Re: Zombie, PFile and the like

[Hunter Thomas <archangelq@email.com>]

Personally, I'm dead sexy, so I don't need to work on a sexy project. I am most
interested in both Pfile, and in game AI. I really want to be able to have some
sort of at least game AI docs included w/ PPlay, if not a low level AI API. It
would most likely have to be in several bits though, one for each style of game
AI. Anyone have URLs for any good game AI docs?

Jan Ekholm wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, Christian Reiniger wrote:
>
> >Jan, some days ago, thinking about this and that, that statement of yours
> >about networking not being one of the sexy parts of game coding came to my
> >mind again. And, well, that description also perfectly fits for file
> >handling. That means Zombie and PenguinFile are very much alike in that
> >respect. And the other things I plan to do later, PenguinConfig and
> >PenguinGUI, also fit in there.
>
> Yeah, only gfx and sound classify as 'cool'. Which is a shame really, but
> it probably has to do with (usually) the lack of understanding of what
> happens 'behind the scenes' in an application. What datastructures are
> used, how is data transferred between parts, and so on. I'm personally
> more interested in those areas of games programming, probably as I'm
> studying computer science and have at least a basic knowledge of such
> issues...
>
> As for the reason for me to write was that you mentioned PenguinConfig.
> Well, depending on the type of system desired it can maybe get picked
> stratight out of Zombie. Z uses simple 'ini-like' files, such as:
>
> [Directories]
> Graphics = share/gfx
> Sound    = share/sound
> Mape     = data/maps
>
> # a small comment
> #
> [Frobnications]
> Switch   = /usr/bin/app -w -x %s
> UseMagic = true
>
> And so on. Data is arranged into 'sections' and further divided by 'keys'.
> The system in Z allows for automatic parsing and management of such files.
> Whitespace can be used to format the config-files, as somewhat intelligen
> regular expressions are used to do the dirty work of parsing it. The
> developer can then use methods such as:
>
>   bool Magic = m_Config->setting ("Directories", "UseMagic")->toBool ();
>
> But if some entirely different scheme is to be used then this won't cut
> it, but it can be worth to investigate.
>
> >(1) It's fun. I greatly enjoy building PenguinFile and am looking forward
> >to PConfig etc.
>
> Fun keeps you going for maybe a year, maybe a little bit more.
>
> <# 2 cut>
>
> >That's my motivation. I want to do things properly. I want to make the best
> >such system around.
>
> Good motivations! But I've now also started to doubt the entire approach
> I've had, i.e. design, protocols etc, as they seem to be really poorly
> designed from the start. After _that_ it's quite hard to go on.
>
> >PS: Writing unsexy stuff has one big advantage: you have very little
> >competition ;+)
>
> :-)
>
> ---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
>  Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |    CS at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
>     Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, no-one hears you scream
>
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--
ArchAngelQ Aka Hunter Thomas
The Pointless Poster
Misspellers of the world, UNTIE!
FNORD
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