[pbmserv-dev] on matches considered as games

["Claude Chaunier" <claude.chaunier@wanadoo.fr>]

I keep thinking the easiest, most natural and least messy way to pair
games or have matches is to consider them as games on their own - as
it has been advocated - but *without* fiddling with the code of the
games proper. Coz, how are you going to mark the end of a game and the
beginning of another in the list of moves and more generally keep
trace of individual things proper to each game in a match if you keep
the data flat and simply try to extend the present structures with
some inner tricks? In the end you'll give it up and come to create a
list of move list, a list of boards, and so on. And finally simply deal
with complete games, connected through some higher structure. And since
you want it to behave like a game, just make it a game. You'll benefit
from all the support already there on the server.

To me the only question is whether to write a general match game
called "match" with the real game given as an option when you issue a
challenge, or humbly start with a few like "bgmatch", "heartmatch" and 
"cathedralpair" (or let's call the latter "cathedral" and turn the
current name for "cathedral" into something like "subcathedral", since
it looks like the real game is more often a pair).

Claude Chaunier