Phantasmal Site > DGD > Writing a Library > Supplementary Documentation

DGD Documentation

Of course, you've already read the DGD documentation which comes in "dgd/doc" (haven't you?), but just in case I'll do a little overview.

• Commercial: this file tells you about using DGD commercially. This is important only if you ever plan to make money off a DGD MUD. Making money off a DGD server is involved and requires licensing. However, making money off most flavors of LPMUD is forbidden entirely by the license, so this is more generous of Dworkin than you think. The exceptions are the GPL'd servers, pike and Shattered World. Neither is quite the same language as DGD, but either could be worth looking into.
• Extensions: this tells you how to modify DGD itself in some specific, pretty clean ways. Don't do this until you have a good grasp of everything you'll need for a MUDLib. Even then, you'll want to be on the mailing list since this stuff isn't guaranteed to work right and operates very differently than you might think.
• Introduction: an excellent introduction to the interface between DGD and any given MUDLib. This is an excellent programmer's introduction to what a driver and an auto object are, and how DGD uses them. As Par Winzell so eloquently describes this file: Dworkin's documentation is like a good novel or classical textbooks: they are so dense with information that even after multiple readings and a high degree of proficiency with the system, a fresh read-through will yield new insights.
• Platforms: getting DGD compiled in the first place. You've already done that, right?
• editor: help on using DGD's built-in editor. You'll eventually want a better editing solution, but not necessarily coded into DGD or your MUDLib. In general, getting your editor entirely on the client side is best, building it into your MUDLib is next-best, and building it directly into DGD is worst. Feel free to ask Dworkin about this on the newsgroup, or just read through the archives and discover his opinions for yourself.
• parser: help on using DGD's built in parse_string facility. It's neat, it'll do good things, but it's not really relevant to a just-getting-started MUDLib. It'll let you build fine features later, but first you'll need to get stuff up and running.
• The kfun directory: up-to-date documentation on DGD's interface (via the auto object) to your program. This is roughly the same as documentation on OS system calls. Your MUDLib's auto object can override any, all or none of them.
• There's an LPC.html file with a very brief summary and no real information yet. It may be finished some day, but if you see nothing of use there, it's not a bad download. It's just that the file contains very little.

Other good places to look are the Kernel Library code for simple examples and interfaces, and of course this web site. You can read through existing libraries like Phantasmal and Melville if you need more examples of how to do things. Note that Phantasmal uses the Kernel, while Melville does not.