New classification system

[Jez]

Ok, I know I'm a bit anal but I've been round a long time and figured that the ever growing lists of bots needed a surface explanation without remembering stuff. (Me being crud at remembering stuff!)

I have changed the first 10 entries in the F1 league to be league.txt friendly with new titles plus matching Bestiary entries with the following classifications;

[bot name] [bot type] [bot designer] [date first posted]

Bot type now includes Vir for virus user [bot type(Vir)]
IB for Interesting Bot
1-6G instead of just SB
SY for symbiotic bots
Evo for evolved bots (rather than Mut for mutated bots)
ZB for bots evolved from ZeroBots (future classification)

Bot designer now includes mod [Designer(mod)] to show it is another persons bot that has been modded by the designer.
Plus maybe some other stuff that I've forgotten.

Because this may/will cause problems for older users of DB who have their own lists of bots that haven't been re-classified I thought I would make you aware of what I'm doing so you can complain before it becomes a major problem for you.

Hopefully (although you may think it a bit silly to classify all bots in the F2 bestiary with the (F2) bit) you will like the ease with which you can now interpret the F1 league list instead...

[Light]

If your prepared to do it I am happy. It would also be good to have a load of them all zipped into one handy download on the FTP, so new users can get a good set of bots quick and easy

And seeing as your up and running about a cup of coffee would be nice and if Ericl would just build a coffee cup holder into DB, life would be dandy

[Jez]

LOL

I don't mind doing it, while the leagues don't have those settings you are busy working out I have a bit of free time; I'm more sort of stationary drinking coke and mixer atm though so you'll have to put the kettle on.  

There used to be a complete bots file you could download although the link seems to be broken now, but Nums has the whole download situation inhand, I imagine, and this new download gadget with date or type or author search function is just about to be released.  

[Numsgil]

It'll be a while before it's ready.  I'm planning on moving the whole code base to .Net since that makes all these sorts of internet interfacing soooo very easy.  Theoretically you'll be able to download any bots you don't have right from the program.  None of this copy and pasting

[Light]

Cool. Then we will be able to use phrases such as "I remember in the good old days ....."

[Jez]

So Nums, when you say moving the whole code base, do you mean all the info in the bestiary or a file of all the bots from someones pc?

[Numsgil]

I'm referring to the source code for the program.  I'm working on moving away from Visual Basic with its in built limitations.

[Jez]

What I meant was, if you are going to have a nifty device that gets bots from the forum is it going to use (for a database) the Bestiary or something else?

[Numsgil]

Oh, I see.  We have a bunch of databases that come with our web space.  We'd use one of those.  I'd have the program interface with that, bypassing the beastiary entirely.  I'd also set up some browsable PHP files that let you search the database with a simple internet browser.

Or that's the goal anyway.

[Jez]

Cool, thanks,

I was just worried that all the work on the bestiary would be pointless without a matching file on my pc to upload when you sorted it...

[Numsgil]

Someone's going to need to collect all the bots when the database is eventually set up.  Wether now or later, it's going to need to be done.  Better done now

[Jez]

That's the baby I was poking at!

As a bot folder or Excel thingy?

Now is maybe not the best word, soon™ would be better! Getting all the posts to be mutually representitive is taking a bit longer than I had anticipated.  

[Numsgil]

There are alot of bots

[Jez]

er, yes, I've probably got 200 on file.

You could consider yourself lucky the tv isn't working properly atm or you could just take the train and jump on it!!