Re: Everything about Inform that confuses me


20 Jun 1995 10:28:43 GMT

"Andrew C. Plotkin" <erkyrath+@CMU.EDU> writes:

>Mostly, I'm confused about how the actions in the library work. The
>only place it's really explained in the documentation is in chapter 6,
>whhich gives the sequence for a Drop action. [GamePreRoutine, check
>the three befores (player, room, object), do it, check the three
>afters, GamePostRoutine, print "Dropped".] But --

>First, that's not enough detail. It's unclear how befores and afters
>check their arguments. (I gather *from an example* that there are
>global variables called inp1 and inp2. But there are also things
>called noun and second. Huh? What? How do these things work if the
>arguments are in a funny order? They ain't in the index.)
>Second, not all actions work that way. Some don't check afters (it
>took me three days to understand why not -- sure it's obvious once you
>understand it, but reading the documentation did not cause me to
>understand it.) Some don't have direct objects, so (I assume) they
>only check two befores and two afters, but it's not clear what that
>means in terms of the arguments (assuming I understood the arguments
>:-) Then there are actions like PutOn, which unleash a barrage of
>Insert and Remove and LetGo and Receive actions, in, er, some order.
>(Insert, Remove, LetGo, and Receive *are* in the index; each is
>mentioned exactly once, on page 22, in a sentence which informs me
>that the latter two are like the former two, but the other way
>'round. Gurgle.)

I agree absolutely. The Inform manual is excellent on design information and
examples, but doesn't give enough general rules for how things operate. It
took me *ages* to figure out how inp1, etc.. were calculated. It took me even
longer to realise that you could put a bit of code in for an exit and have it
return the location where you wanted the exit to lead - while you can't do
this with some other attributes.
Just like the original post, this isn't personal criticism. The inform
documentation is certainly a lot better than the documentation you get with the
downloaded version of TADS. <G>

--
    Mark Green, CS Undergrad, Reading, UK -- Standard Disclaimers apply
               "Dust! Dust! I *like* looking through Windows!"