# [SUG] Two changes to the server

Roger Crew (rfc@MICROSOFT.com)
Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:36:32 -0700

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    >> (2) This has been suggested before, but can we finally expunge all
    >> remaining vestiges of "player" from the server (replacing it with
    "user")?

    Make it be "connection" or "line", and I'll agree that it might be worth
    the trouble to do so.  Yes, backward compatibility is a bitch, but in
    this case, I have reason to believe it might not be so bad.  Here,
    compatibility is simply a matter of how we recognize certain builtin
    function calls.  The parser could quietly perform the following
    translations on input

      boot_player(...)         close_connection(...)
      players(...)             connections(...)
      connected_players(...)   connections_open(...)
      is_player(...)           is_connection(...)
      set_player_flag(...)     set_connection_flag(...)

    Ancient code thus encountered would be quietly turned into equivalent
    new code.  Nothing would be any different at the bytecode level.  So
    long as we resolve NEVER to re-use the old builtin names as names of new
    builtins sometime in the future (and as long as nobody is currently
    using any odd extensions to the current server in which the above new
    builtin function names are used but differently), this will work.

    Slightly more controversial would be the substitution

      player                   current_connection

    except that I figure if one is going to go to this trouble, one may as
    well instead do the substitutions

      player                   current_connection()
      player = X               set_current_connection(X)

    thus removing the current bogosity in which "player" is this weird-ass
    variable that receives special treatment accorded no other variable
    (w.r.t. when one is actually allowed to change it and how this affects
    nested calls).

    set_current_connection(X) would, of course, return/raise exactly
    whatever (player = X) currently returns/raises.