MUSE Ltd.: FE

FE

noun Short for 'front-end'; the interface between a player and the game. There is one FE for each player, so sometimes people will refer to eg. "my FE". The FE takes input from the player, and echoes it back. A component of the FE, the parser, then attempts to convert this into a meaningful command. This is passed to the binder, which is part of the interpreter. The binder assigns objects to nouns, creating a set of commands corresponding to the (hopefully) intended meaning of the parsed command. These new commands are then executed by the main part of the interpreter, and output is generated. This is passed back to the appropriate FEs, which present it to their players. See also vocabulary, front-end.
Note: this is how MUD2's FE system works. It is possible to split the parser from the pre-processor and post-processor, these latter two running on some computer other than the main host. In this case, the term 'front-end' is sometimes applied to the non-parser program, especially if it is graphical; a more proper term, however, is client.