Small changes to existing features... discuss

by PudMoZ on 04/30/2008 01:03, 9 messages, last message: 05/01/2008 20:09, 5361 views, last view: 05/04/2024 21:16

Rather than ask for a bunch of new features, I figured it would be a good idea to talk about some existing ones and how they might be improved. Specifically, naming conventions.

"mastermode" and "setmaster" are the two things that got me started on this topic. They're way too similar and easy to confuse. "mastermode" should really something like "servermode" because you are changing the "mode" of the "server," not changing the "mode" of the "master". "setmaster" also seems odd. Even though you are "setting" yourself as the "master", the fact that you have to supply the password as an argument mixes the whole thing up.

One other thing that seems odd is that "kick" really "bans" people, if you're thinking about it in terms of "kick" ejecting a user from the server but not forcing them to stay out.

Normally I'd go ahead and change this stuff in the source but I haven't figured out CVS completely and changing something like this that everyone is used to deserves discussion. Does anyone else have anything to say about naming conventions?

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#1: clear the bans

by Hirato Kirata on 04/30/2008 01:26

We have a clearbans command :D

now the master commands, I think they're fine.
though setmaster is fine, but a bit misleading. it does imply you can give others master status too.
mastermode is fine, pretty much saying the strength (and probably corruption :D) of the current master.

If anything I'd just suggest a /transfermaster command, in which if you are master, or admin, you can make someone else a master while revoking yourself of your status.

btw, w00t, first post :D

~Hirato Kirata

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#2: ..

by PudMoZ on 04/30/2008 02:23

I'm aware of the clearbans command but I think it would be more intuitive to have separate "kick" and "ban" commands, in which "kick" wouldn't add the user to the list of people to block from rejoining. The reason I'm saying this is because I'm used to the B.net (Blizzard's fancy version of IRC) /kick and /ban commands which do what I just went over.

I'm not sure if you understand what I was getting at with the issue of "mastermode". The "master", as a user, doesn't have a mode. The "server" does. When you, for example, do "mastermode 3", you've just changed the mode of the "server" to not allow any new users in. The "master" of a "server" isn't what blocks incoming connections, the "server" is. The "master" is only another user.

While writing this post I realized that I should be using the term "client" instead of "user" just because it sounds more proper... Whatever, I can change it in future posts...

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#3: Re: ..

by tman_elite on 04/30/2008 02:56, refers to #2

What's the point of kicking someone if they can just join again 5 seconds later?

The setmaster and mastermode are a bit misleading I guess, but I don't know if changing them now would help. People are just used to the old way. I guess you could use an alias if you want.

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#4: ..

by PudMoZ on 04/30/2008 03:30

Kicking is useful if someone is just being annoying and you want to get a message across, but they're not being such a nuisance that you don't ever want to see them again. In IRC it's mostly useful for warnings or joking around.

I used to think like you do, that if everyone's used to something that's actually wrong, then there's no reason to change it because that wrong has effectively become the new right. And then I started programming. When you're writing a program, and you pick a variable name that sounds okay and works for what you're doing, there's no problem. But when you go to update that program and you introduce a bunch of new variables all more or less related to the original one and you find that the name you chose doesn't suit it that well and all the variable names you have start becoming ambiguous and you get confused, what do you do? You don't just tack on all the new features you want, because then, when you go to update it a second time, you've got a huge mess of variable soup, and your update will take longer to fix all the bugs you've created than it will to have simply corrected the problem you made in the first update, and *then* made the second update.

I hope my point isn't getting lost or derailed by the idea I just brought up. What I'm trying to say is that inconsistent or ambiguous naming conventions will eventually catch up to you, and it would be better to clarify the problems and fix them now, than to say that "people are just used to the old way", and in the future end up having to deal with problems that we've ignored.

I apologize if any of this doesn't make sense as I haven't written in a while and I seem to have a history of mixing up tenses and grammatical objects.

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#5: Re: ..

by tman_elite on 04/30/2008 03:55, refers to #4

I get what you're saying I guess. About the ban thing, bans are reset automatically after four hours, so it's not like they're gone for good.

About the other commands, maybe they could be renamed but the original names kept, at least until the majority of people catch on to the new ones.

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#6: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 04/30/2008 04:43, refers to #5

Re keeping the old commands but creating new ones: They tried something like that with the metric system here in the States. They put kilometers on highway signs but miles too. The result was that people ignored the kilometers and just used the miles.

Of course, it isn't quite as applicable in this situation. Eliminating /setmaster, /mastermode, etc. would probably break too much.
And there's skybox/spinsky vs. loadsky as precedent, I guess.

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#7: Re: ..

by Hirato Kirata on 04/30/2008 07:08, refers to #6

Don't forget about /yawsky :P

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#8: Re: ..

by tman_elite on 04/30/2008 13:04, refers to #6

The difference here is that this doesn't involve mathematical calculations. This is just typing a different word into the console.

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#9: ..

by Khane_at_School on 05/01/2008 20:09

I would...REALLY like improved demos and spectator features. Specifically, I'd like a first person view. I know we have /followdist, but that's so...tweaky. It randomly hops out of the guys head, and you can't see HP or armor.

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