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From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: Too many tasks? overhead questions.
Date: 1997/04/29
Message-ID: <EACHUS.97Apr29154524@spectre.mitre.org>#1/1
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References: <5jlkdu$rub@corn.cso.niu.edu>
 <01bc5256$1c9c4640$28f982c1@xhv46.dial.pipex.com>
 <EACHUS.97Apr28142828@spectre.mitre.org> <dewar.862310793@merv>
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-04-29T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <dewar.862310793@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

  > Be very careful about recommending the use of protected types. They are
  > by no means a general abstraction mechanism (the abstraction is severely
  > limited by the restriction on potentially blocking operations).

  Ah, the wonders of the English language which allows one word to
mean so many different things. ;-)  The objects in a dungeon may or
may not be objects in the programming (or OO) sense.  They are things
which can be picked up by players and NPCs (non-player characters) and
moved from place to place, but in the programming sense do not have an
associated thread of control.  Usually you just want to move them from
room to room or to the player's backpack or hand, and to display them
when the room or player is displayed.

   The only thing I could see causing the type of problem that Robert
Dewar is worried about would be a potion of sleep or some such.  But
the implementor is going to have to handle sleep right in any case.
If a player casts a sleep spell, only the target creature should be
out of commission until the spell wears off.  Of course this allows
some creativity on the part of the dungeon builder--going to sleep
from such a spell could allow you some "last wishes" before you start
to snore...



--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
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