Mccodes .. made good

[Inveteratus]

Well, I considered doing another deep dive into some of the fun bits of Mccodes, maybe looking at the job system and seeing how to improve it, or looking into the very poor casino games and seeing what could be done to turn them around, but I kept hitting stumbling blocks. When the code was open-sourced, I think lots of people including myself have high hopes of many people starting to turn it around, but what we see is very little work on the code if anything. Cronless crons and a role-based access control system, both of which are frankly pretty poor bits of work - I'd suggest ripping them out and returning to the old v2.0.5b base. At least we all know the problems with it! For reference, running static analysis tools on these modules shows a wealth of problems, so much so that I'm not going to examine them in detail.

No deep dive, however does not mean the end of my foray into the world of Mccodes, far from it. I've started from the open-source edition, and have:

• Introduced a full template system using Blade as the template language.
• Created a front-end controller to direct new code into name-spaced controllers rather than individual files in the public folder.
• Added repository classes so controllers talk to the database only through the repositories, make it easier to change database back-end, table and field names.
• Used PDO as the core database driver rather than MySQL(i).
• Improved the docker stack considerably - though to be fair, it's for local development, not production.
• Rebuilt a number of pages using the new template system which allows for easy integration with the old code.
• Used Tailwind CSS as the CSS framework to get up and running quickly.
• Ensured the controllers are all PSR7 compliant, so dropping middleware in (for guest/auth redirection, and performing cron tasks) will be simplified.
• Started to flesh out the houses, crimes, jobs, cities, courses and items with fixtures as a "get you started" set of data.
• Used PHP 8.3 in the docker stack though I aim to get 8.4 in shortly, and MySQL 8 is also present along with Adminer for simple database management.
• Created a routing system for the front-end controller ensuring that all new code is defined by the routes.
• Checked the code regularly with static analysis tools to ensure no new bugs (or features as we used to call them) are brought into the system.
• Used Alpine JS to enhance the site to help with things like tabbed controls, show/hide password controls, modals etc.
• Stripped out the logging and replaced with Monolog with a database adapter.

There's a lot of items on my roadmap:

• Finish of the core code rewrites to address all the common modules available from the menu and explore screens.
• Redo the crimes formula system.
• Refactor the attacking code to simplify it and better address how weapons can be used.
• Increase the amount of equipment slots for armor - thinking legs, body, hands, feet and head here.
• Use Alpine JS to enhance the site to help with things like tabbed controls, show/hide password controls, modals etc.
• Bring in some modules including the stock market, auction rooms foraging, and some as yet unnamed one.
• Add tests with PestPHP.
• Ensure where necessary, complex updates are handled within transactions to ensure atomicity.
• Documentation!
• Images for the relevant fixtures - cities, houses, etc.

Visually, it does look at lot better, the templates allow me to get rid of the one-page lag often seen when committing crimes or training in the gym, but I've tried to retain the original look and feel to a certain extent - at least for now. At some stage, I intend forking my own work to spin up a game, though I pull push what I have online as soon as possible as a playable demo. During development, it will be refreshed on a regular basis until all the modules are rewritten to ensure none of the older code causes problems.

Edited April 1 by Inveteratus
Update done/todo