Daniel Lepage on 26 Jun 2003 05:22:01 -0000


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [spoon-discuss] Simplifying 


On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 12:52  AM, Adam Hill wrote:


--- Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

One of things I've discovered from years of programming is that there
comes a time in every major project (often a number of times) when you
have to throw everything out and start over. You realize that the goals of your program have changed so much from your initial concept that the 
code you wrote at the beginning is being worked around in almost every
new class; but you can't change it, because the sort of changes you'd
want to make are things that never even occurred to you when you
started; small changes in the basics will require numerous large
changes everywhere else. There's nothing to do but begin from the
beginning once again.
That's all well and good, but why not keep the original around while a new one is being written? It's better than nothing.
Not when it's still uncertain who's going to track it. At the very least, these rules should be deactivated until we have a solid footing again. 


	Did you know that r301 permits 'Robots' to throw things? I don't even
know what a 'Robot' is.


Robots were a tool in Football.


I thought they failed, though.


	We've got all these attributes that nobody's heard of; we've got
special cases set up to workaround all the basics; in short, we've got
a really ugly set of rules.

It seems to me that the thing to do, then, is to rewrite pretty much
the entire Grid rule from scratch. As there are numerous
cross-dependencies (most of which are unnecessary), any substantial
changing of any portion of the Grid would be practically guaranteed to
have conflicts in other grid-related rules. Thus, the best way to
rewrite things would be to simply destroy everything, then build it
back up from the bottom.
I disagree. I think we should remove the things that don't work, and add new things that might.
A lot of the "things that don't work" are hardwired in, so to speak; removing them would require many minor changes in dozens of places.
I'd rather nuke everything, and then start anew with the things that might work.
I'd also like to note that the Grid in general seems mostly unused... and most of the development that's happened in terms of what the Grid does has been geared more towards a Risk-like world than the RPG style world built previously. Except for Orc's developments, I suppose, but Orc seems to have become a non-player. 


We also have an Admin who's just given eir two weeks notice.

Given that, it makes sense to me that we should get rid of the things
that make being admin really unpleasant. Not because this will change
Dave's mind, as I suspect it won't, but because it will make it
possible to continue with the game despite the lack of Admin.

As fulfilling the first of these goals also fulfills the second, it
seems like a global repeal is the best strategy.
Yes, but regardless of whether the Admin stays or we have to play without an Admin, we'll end up complicating things again because it's fun.
But by the time we recomplicate things, we'll (hopefully) find either a new Admin or a way to function without one.
Unless you're volunteering to track the Grid for us while we continue to complicate it...?
I don't see how this would 'limit our future options' - this is a Nomic game. The future options are limitless. Repealing the Grid doesn't mean 
that we can't ever have a Grid again; it just means that the next time
we have a Grid, it'll be written more nicely.
It limits our options by leaving us -- at least temporarily -- without a great subgame. We can just remove the broken things and rebuild from there. 

We have the Super Powers rule. We could develop that into a subgame.

Also, the card game is a possibility, too.

--
Wonko

_______________________________________________
spoon-discuss mailing list
spoon-discuss@xxxxxxxxx
http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/spoon-discuss