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Frequently-Asked Questions
Why is the client an applet, not an application?
Coupla reasons:
1. We need to change it frequently. It's important that
the client and server code remain in sync with each other. If
we made the client a stand-alone application, you'd have to
download new releases quite often anyway, and it would be your
responsibility to do it. That is, there'd be no guarantee you'd
be using the correct version. By making it an applet, it's
guaranteed you'll always use the latest, correct code.
2. We intend to implement a "natural language parser"
eventually, which will allow players to enter commands in
conversational English. "Show me what's inside the bag" --
etc. We could locate that code inside the server, but it would
add a lot of processing to the server's already considerable load.
Locating it in the applet lets us distribute the processing burden,
and that in turn lets us better handle larger numbers of players
at one time.
3. We also intend to implement "machine translation" at
some point, which will allow speakers of languages other than English
to interact with TriadCity in their own tongue. More or less. The
applet is a great place to locate this code, too, for the same reasons
of scalability as natural language parsing.
There are also some security gains from use of the applet, but
these are not the main thing. Synchronization and scalability are
the biggies.
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