Re: Reinvigorating MUDs
On one hand, you have code that restricts you to adjusting what the programmer expects you'll want to adjust, in the ways in which he expects you'll want to adjust it. You're bounded by a box that the programmer built.
On the other hand, you're programming. Maybe it's been dressed up to look like some other activity. (see: visually-based trigger scripting systems for various mainstream games) But whatever it looks like, you still need the cognitive tools to figure out how the pieces of your system interact and react to each other to effect serious change.
And that's the problem. As a software system becomes more and more configurable, its configuration becomes more and more like a program, which is exactly what you set out to avoid.
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