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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: What can't be done in Inform? (was: programming)
Message-ID: <GJMD01.6np@world.std.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 21:00:01 GMT
References: <3b9c383a.35926334@news.surfree.com> <H05o7.517$f5.44924@news> <tq1q5oant2nhed@corp.supernews.com> <9nqtur$q3m$2@news.lth.se>
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:92601

In article <9nqtur$q3m$2@news.lth.se>, Magnus Olsson <mol@df.lth.se> wrote:
>So I'd really like to hear from anybody who has an idea for text-based
>IF that can *not* be implemented in any of these languages.

That's sort of a misleading question. We don't generally
program with a language that looks like a raw Turing machine
either... so saying it "can not" restricts us to things like
the I/O capability (e.g. the inability to put Pytho's Mask-like
menus at the bottom of the screen of the Z-machine).

The appropriate question would be more like an idea for IF
that is "inconvenient", especially "painfully inconvenient".
As an author of a compiler mod to Inform, I would have to
say, "yes, there are some things that are painfully inconvenient
to do in Inform", like sequentially-varying prints. As an
author who plans to switch to Tads3 or something like it
when it's complete, I would have to say that there are some
programming styles (e.g. data-structure-allocation-heavy)
that are awfully inconvenient in any existing system now
available. If we talk about the libraries instead of just
the languages, there are all sorts of weaknesses to Inform,
and presumably to most other existing IF systems (Inform
being the only one I can speak of with any certainty).

SeanB
