Summary

[ LiB ]

This chapter introduced you to the Telnet protocol and showed you how to use it. While Telnet is not a complex protocol, it has its quirks . This chapter also showed you how to use and create protocol policies as well as protocol handlers to manage your connections.

You may have seen Telnet programs that involve far less design and coding, and you may even be saying that this design was overkill for a simple chat program. Well, you're correct if your end result is only a chat program. However, my goal goes above and beyond. The biggest problem with most MUDs is that they are too difficult to build on and expand.

If you've ever worked on a MUD, you know that 90% of the fun is building on it and expanding it. Unfortunately, most MUDs I see are just huge messes of unorganized code, and every time someone adds something, the whole thing gets a little more ugly and unmaintainable.

So, with this design, I hope you will find the entire networking subsystem to be nice and flexible. This allows you to add cool features to your games later on, if you decide you want them.

This chapter concludes the introduction section of the book; now I will delve into the depths of MUD mechanics.

[ LiB ]