Add a demo walk-through to the coder guide

Include an example of a simple development environment setup,
explaining how to start the server using the provided sample
configuration and then interact with it using a console-based MUD
client.

diff --git a/doc/source/coder.rst b/doc/source/coder.rst
index 25493b0..4e956a2 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/source/coder.rst
+++ b/doc/source/coder.rst
@@ -79,3 +79,62 @@ new patches with the flake8_ utility should be performed with ``tox
 
 .. _Style Guide: :pep:`0008`
 .. _flake8: https://pypi.org/project/flake8
 
 .. _Style Guide: :pep:`0008`
 .. _flake8: https://pypi.org/project/flake8

+
+test and demo walk-through
+--------------------------
+
+The included tox configuration provides testenv definitions for a
+variety of analyzers, regression tests, documentation builds and
+package generation. It also has a ``demo`` testenv which will run the
+server using the provided :file:`etc/mudpy.conf` and other sample
+files. By default it listens on TCP port 4000 at the IPv6 loopback
+address, streams its logging to the terminal via stdout, and grants
+administrative rights automatically to an account named ``admin``
+(once created).
+
+Because all the dependencies besides the ``python3`` interpreter itself
+are available from PyPI, installing them should be fairly similar
+across most GNU/Linux distributions. For example, on Debian 10 (a.k.a.
+"Buster") you need to expressly install the ``pip`` and ``venv`` modules
+since they're packaged separately from the rest of the Python standard
+library. Once that's done, you can perform local installs of ``tox`` and
+``tox-venv`` as a normal non-root user. We're also going to install
+system packages for the ``git`` revision control toolset and an
+extensible console-based MUD client called ``tf5`` (TinyFugue version
+5)::
+
+    sudo apt install git python3-pip python3-venv tf5
+    pip install --user tox tox-venv
+    exit
+
+The reason for exiting is that, if this is the first time you've ever
+used pip's ``--user`` option, when you log back in your ``~/.profile``
+should see that there's now a ``~/.local/bin`` directory and add it to
+your ``$PATH`` environment variable automatically from that point on.
+Next, retrieve the project source code and switch your current working
+directory to where you've cloned it::
+
+    git clone https://mudpy.org/code/mudpy
+    cd mudpy
+
+Now you should be able to invoke any tox testenv you like. Just
+running ``tox`` without any additional options will go through the
+defalt battery of checks and is a good way to make sure everything is
+installed and working. Once you're ready to try out the server
+interactively, launch it like this::
+
+    tox -e demo
+
+Now in another terminal/session (because the one you've been using is
+busy displaying the server's logs) connect using a MUD client::
+
+    tf5 ip6-localhost 4000
+
+Log in as ``admin`` creating an account and then an avatar and awaken
+it. Try out the ``help`` command and make sure you see some command
+words in red (you're using a color terminal, right?) since those are
+admin-only commands and being able to see them confirms you're an
+administrator. When you're ready to terminate the service you can
+either give the ``halt`` command in your MUD client terminal or press
+the ``control`` and ``c`` keys together in the terminal where you ran
+tox. To exit the MUD client, give it the ``/quit`` command.