Essentially, yes. I'm breaking out the physical object, behaviour, and
interactivity as separate problems. That's a mild over-simplification,
and we'll probably have to cheat in places (certainly we'll need to
establish clear interfaces between these domains), but I suspect that
if we don't make it, we're going to wind up with truly baroque (and
truly broke) standards.
So yes, I'm figuring that laws of physics are part of behaviour, and
get implemented mainly in the Browser. The server is mainly responsible
for interaction and state maintenance, and that only when necessary.
>>Instead, assume that the server is just playing traffic
>>cop, putting the clients in touch with each other and keeping track
>>of long-term changes to the world. Let the clients do all the hard
>>work.
>
>Is this the same role I'm describing above as a "Laws of Physics Server?"
>Or do you mean a lesser role?
I mean as lesser a role as possible. Some of the physics stuff may
have to go through the server, but I think that's probably minimal if
we're clever. (The main time I can see the server needing to enforce
the laws of physics is if a process gets started that persists well
beyond the time that the initiator is present. That should be rare
enough, though.)
The point is, we should require as little as possible of the VRMUD
server, because even the minimums are going to require non-trivial
horsepower...
-- Justin
Random Quote du Jour:
"Better to reign in Assembly Language then serve in Structured Programming?"
-- Tim Of-Angle