I actually run a MUD that stills uses this copyover method (primarily C code) for major code changes and migrations. We have about 100 players online at any given time! We've actually built in some more modern automatic copyover triggers and hooks related to recovering from crashes, capturing backtraces, performing database migrations, and sending/receiving systemd signals (among a lot of other modernization upgrades).
Very cool - I thought it would be a forgotten technique by now. Which MUD, and have you written up the details anywhere? I'm very interested to know what a modern version of this looks like, particularly with the systemd integration.
It originated (more than 20 years ago) as a fork of SWReality, which is itself a fork of SMAUG, which comes from DIKU, and so on and so on.
We (myself and a lot of other awesome volunteer coders over the years) have made some pretty major modifications to the codebase. It all runs on PostgreSQL now (instead of flat text files with a custom parser), it has a built-in Lua scripting interpreter for extensions and in-game interactions, it has deep integrations to our Discord community, it has sidecar web services, and much much more...
This is awesome, thanks for sharing! I used to play lots of MUDs and also the browser-based MMORPG life sim Star Wars Combine, so I don't know how I missed this back then.
By the way, you have broken link on the `Learn More About the Economy` link in the home page. Should just have it redirect to `/crafting-the-galaxy`
That's so cool. Have you written about the MUD's history and technical evolution anywhere? If not, would you be interested in collaborating on an article like that?
HuffPo wrote a piece about us like a decade ago, and I've been meaning to write more about the technical evolution of the game..just haven't gotten around to it. Certainly interested in collaborating on something
This is very cool! I have a MUD (that still has a fairly active playerbase) written in straight-up C. Been working on it 20+ years now, and always had some curiosity about rewriting it.
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That's correct! We want to charge folks to make sure they'll show up and are actually committed to doing this, but do it for a good cause - 100% of proceeds are going to that fund.
Oh, hey! You're the guy who posted the thing and is hosting the thing. Great stuff.
Don't know if the post title can be edited, but it would have been clearer to me if it had said "Charity fundraiser job fair to help quarantined students find jobs (mlh.io)"
I posted the clarification b/c I clicked on the link and was confused for a minute scrolling around to find the fundraising aspect.
This reminds me a lot of HackNY (https://apply.hackny.org/) - it's a non-profit in NYC that handles housing, activities, and placement for NYC startup interns
I noticed that AMP has recently started adding 'apps' to my launcher in Android. I visited Vimeo.com in mobile Chrome and then suddenly a Vimeo app icon with a little AMP symbol showed up in my launcher without any opt-in.
I think that's Android instant apps, not amp. It's a new Android feature that let's you use supported websites in their native app without having to download the app.
I'm not sure why it showed up on your home screen; it's not supposed to do that. What phone/launcher/Android version are you using?
