Re: Non-overrideable verbs

• Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 20:43:01 PDT
• From:
  Richard Connamacher <phantom@sfsu.edu>
• cc: A.J.Ayre@e-eng.hull.ac.uk, moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
• Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
• In-Reply-To: <17028204@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU>

On 30 Jul 1996, Jefferson M. Dubrule wrote:

> --- Andrew Ayre wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, RICHARD JACOB CONNAMACHER wrote:
> 
> > 1) A database transition would, in fact, be neccessary, because verbs 
> > are, in LambdaCORE< defined "rw" by default, so new verbs would be 
> > defined as non-overridable by default, which is IMHO a bad thing.  I 
> > would use 'p' (protected) or 'n' (non-overidable) as the perm for a 
> > non-overridable verb, and it has to be on for the verb to be overridable.
> 
> Why not have o for overridable and !o for non-overridable, then the verbs 
> would be overidable by default.
> --- end of quoted material ---
> 
> Dealt with even more simply:  in the server, the flag VF_NOT_O is used to
> indicate that the flag is NOT set. 

I fail to see how the server's internal storage mechanism has anything 
whatsoever to do with the behavior of permissions in the MOO.  When I say 
+w, I really don't care if the server remembers it as "Writable" or "Not 
not-writable".  That has nothing at all even remotely to do with how it's 
used in a running MOO.

The reason I want to use a 'p' flag for protected (or hell consider it 
'property-like') is that when this flag is off, verbs are treated as 
usual.  Databases loaded from an older server will still work perfectly 
fine (and don't give me that line about VF_NOT_O causing all verbs to be 
loaded from a previous db version to be made +o, that's simply a 
convesion.) Only when this flag is turned on are verbs given override 
protection.

In other words, I want to make override protection a _feature_ that only 
occours when you _want_ it and _ask_ for it, and the way it is now is the 
default.  You want to make overridable an _option_ and make the default, 
what is assumed if nothing is asked for, to be non-overridable, which 
will 1) make upgrading hell, 2) make adjusting to an upgrade hell, and 3) 
cause tons of headaches when we get spammed with complaints about "Why 
doesn't my MOO work?" every five minutes.

Keep the way it is now the default, and make overridable verbs an option 
that only is turned on when you ask for it to be turned on and chmod a 
verb +p.

Phantom

• Prev: No Subject
• Next: Re: Non-overrideable verbs
• Index: MOO-cows
• Thread: MOO-cows