I7 contra I6
Basil Chillingworth
The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the one between
manual and automatic transmission.
Inform 7 is easier to learn, but less precise, less "professional."
Inform 7 is wasteful -- the story files it generates are bloated
compared to Inform 6.
Inform 6 is for those authors who enjoy coding.
Inform 7 is for those authors who just want the job done as quickly and
painlessly as possible.
There are things you can do in Inform 6 which you can't do in Inform 7.
vaporware
> Are the following statements true?
>
>
> The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the one between
> manual and automatic transmission.
Automatic transmissions cost more to buy and operate and are mostly
only popular in America. I'm going to say no on this one.
> Inform 7 is easier to learn, but less precise, less "professional."
Easier to learn, sure. Less precise or professional? Not really. The
syntax isn't as precisely documented as I6 (yet), but the language is
as powerful and complex, if not more so.
> Inform 7 is wasteful -- the story files it generates are bloated
> compared to Inform 6.
They're larger, but mainly because there's more library functionality.
Whether you call that "wasteful" is up to you - is Inform 6 "bloated"
in comparison to Inform 5?
> Inform 6 is for those authors who enjoy coding.
>
> Inform 7 is for those authors who just want the job done as quickly and
> painlessly as possible.
A lot of things are probably quicker and more painless in I7, but
coding in I7 is enjoyable too, and more elegant IMO. It's just higher
level.
> There are things you can do in Inform 6 which you can't do in Inform 7.
Not really. For some low-level things, you might need to drop down to
I6 inclusions - just as you might need to drop down to Z-machine
assembly from I6. But those can be encapsulated as extensions and used
in pure I7 code.
vw
Conrad Kayne
Basil Chillingworth wrote:
> Are the following statements true?
>
> Inform 6 is for those authors who enjoy coding.
>
I would agree there. Inform 6, like TADS, is not aimed at people
without a programming background. IMO, their C-like syntax has done
more to alienate writers (many of whom, like me prior to I7, were
fairly champing at the bit to try their hand at interactive fiction)
than any other aspect.
> Inform 7 is for those authors who just want the job done as quickly and
> painlessly as possible.
>
Hardly, though I would agree that I7 permits the rapid prototyping of a
game in much less time than does I6 or TADS.
Inform 7 is for authors, period.
Inform 7 is for those who prefer to concentrate on *writing* without
the (considerable) distraction of having to think like programmers
simultaneously; for those who don't want the flow of their narrative
thought broken unnecessarily during the creation of the prose.
In this goal, it succeeds magnificently. And long may it continue to
gather non-programmers into the fold. I think (and hope) we are about
to see a true qualitative change in the works produced in this medium,
thanks to I7.
ck
Jim Aikin
> without a programming background. IMO, their C-like syntax has done
> more to alienate writers (many of whom, like me prior to I7, were
> fairly champing at the bit to try their hand at interactive fiction)
> than any other aspect.
I'm not qualified to say whether this is true -- all I can offer is my
personal experience, which is that I'm almost entirely self-taught as a
programmer. It's true, however, that I find programming enjoyable. I
acknowledge that many people don't. So do I have "a programming background"?
Dunno.
> Inform 7 is for those who prefer to concentrate on *writing* without
> the (considerable) distraction of having to think like programmers
> simultaneously; for those who don't want the flow of their narrative
> thought broken unnecessarily during the creation of the prose.
I remain unconvinced on this point. It seems to me that to create anything
truly viable in the genre of interactive fiction, it's probably necessary
that one be able to think like a programmer. It's not the only skill one
needs, but it's a prerequisite. The promise (or vague impression) that one
can create an effective interactive story in I7 without having to "think
like a programmer" strikes me as a chimera. A will-o'-the-wisp. A sasquatch.
My own experience, as a hobbyist programmer and professional writer, is that
I very definitely _do_ want the flow of my narrative thought (good phrase,
that) broken up by the necessity of coding. When I wear my writer hat, I
write. When I wear my programmer hat, I program. The two tasks use slightly
different parts of the brain, and I prefer not to mix them. I can switch
back and forth quite rapidly, as when I'm creating an if test and an else
block in the middle of a paragraph of printed text -- but I don't want to be
muddled by thinking that I'm writing when I'm actually creating an if test
and an else block.
> In this goal, it succeeds magnificently. And long may it continue to
> gather non-programmers into the fold. I think (and hope) we are about
> to see a true qualitative change in the works produced in this medium,
> thanks to I7.
This may well prove to be the case, and I will applaud loudly and
enthusiastically if your prediction proves true. Inform 7 is _seductive_,
and that's arguably an important characteristic. It will encourage people to
try their hand at IF because it looks -- and indeed is -- very approachable.
In the end, however, those who succeed with I7 will do so because they're
seduced into thinking like programmers (perhaps without even realizing that
that's what they're doing).
--Jim Aikin
Jim Aikin
> manual and automatic transmission.
The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the difference between
pizza and strawberry ice cream.
--JA
Andrew Plotkin
Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.
Conrad Kayne
> I'm not qualified to say whether this is true -- all I can offer is my
> personal experience, which is that I'm almost entirely self-taught as a
> programmer. It's true, however, that I find programming enjoyable. I
> acknowledge that many people don't. So do I have "a programming background"?
> Dunno.
>
I make my living as a programmer (Pascal). I enjoy it. So unfortunately
I cannot put myself - or even imagine myself - in the position of a
total non-programmer coming upon I7 for the first time. And, like you,
I am also self-taught.
What I can attest to, though, is that I do not have to don my
"programmer's hat" when I fire up Inform 7. I very definitely remain a
writer when working on IF, again thanks to I7's natural language
syntax.
>
>>Inform 7 is for those who prefer to concentrate on *writing* without
>>the (considerable) distraction of having to think like programmers
>>simultaneously; for those who don't want the flow of their narrative
>>thought broken unnecessarily during the creation of the prose.
>
> I remain unconvinced on this point. It seems to me that to create anything
> truly viable in the genre of interactive fiction, it's probably necessary
> that one be able to think like a programmer.
I think it depends on what form of IF you are setting your sights on.
Puzzleless IF (a la Photopia or Aisle) demands none of that programmer
mindset. It's simply a matter of being thorough in anticipating the
possible range of commands a player might enter, then getting down to
the - often tedious - nitty gritty of writing all the possible
reactions and responses. It involves very little in the way of loops or
conditional or relational or logical legerdemain.
This brings us back to the rift between traditional Infocom-style games
and story-driven IF. I7 suits the latter form perfectly. I agree with
you that to produce a game with elaborate puzzles would demand a
certain level of coding skill, with much less emphasis on prose
narrative and dialogue. And yet, with I7, even this does not feel quite
like coding in the traditional sense (at least not to me).
It's all far less rigidly structured - one aspect flowing into the
other much more smoothly - than the procedural or object-oriented
approach of I6 and TADS.
To me that's an advantage, since it avoids the disconnect between
programming and writing (which is largely what turned me off learning
TADS before the appearance of I7).
I don't want to be a programmer when creating IF - I want to write. I7
allows me to do that.
> It's not the only skill one
> needs, but it's a prerequisite. The promise (or vague impression) that one
> can create an effective interactive story in I7 without having to "think
> like a programmer" strikes me as a chimera. A will-o'-the-wisp. A sasquatch.
>
But so many people are already proving you wrong in this.
> When I wear my programmer hat, I program. The two tasks use slightly
> different parts of the brain, and I prefer not to mix them. I can switch
> back and forth quite rapidly, as when I'm creating an if test and an else
> block in the middle of a paragraph of printed text -- but I don't want to be
> muddled by thinking that I'm writing when I'm actually creating an if test
> and an else block.
>
>
I guess ultimately it's a question of preference, of personality. I'm
the opposite: I can do without the disconnect.
ck
Jeff Nyman
news:1163216576.4...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Are the following statements true?
This assumes an "either-or" (true or false) and that, to me, is often a
false dichotomy. Things aren't always that simple.
> The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the one between
> manual and automatic transmission.
Meaning, I take it, that automatic is easier, a bit more "hands off" and
handles more for you? I'm not sure about that. I think Inform 7 gives that
appearance. I'm not sure it's entirely the reality. It's just that Inform 7
and Inform 6, in coding styles, are very different.
> Inform 7 is easier to learn, but less precise, less "professional."
"Less precise" -- I'm not sure. It's definitely precise. (Read the various
posts where someone used a "the" where they should not or failed to use a
space between something when they should have.) I think Inform 7 has
precision; it's just not always clear quite yet when it's applied.
I'm not sure Inform 7 is "easier to learn" since it depends on your
background. The reams of questions coming up on this newsgroup about how to
do things in Inform 7 might indicate that people are struggling to do
certain things. (That's a good thing, by the way. It means confusions or
ambiguities in the manaul will be addressed.) I definitely would not say
less "professional" until I had some definition of how that term was being
used in this context.
Speaking for myself, I come from a programming background (meaning, I do it
personally and professionally) and I actually find myself stumbling a bit
with Inform 7. I find TADS 3 easier to learn for me in most cases.
> Inform 7 is wasteful -- the story files it generates are bloated
> compared to Inform 6.
I can't speak to this one. I'm not sure. What I do think is that Inform 7
definitely adds more processing in general and that means (currently) on
some interpreters, things can be a little slower than with Inform 6. That
extra processing may translate into file size, although I would argue both
Inform 6 and Inform 7 are still quite a bit smaller than a comparable game
in, say, TADS 3.
> Inform 6 is for those authors who enjoy coding.
Or, perhaps, Inform 6 is for those who enjoy writing Interactive Fiction and
don't mind learning a fairly in-depth programming language to do so. To me
Inform 7 is coding as well. Just in a different format. So maybe Inform 7 is
more for those who enjoy having a lot of the programming details and
structure of the language abstracted away in some means. (In this case, the
"some means" is a natural language interface.)
> Inform 7 is for those authors who just want the job done as quickly and
> painlessly as possible.
I'm not sure about this. That may be the case for someone with no coding
experience in any other language. I personally find I can do things quicker
in Inform 6 or TADS 3 rather than Inform 7. Some of that is no doubt because
I have more learning to do. The point here is that it's not a "one or the
other" question.
I think Inform 7 definitely caters to new authors who may not want to have
to learn a programming language (even though, in fact, they are with Inform
7; it's just one based on natural language). However, I've seen established
authors clearly take to Inform 7 like fish to water and in that case, from
what I can see, it's not so much a desire to do a job as "quickly and
painlessly" as possible, but rather to do a job with what they see as a
better tool. (For example, one argument I've heard is that Inform 7 allows
you more easily think about your game and about its layout and its various
connections.)
> There are things you can do in Inform 6 which you can't do in Inform 7.
I'm not qualified to say. I think there are ways of doing things in Inform 6
that might be more or less difficult in Inform 7. Likewise, there are ways
of doing things in Inform 7 that are virtually impossible (or very
difficult) in Inform 6. Clearly there are many instances where people have
to "drop down" to the Inform 6 level to handle certain things. Part of that
might be due to the ongoing development with Inform 7.
- Jeff
sj...@io.com
> > gather non-programmers into the fold. I think (and hope) we are about
> > to see a true qualitative change in the works produced in this medium,
> > thanks to I7.
>
> This may well prove to be the case, and I will applaud loudly and
> enthusiastically if your prediction proves true. Inform 7 is _seductive_,
> and that's arguably an important characteristic. It will encourage people to
> try their hand at IF because it looks -- and indeed is -- very approachable.
> In the end, however, those who succeed with I7 will do so because they're
> seduced into thinking like programmers (perhaps without even realizing that
> that's what they're doing).
I agree with everything posted above, by both posters.
I've been a professional writer and editor (in RPGs, in the
computer-game press and elsewhere) for edging on toward two decades
now, and in all those years and for years before, my desire to write IF
has been _EXTREME._ There wasn't a damned thing I could do about it
except hold out a distant hope that someday I might hook up with a
programmer who needed a writer and luck into a relationship where we
didn't consume one another jugular-first.
I poked at Inform 6 and ran screaming. But along comes Inform 7 and now
it can happen. Inform 7 definitely doesn't let anyone _avoid_
programming ... You can still create loops and get runtime errors and
the rest of it, and you have to (eventually, and better sooner than
later) approach everything logically and methodically ... But it
definitely draws you gently into the process with a comforting illusion
of replacing "code" with accessible language.
It is (and I'm sure I'm not the first and won't be the last to observe
this) a _hell_ of a lot like playing the games. It "understands" just
enough crude, arbitrary, specific English to lure you into thinking
that "English" is what you're working in. It's a lie when playing the
game and it's a lie when writing one, but it's a gorgeous, gorgeous lie
and I'm in love with it.
The skills for playing and writing these games remain different, but
the _mindset_ for each is now alarmingly and impressively similar, so
that anyone who can obsess over playing them can now comfortably
entertain the notion of writing them.
Jim Aikin
>> between
>> pizza and strawberry ice cream.
>
> How absurd. It's far more like the difference between Twizzlers and
> Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid.
What are Twizzlers?
Jacek Pudlo
"Jim Aikin" <rai...@musicwords.net> skrev i meddelandet
news:6vn5h.680$Sw1...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
*Red* licorice candy, i.e. licorice that -- as opposed to *black*
licorice -- contains no licorice. Red licorice is thus to licorice what
Plotkin's interactive fiction is to fiction.
Adam Thornton
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Here, Jim Aikin <rai...@musicwords.net> wrote:
>> > The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the one between
>> > manual and automatic transmission.
>> The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the difference between
>> pizza and strawberry ice cream.
>How absurd. It's far more like the difference between Twizzlers and
>Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid.
Put down the crack pipe. It's *obviously* like the difference between
ultramarine and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Adam
vaporware
Ridiculous! It's more like the difference between a duck.
vw
Jim Aikin
Would that be the duck at the beginning of "The Meteor, the Stone and a Long
Glass of Sherbet"?
Oh, no, wait, that was an elephant. And as everybody knows, you can't get
down off an elephant....
Michael Martin
> The difference between Inform 6 and Inform 7 is like the one between
> manual and automatic transmission.
Only if you consider the difference between Inform 6 and writing in raw
Z-code assembler to be the same thing. Inform 7's programming model
and data model are both completely different from I6's, despite the
fact that the I7 compiler uses I6 as its target .
> Inform 7 is easier to learn, but less precise, less "professional."
Only if you think that professionalism is defined by how impenetrable
the subject you work in is. Inform 7 is frequently more precise for
specific things (table accesses, for instance).
> Inform 7 is wasteful -- the story files it generates are bloated
> compared to Inform 6.
I7 story files currently don't strip all their debug info, even in
release mode.
> Inform 6 is for those authors who enjoy coding.
>
> Inform 7 is for those authors who just want the job done as quickly and
> painlessly as possible.
Depends on what you're coding. Stuff that was pages and pages of I6
code that huge amounts of work to get working right in I6 for me was a
couple of paragraphs of I7 that worked the first time because I7
manages separation of concerns better then I6. On the other hand,
direct Z-Machine control, as well as a few switches that were I6-only,
both require you to go under the surface and use I6 or Z-Assembler.
I7-I6 bindings however are quite straightforward.
Dealing with arrays/tables is *vastly* easier in Inform 7, regardless
of your coding habits (unless those habits say "all data must be owned
by objects", in which case I7 will drive you into howling madness --
but if you have those habits, you need to learn some more languages
anyway.)
> There are things you can do in Inform 6 which you can't do in Inform 7.
Depends on whether you count embedded Inform 6 in an Inform 7 program
as "an Inform 7 program" or not. The short answer is "yes, but they're
pretty much by definition Z-abuses" -- the biggest thing you can't do
in Inform 7 is "fail to link in the Inform libraries, thus replacing
Main with your own code".
--Michael
L. Ross Raszewski
Yes we are, but what's it going to be?
To a non-programmer, "thinking like a programmer" means "able to get
their mind around funny punctuation and syntax".
These people are wrong at a fundamental level about what thinking like
a programmer means. Historically, every time someone's worked out a
way to lower the bars to entry on IF, the results have not been good
-- you can't write IF if you can't think like a programmer.
If I7 has broken the pattern, it won't be because it lets you write IF
without "thinking like a programmer" -- it'll be because it tricks
you into thinking like a programmer without realizing you're doing
it. Not everyone can think like a programmer, but a lot more people
can than think they can, and the rest knee-jerk away from it -- these
are the kind of people who, given a math problem, push it away and say
"Math is too hard", but if you force them, can actually do it.
Frankly, so far, what I've seen and been impressed by in inform 7 is
the work of people who --whether they knew it or not -- already were
competant as programmers. For me at least, the court is still out as
to whether i7 achieves its aim for actual "non-programmers" -- if it
doesn't, we're going to see a qualitiative change for sure, but not
the one you expect.
Me, I'm a programmer by trade. As a writer, I'm strictly an amateur.
I'm a competant technical writer, I've been published in the field of
computer science, and won (very) minor awards in history, philosophy
and theology, but my fiction experience is a few thousand pages in a
corner on my hard drive.
I can't write inform 7. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll get over it
with more effort. I can understand written inform 7, no problem. But
if I go much farther than cutting and pasting "tricks" other people
have written, I'm at a loss. In a traditional programming language --
*any* traditional programming language -- once I've looked at enough
code to get a feel for the flavor of the language, I can generate new
code. I can see the pattern of how syntax works and how meaning flows
from it. In i7, I can't. Quite the opposite: the more i7 I digest,
the less I understand: every new bit of code I see gives me yet
another possible formulation that could be applicable to a million
different contexts -- and unlike Perl, they're not all valid.
And this is incredibly frustrating for me -- I've never had trouble
picking up a programming language before, not even Brainf*ck. But
(again, this might all go away when I break through the mind barrier)
i7 feels to me like cookbook programming: you don't really know what's
going on, you just find the recipe in the book that comes closest to
what you want, insert it verbatim, and fiddle with it until it works.
I can't code like that. I can't even *write* like that. Which kinda
leaves me out of your brave new world.
And I'm a bit sad about that, really.
Matthew Wightman
> Basil Chillingworth wrote:
> > There are things you can do in Inform 6 which you can't do in Inform 7.
>
> Depends on whether you count embedded Inform 6 in an Inform 7 program
> as "an Inform 7 program" or not. The short answer is "yes, but they're
> pretty much by definition Z-abuses" -- the biggest thing you can't do
> in Inform 7 is "fail to link in the Inform libraries, thus replacing
> Main with your own code".
>
If you're allowed to use I6 includes, the biggest thing you can't do
with I7 is probably failing to include a UUID. Replacing Main and
failing to link in the libraries is possible. (Or at least, it was
possible in 3Z95).
--
Matthew Wightman
Carl
@trndny07:
> For me at least, the court is still out as
> to whether i7 achieves its aim for actual "non-programmers" -- if it
> doesn't, we're going to see a qualitiative change for sure, but not
> the one you expect.
I'm a writer by trade; my most significant programming experience was
with (gasp) COBOL, many moons ago. So I'm not what you'd call a
professional programmer! A couple years ago I dabbled with TADS but
lost interest. Since I downloaded Inform 7 five days ago, I've already
written a silly little game. OK, it's only got 20 rooms, and it's not
great literary IF, but it's done, and my friends are having fun with it.
If it's easy for me to make an I7 game, it's going to be even easier for
others with more aptitude than me. :)
>
> I can't write inform 7. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll get over it
> with more effort.
Sure you can! You just don't have the incentive to learn I7 that I
have. You already know other powerful languages; you don't need to
invest work in a new one. And learning any new language, even natural-
language programming, takes effort. I'm poring over every syllable of
the documentation, reading every thread in this newsgroup, and basically
immersing myself in I7's syntax. If I can do it, you could do it twice
as fast. :)
That said, if TADS etc work for you, I wouldn't be said about not
joining the brave new world of I7. I can see that TADS might be a more
powerful tool, with its libraries and low-level structure, in the hands
of a professional. There's room in the IF world for both type of
writer, I would think. The nice thing about I7, though, is that it
invites people like me to the party too. :)