Ahoy! Every once in a while I feel compelled to write an article on some aspect of DM programming or game design, etc., without having a real purpose for them. I used to quell these urges with a bit of expensive scotch and a round of Mano a Mano, but I recently decided to give in and write the article... you know, so that people might actually have some proof that I'm a programmer, because I certainly don't have a finished game they can look at.
Anyway, here you can find the half-intelligible ramblings of a BYOND programmer who still hasn't learned exactly how to use the Atomic system. Each article covers some arcane aspect of developing in DM that I feel is largely unknown by the developer community, yet is used by myself on a daily basis. Curly brackets included free of charge.
TopKnowledge of the arcana begins here with the parent_type var. Until you understand how to bend the object tree to your will, the other lessons will be of no value. Brought to you courtesy of the Dream Makers guild.
A proposal for how the Dream Maker language itself could expand in the future. Remember to forget everything you read in this article before going back to programming.
Learn how to keep track of objects without preventing them from being garbage collected, and to prevent circular referencing.
A complicated trick which allows different types of objects to be grouped together. The jury is still out on wether or not this is ever a good practice, but I continue to make (cautious) use of it.
The Arcana has it's own forum on my members page. If you found any of these articles to be helpful or interesting, I'd like to hear from you. Write up a quick post on the forum so that I'll know to continue writing articles. Be sure to include which article you read, and what you liked about it. If you didn't like my article, and think that my programming practices are insane and borked, definitly be sure to post on the forum telling me exactly what's wrong with the article. If forums arn't your thing, you can always contact me via email at IainPeregrine at Gmail.com.
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