As any seasoned software engineer will tell you, one of the most important things that you can do for yourself when working on a complex software system is to adhere as closely as possible to the software development lifecycle. Too many people want to just dive right in to the coding phase, and miss the opportunity to completely think through the design of the system. This can (and typically will) lead to a coding disaster. Yes, you might be able to squeeze out a working system after some time, but you'll find that when you want to add functionality to that system, it's nearly impossible.

So you work up a design document. This is a definition of what the code will do without actually doing any coding. This document might include flowcharts and UML and all sorts of cryptic writing (including actual ENGLISH... eeee-gads!), but shouldn't including a measurable quantity of code. The whole point of the design document is to create the underlying philosophy of the system, not the system itself.

What's the point of this diatribe, you might ask?

This weekend, Brother D and I (if you don't understand the "Brother D" thing, I've decided to leave full names out, so, yes... he's my brother, and his first name starts with a "D") are going to sit down and try to define the server system for an MMORPG. If you've ever tried to do this before, you probably realize that this is no easy task. It can be done a number of ways, with each way having a good solid basis in logic, making sense to it's designer.

My biggest issue right now is choosing the methodology for breaking the task of running a whole world into smaller pieces. Or, in other words: What, exactly, makes a "world" work? Also, in what (logical) way can the tasks of running a world (i.e. user commands, "evolving" the world, data storage, etc.) be split amongst different physical computers in a manner that takes full advantage of all computing power and limits the total amount of communication between devices necessary to keep everything working?

So that's the problem at hand. Hopefully, my brother and I will come out of this weekend with an understanding of how the whole thing should come together. Wish me luck, and keep checking for updates!