Re: Inform: Why the limitations?


Mon, 18 Dec 1995 14:19:32 GMT

"Sam Hulick" <shulick@guava.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>Why? Why can't we bump these up with something like $MAX_ATTR or
>$MAX_PROP on the command line? Why this limitation? Realistically,
>there AREN'T a lot of attributes/properties you can alias, because they

As has already been said it's a limitation of the Z-Machine code format.
But what i wanted to add was the suggestion that if you need that many
attributes and properties you might have a design flaw in the way you are
programming stuff. Of course, not necessarily... depending on what you are
trying to do. But maybe. If you are doing something that absolutely needs
all the extra properties and attributes probably Inform is not the best
language to use.

But if really necessary there are ways you can fake more attributes by
using global variables, and possibly emulate some sorts of properties by
classes that run routines (functions) in the each_turn, or react_before, or
wherever needed, can declaring all objects you want to have certain
properties to be a part of that class.

Keep in mind however that there have been a few really big games with
fairly complex and rich objects made in inform and it's limitations...

-- 
 ___________________________________________________________________
  Tim Middleton =-=-= with love and squalor =-=-= as544@torfree.net
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