Re: spoon-business: Let's do this right!

[Dan Waldron <wald7330@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> The DimShip rule therefore fails to modify any player's dimensions, as its
> method of doing so would *crackle* result in a violation of r153.
> ]]
> <CFI>

Wow.  Good thing you caught that.  I guess that pretty much solves all of
our problems.

In case we ever have to make a decision about an undefined value, although
that is much less likely than I thought, I'd like to answer some comments
about how I suggested we would.

"So basically, what you're saying is, let's decide that indeterminate
values are whatever we want them to be. I ask 'Is my score not equal to
92?'; we then decide whether or not to apply the principle of 'no' to it.
I ask 'Is my score 92?'; we decide again what the answer is, based on
whatever we feel like thinking."

"Why not just say 'the answer to any query is whatever we want it to be'?
-Because what you want and what we want are very different. What it sounds
to me like Dan wants is a way to not break the game. It seems perfectly
sensible to me. If you ask "is my score not equal to 92" we say we can't
tell. If you ask "is my score greater than 92, because if it is, x
happens," we say "no" to prevent x from happening for the time being,
until we can tell what your score /is./ I've probably confused things more
here, but does that make sense?"

Well the values themselves are protected from player tampering.  So even
if my score is undefined I can't declare it to arbitrarily be something
that it might not be.  If a value is undefined there is no way we know for
sure that it can fit within any range.  So the answer is always false.

To establish something like "the player with the lowest score" the
simplest system would be:

Does player a have the lowest score?
Does player b have the lowest score?
Does player c have the lowest score?
...

This would be divided up into

Is score(a) < score(b)
Is score(a) < score(c)
...

Is score(b) < score(a)
Is score(b) < score(c)
...

anytime a player is refered to who has an undefined score the answer is
false.  So no player has the lowest score.

Dan Waldron
ICQ 57894467