its a bad idea to promote such a system to someone.I asked why it was being done the way it was and told them how I was doing it, didn't necessarily say it's the best method out there. I just like to avoid using other people's libraries as much as possible.
Well, YOU like to, but really in essence you're also suggesting to others to avoid libraries by the above suggestion.
If you have a 300x300 town, and all other areas in your game are only, say, 150x150 then you're wasting 150x150 turfs per z-level.
Good point, never thought of that. But does it really have a huge impact on server resources? More so than adding an entire library of procedures to handle dynamic map placement?
Well, procedures don't just "take up resources", of course. They just take the required cpu time and memory when ran, the rest of the time they're just calm bytecode residing in your DMB file.
Objects however take up space, memory (nothing that can be considered "dangerous" of course) as long as they exist, and well, make you closer to that object limit. :P
I'll strongly advise against EVER using defines like you are, as well. Its going to be a mess down the road, to be blunt.
I fail to see the logic behind this at all. As long as you clearly define what purpose your defines have and keep them organized, they're not that messy at all.
I agree with Alathon. I also love #defines, but they're not for this, at least not the way you've put it. Is what you've posted the "organized" form? Because that IS very messy.
Defines and constants are a wonderful feature that is widely overlooked by most DM writers.
Yes, well, might wanna add most DM writers also overlook things such as not using 'usr' in a proc, using 'src', using lists, using object inheritances (the list goes on :p)...
But if you take a look around, #defines are used sometimes by the more competent coders. They're very nice and useful, but not for this stuff. They're for shortening code, repeating code automatically in certain ways, behaving as procs (for things too small/simple to be actually made into a proc), naming values, choosing settings (in Dream Maker and in libraries), and stuff like that.
I agree with the inefficient and non-flexible part. But it is not prone to error unless you have an incompetent coder on your team.
Works fine for my purposes
I asked why it was being done the way it was and told them how I was doing it, didn't necessarily say it's the best method out there. I just like to avoid using other people's libraries as much as possible.
Good point, never thought of that. But does it really have a huge impact on server resources? More so than adding an entire library of procedures to handle dynamic map placement?
Never said you couldn't. I do this all the time, manually. See above comment.
I fail to see the logic behind this at all. As long as you clearly define what purpose your defines have and keep them organized, they're not that messy at all. Defines and constants are a wonderful feature that is widely overlooked by most DM writers.