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Re: obviscating python code for distribution

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On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> If your answer is "No cheating is acceptable", then you have to do all
> the computation on the server, nothing on the client, and to hell with
> performance. All your client does is the user interface part.
>
> If the answer is, "Its a MUD, who's going to cheat???" then you don't
> have to do anything. Trust your users. If the benefit from "cheating" is
> small enough, and the number of cheaters low, who cares? You're not
> running an on-line casino for real money.

The nearest I've seen to the latter is Dungeons and Dragons. People
can cheat in a variety of ways, but since they're not playing
*against* each other, cheating is rare. As to the former, though...
the amount of computation that you can reliably offload to even a
trusted client is low, so you don't lose much by doing it all on the
server. The most computationally-intensive client-side work would be
display graphics and such, and that's offloadable if and ONLY if
there's no game-sensitive information hidden behind things. Otherwise
someone could snoop the traffic-stream and find out what's behind that
big nasty obstacle, or turn the obstacle transparent, or whatever...
not safe.

There's an old OS/2 game called Stellar Frontier that moves sprites
around on the screen using clientside code, but if there's a bit of
lag talking to the server, you see a ship suddenly yoinked to its new
position when the client gets the latest location data. That's a fair
compromise, I think; the client predicts where the ship "ought to be",
and the server corrects it when it can.

Chris Angelico

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obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 20:04 -0600
  Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-16 13:29 +1000
    Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 21:36 -0600
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-05-15 22:48 -0500
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-16 04:03 +0000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 14:40 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 23:41 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-16 08:49 +0000
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 19:10 +1000
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-05-16 14:40 -0500
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-16 13:05 +0100
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution James Mills <prologic@shortcircuit.net.au> - 2011-05-16 16:00 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 16:12 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 00:17 -0600
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 00:20 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:22 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution James Mills <prologic@shortcircuit.net.au> - 2011-05-16 16:24 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 00:27 -0700
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com> - 2011-05-16 11:36 +0200
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 08:44 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:30 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 20:45 -0700
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> - 2011-05-17 09:16 +0300
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-17 16:39 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-17 09:36 -0400
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-16 14:10 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2011-05-16 13:52 +0000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:27 +1000
    Re: obviscating python code for distribution Disc Magnet <discmagnet@gmail.com> - 2011-05-20 14:49 +0530

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