> Faustus von Goethe
>
> "Why CAN'T I put 'Designed to work with Dungeons and Dragons' on the box?"
(D20 STL 3.3.1.)
Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons(R) Player's Handbook, Third
Edition, published by Wizards of the Coast(R).
Put it anywhere you like, just don't use it to advertise.
WotC can't let you say "designed to work with..." because they have no idea
or control whether or not you did in fact design it to work with D&D. Most
will, but the rules of the D20 STL are loose enough that what you create
under it might have only the barest resemblance to D&D (throw out the
combat, skill, feat, magic system, monsters and even the milieu, replace
with something else, and you'll see what I mean - it won't be D&D anymore,
but it will still require the PHB).
> No. You are incorrect. Organizations right now are moving to
> platform-neutral solutions (like Citrix and HTML) - not cross-platform
> solutions (a subtle but important distinction). No organizations are
> working today to develop further into the total-integration
> cross-platform
> client server model that was favored in the early nineties. Way too
> expensive.
Blanket statements are always trouble. :-) There are plenty of situations
where Citrix/Terminal Server and HTML are less useful than a full
client-server solution, particularly in a heterogeneous legacy environment.
Of course they are expensive, but if you absolutely need the functionality,
it may be the best way to go. The only thing that even comes close to
client-server in terms of raw computing power is distributing computing,
which has its own issues. Many of the platform-neutral solutions you
describe use Java applets, Java servlets, or Java Script to achieve their
neutrality.
Oracle 8i (built-in JavaVM, SQL database, & web services) is an interesting
experiment in server-side thin-client computing. We'll have to see how it
works. I expect it will run into scalability issues in some situations.
>Our contractors assemble huge blocks of proprietary C++ "objects" in
>preprogrammed development environments - very few of them write C++ code.
>This is the end result of fifteen years of object oriented design - *very*
>low programming costs and *very* high turnaround.
Much as I hate to admit it, environments like Visual Basic & PowerBuilder
are fantastic cost-savers when it comes time to develop new applications. I
would say that I get about 90% of the functionality I need out of VB, and
the rest out of application-specific C++ objects. Recently I had to design
a data-entry application on a Windows CE platform using only the WinCE API.
It wasn't until that point that I realized just how far we'd come.
>What about the concept of "code reuse" on a large scale for the gaming
>community? Food for thought (and an effort to get back on topic).
That's the single biggest reason I want to support the OGL.
>From an enterprise (large organization) standpoint an open source
>non-supported version of Unix is just about the most expensive possible
>solution you can select.
There's no faulting that logic, but Linux is transitioning out of the
unsupported arena. That's where companies like Red Hat come in, providing
24/7 support for Linux. It isn't up to par with commercial Unix yet, but it
will get there, because that's what customers need. WinNT is usually
cheaper up until you hit the scalability wall, and then the equation flips
and Unix (not Linux) becomes the bargain. If you can predict when you're
going to hit that crossover point, it becomes a matter of accounting which
solution makes the most sense.
> [Windows NT] This is frustrating, confusing and enraging for those who are
> used to the flexibility of the vastly more complex Unix systems, but it is
> THE MOST COST EFFECTIVE way to do things.
I love NT; I've been hooked on it since the beta release of 3.1. My company
could not exist without the ease-of-use provided by the Windows server
platform, but even Win2k isn't as scaleable as Unix. It is also less stable
(as measured by continuous uptime), and certain categories of applications
(data warehouse engines & web servers come to mind) are less mature on
Windows than on Unix platforms. The two are very competitive, but they both
have their place in the upper echelons of the IT community.
> J. Michael Looney
>
> Name the applications. From where I sit I see very little Java apps that
> really do any thing. Lots of "crapletts" that spin wheels on web pages,
> but very few (read none) real apps.
Star Office (it's not MS Office, but it does work).
I'll grant that Java's forte is not in big monolithic apps, but rather in
small lightweight business-logic objects (especially server-side). It's
also frightfully easy to write net-enabled apps with it for three-tier
solutions.
> Brian C. Robinson
>
> I will tell you, though, that at my university, we've recently switched
from using > mainly C/C++ in our courses to using mainly Java.
Java is a good teaching language for object-oriented design. Master that
concept in an object-friendly language and you'll easily be able to apply it
to others. Teaching languages don't always make good working languages, so
this isn't evidence that Java will be used in the real world.
-Brad
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