Adding a lot of the babble that I wrote tonight. x_x;

Author: bryanveloso

index.rst

@@ -1,16 +1,18 @@
-.. Aliter documentation master file, created by
-   sphinx-quickstart on Sat Jun  4 23:57:35 2011.
-   You can adapt this file completely to your liking, but it should at least
-   contain the root `toctree` directive.
+.. _ref-index:
 
-Welcome to Aliter's documentation!
-==================================
+======
+Aliter
+======
 
-Contents:
+Aliter is an open-source server emulator for the Ragnarok Online MMORPG
+written in Erlang. It aims to produce best-in-class results for those who wish
+to run their own server backed by programming that was meant for the job.
 
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 2
 
+   introduction
+
 Indices and tables
 ==================
 

introduction.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+.. _ref-introduction:
+
+============
+Introduction
+============
+
+Philosophy
+==========
+
+(Still thinking about that one.)
+
+Background
+==========
+
+The server emulator for `Ragnarok Online`_ that would later become Aliter
+started off as a small proof-of-concept codenamed "Sidewinder."
+
+It was developed by a member of the original Nyxsis private server, as a test
+to see if a comparable emulator to the long-standing go-to emulator,
+`eAthena`_, could be built in Python. This was because Sidewinder's creator as
+well as Nyxsis' creator had been learning Python at the time and had even
+created a Python-based Ragnarok control panel—Minerva. After a few weeks, the
+cornerstones of any Ragnarok emulator, the login server, the character server
+and the map (or zone) server were successfully built and the proof stopped
+there.
+
+Hightened interest in a more modernly coded and agile competitor to eAthena
+led to the current team being given permission to use Sidewinder as a
+foundation for builiding Aliter. After a few weeks of refactoring and
+rebuilding, it was found that building a server emulator in Python wasn't the
+ideal course of action, even though there existed a Python-based MMORPG in
+`EVE Online`_ by `CCP Games`_. This was mostly for architectural reasons,
+which included the `Global Intrepreter Lock`_ and Python's difficulty (at the
+time) when it came to dealing with threading. While the concept worked for a
+single player, at two to three concurrent players the software would quickly
+devour resources. `Stackless Python`_ which was the version the team later
+found was used by CCP, was a non-starter since the process of getting
+Stackless to work in the eyes of an end-user was deemed too complicated.
+
+The Python version was tagged for posterity and subsequently scrapped, leading
+to the emergence of a version built in `Haskell`_.
+
+.. note::
+
+    (The reasons for leaving Haskell can't be remembered by the author at the
+    moment, so it'll be filled at a later time.)
+
+The Haskell version was tagged for posterity and also subsequently scrapped,
+leading to the emergence of the current Aliter project, built in Erlang.
+
+`Erlang`_ and its history as a functional programming language built for
+applications in telecommunications by `Ericsson`_ became the perfect fit for a
+server emulator. All the specifics about why the team chose Erlang can be seen
+below in the "Why Erlang?" section.
+
+.. _`Ragnarok Online`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnarok_Online/
+.. _`eAthena`: http://eathena.ws/
+.. _`EVE Online`: http://www.eveonline.com/
+.. _`CCP Games`: http://www.ccpgames.com/
+.. _`Global Intrepreter Lock`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Interpreter_Lock
+.. _`Stackless Python`: http://www.stackless.com/
+.. _`Haskell`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_(programming_language)
+.. _`Erlang`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)
+.. _`Ericsson`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson
+
+Why Erlang?
+===========
+
+If you're one to gloss over large words and definitions, prepare yourself.
+Wikipedia says this about Erlang:
+
+    Erlang is a general-purpose concurrent, garbage-collected programming
+    language and runtime system. The sequential subset of Erlang is a
+    functional language, with strict evaluation, single assignment, and
+    dynamic typing. For concurrency it follows the Actor model. It was
+    designed by Ericsson to support distributed, fault-tolerant, soft-real-
+    time, non-stop applications. It supports hot swapping, thus code can be
+    changed without stopping a system.
+
+    While threads are considered a complicated and error-prone topic in most
+    languages, Erlang provides language-level features for creating and
+    managing processes with the aim of simplifying concurrent programming.
+    Though all concurrency is explicit in Erlang, processes communicate using
+    message passing instead of shared variables, which removes the need for
+    locks.
+
+If we haven't lost you yet, allow us to explain it:
+
+- Erlang was originally designed and developed by Ericsson, the Swedish
+  **telecommunications** company. (You probably know them for their mobile
+  phones.) It was built first and foremost as a language built for that
+  industry.
+- It was used to create software for Ericsson's AXD301 router that
+  were reported to achieve **reliablilty** of "nine 9s" (or 99.999999999%),
+  which equates to mere seconds of downtime per year. It's a language that's
+  spilt its blood for enterprise applications.
+- It's **concurrent** and **fault-tolerant** from the ground up.
+- **Hot-swapping.** Erlang can reload code on the fly. Need to make a change
+  to a server for customizations? Make your changes and reload your code, none
+  of your users will feel a thing.
+- (To be continued..)