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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: [Inform] Messages on the first turn
Message-ID: <GK16z1.F0K@world.std.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 21:13:17 GMT
References: <GK0uqu.8qA@world.std.com> <20010921154357.12142.00000006@mb-cj.aol.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:92832

OKB -- not okblacke <brenbarn@aol.comRemove> wrote:
>     Really, I think the only thing that separates this "bad design" from a
>"bug" is the fact that it would be frightening to see 200 lines of code posted
>on the patch page.

The "fix" to the library would only be 3 lines long. It's only 200
lines long if you fix it without touching the library files (e.g.
by Replacing Main as Zarf has suggested).

Maybe we *should* start putting entirely backwards-compatible design
improvements on the patch page (or start another, similar page?)
The difference is that the odds of them being integrated in some
future library 6.11 is much smaller.

If I thought it could be released, I'd be psyched about going through
a lot of Inform and refactoring it for modularity (and hence
replaceability) without affecting its behavior. I wonder if the current
layout is simply because it was largely engineered to run one game (Curses)
rather huge number of games that use it in practice, or perhaps because
Graham intentionally chose not to modularize things that would only be
called once to avoid the space overhead.

SeanB
