically poll rostered parlors every so often (on
connection, to start) to give you a small activity summary.
** Alternately, you can add rulesets to a fakey "roster" that only
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Andy Turner | 6 Sep 10:06

New RSS Stuff

I upgraded the wiki to UseModWiki 1.0 so that we could get RSS feeds
of the RecentChanges page.  This is available here:

http://www.volity.org/wiki/index.cgi?action=rss

I setup http://planet.volity.net/ today.  If you aren't familiar with
the Planet X concept, let me explain:  The idea is to have a web site
that acts as an aggregator for all of the syndicated content relating
to a particular topic.  Examples: http://planet.gnome.org/,
http://planet.perl.org, http://planet.python.org

Most planet.* sites use software called Planet Planet.
http://www.planetplanet.org/ As I've been working on my own web-based
aggregator, I leverage that instead.  Planet Planet uses Python's
enviable Universal Feed Parser.  planet.volity.net uses my Perl
Feed::Parser module (http://turner.mikomi.org/feedparser/).

Anyway, I thought the idea was good so I set one up for Volity.  If
you have a resource that you'd like listed, say, your blog, let me
know and I'll add it in.  I've also put in subscription requests for
volity-announce and javolin-devel with Gmane so we should have RSS
feeds available of those soon.

One other point: planet.volity.net supports filtering individual
feeds based on tags.  So if you don't want to syndicate your entire
feed to planet.volity.net, we can accommodate you.  Just tell me which
tags you'd like it to accept.

Stuff that remains:
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Jason McIntosh | 6 Sep 17:50
Gravatar

Volity NS issues

*.volity.* NS seems to be screwed up. Some people can see it, some  
can't. The fire brigade has been summoned.

--
   Jason McIntosh             jmac <at> jmac.org
Somerville, MA, USA       http://www.jmac.org

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Andrew Plotkin | 6 Sep 18:31

Re: Volity NS issues

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Jason McIntosh wrote:

> *.volity.* NS seems to be screwed up. Some people can see it, some can't. The 
> fire brigade has been summoned.

Simpler than that, I think. I can ping and ssh to www.volity.org, but the 
HTTPD is dead.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.

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Jason McIntosh | 6 Sep 19:18
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Re: Volity NS issues

On 9/6/05, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath <at> eblong.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Jason McIntosh wrote:
> 
> > *.volity.* NS seems to be screwed up. Some people can see it, some can't. The
> > fire brigade has been summoned.
> 
> Simpler than that, I think. I can ping and ssh to www.volity.org, but the
> HTTPD is dead.

Yes, was hoodwinked since Apple made all of Safari's error messages
look the same.

Things appear to be live again, thanks to Andy.

--

-- 
  Jason McIntosh             jmac <at> jmac.org
Somerville, MA, USA       http://www.jmac.org

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Andrew Plotkin | 7 Sep 04:12

Audio?

Has anyone thought about representing audio effects in a UI file? People 
like buttons that go "bloop". Also, background music loops.

SVG has something about "aural stylesheets," but that seems to be intended
for display agents that can speechify bits of text out of the XML.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.

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Gmane