I don’t want to start a flaming thread, I just want to know the
thoughts of other coders out there on this subject.

How do you really know if a code snippet is yours, I mean
sure the main idea behind it could be, but how do you know
that the code is?

I decided to start this after some recent code I’ve done,
which are key rings. I was browsing for ideas the other
night and found a snippet on Mudmagic.com about
key rings, I read the description using values for key
holders.

I decided that would be a very cool new item to add to the
Mud, so I coded it in and finished testing it. After which I was
asked which snippet I used; I replied with I used Such and
Such for the idea, but I coded it myself.

After looking at the snippet it looks pretty much the same,
other than the way I do my for statements, and int names.

Now for the question, I wouldn’t post the code as a snippet as
there are a lot of them out there, but if I did, how would you
know that I didn’t copy the other snippets?

Could you tell if it was yours? I really don’t want to stir up
many flames, but I feel this might, as perhaps im trying to
say I didn’t take something when I did; Just would like to
know your thoughts on the matter.

Kinni -

Many common features like the ones you're discussing are available from multiple authors. I've never used a non-Carrion-Fields snippet (our code is a ROM derivative (*), but after 11 years of modification it's very unlikely that a system developed for another MUD would "plug in" nicely), but I'd imagine that even if you wrote a snippet with the same goal (e.g. key holders), no one would doubt your authorship since you'd inevitably do things a little differently for anything complex enough to be worth posting about. It's to the community's advantage if multiple solutions to one problem are available-- your keyring snippet might work better than Joe's for a particular MUD.

(*): I'm using the legal definition here, not the crazy Medievia perversion of it.

Yeah, that makes some sense.

Ill start getting together snippets ive made for my own mud, and start posting them about. Hoping that someone else will
also get something from it, other than just myself.