how powerful is ALAN
dan dalton
I'm planning on programing in ALAN sometime in the near future and I have a
few questions (I read the which
system text which is how I came to pick ALAN (not because of power or
anything I got inform and all but
ALAN just appealed to me...something about a lang
that seems fairly uncharted, the only games I've found
programed in this lang are the ones that came with
it when i downloaded it) but that seemed vague on what
it can do and its been awhile since the review came out
and I figure somebody may have played with it and might know more about
ALAN.)
#1 How powerful a game can someone write with ALAN?
#2 it's supposed to be a simple lang does that limit it in any way?
#3 what are other shortcomings of this lang?
#4 is there anything the "which system" didn't tell that I should know?
#5 will this lang limit me in anyway eg agt limits the #
of rooms a person can prog (and Items and so on) does ALAN do this as well.
#6 what is "object oriented"?
Dan Dalton
<rim...@shadetree.com>
Sandsquish
Dan Dalton <rim...@shadetree.com> wrote:
>#1 How powerful a game can someone write with ALAN?
That depends on what you mean by power. If you're referring to flexibility
(how many different thing you can do), then ALan is reasonably flexible,
significantly more so than AGT, but somewhat less so than TADS, Inform and
Hugo. If you're talking about the ability to "boldly go where no man has
gone before," then you might be disappointed. Try something like Inform,
that has a completely exposed parser and an "assembly language," for stuff
like that.
>#2 it's supposed to be a simple lang does that limit it in any way?
Sort of. Until version 3 of ALan comes out, you won't really be able to
change ALan's "model of the world." Right now, ALan has built-in classes
of "things." They cover enough of the things that you usually run across
in IF so that this isn't really a limiting factor; you just might have to
be imaginative enough to use the classes in unusual ways.
On the other hand, one of ALan's designers has told me that version 3 of
ALan will allow users to define their own object classes.
ALan's manual also tries very hard not to use "programming lingo," this
isn't really a bad thing, but it's not always easy to recognize some of
its "programming constructs." You can create user-defined functions in
ALan, attributes are really just variables, and ALan gives you "if-then"
and "when" constructs that you can use for "conventional" programming.
#3 what are other shortcomings of this lang?
None that I've spotted yet. I've been programming Infocom's sample
transcripts as a way of learning to "problem solve" and program in ALan.
I've only worked up three of them so far, but ALan has allowed me to
program them without making any changes in the transcripts.
Well okay, with one exception. ALan requires the player to use a "verb" as
the first word of a command, so you have to use "ask/tell NPC about/to do
something" instead of "NPC, whatever" in your verb definitions. That
doesn't bother me, but it does involve a little programming awkwardness --
not the verbs, the awkwardness has to do with scope (although, again, one
of ALan's designers told me this awkwardness will disappear in version 3).
>#4 is there anything the "which system" didn't tell that I should know?
I don't remember exactly what "whichsys" says, except that ALan's coding
style is very clean and straight forward. I'd definitely agree with that
assessment. Did it mention that ALan has a feature that will allow you to
"script" an NPC's behavior?
>#5 will this lang limit me in anyway eg agt limits the #
of rooms a person can prog (and Items and so on) [...]
The manual doesn't mention any, and I haven't found any yet.
>#6 what is "object oriented"?
That's a good question. (I'm not saying that ALan isn't, but since I can't
define it I also can't say that it is.)
>ALAN just appealed to me...something about a lang
>that seems fairly uncharted
Then you're going to be happy with ALan. The manual doesn't fully cover
all of ALan's aspects. You're going to be doing a lot of discovery. ;-)
Walt
(Sands...@aol.com)
Brad O`Donnell
dan dalton wrote:
>
> I'm planning on programing in ALAN sometime in the near future and I have a
> few questions (I read the which
> system text which is how I came to pick ALAN (not because of power or
> anything I got inform and all but
> programed in this lang are the ones that came with
> it when i downloaded it) but that seemed vague on what
> it can do and its been awhile since the review came out
> and I figure somebody may have played with it and might know more about
> ALAN.)
>
You could write a moderately powerful game; Any game which had
fairly standard mechanical puzzles and fairly low player-NPC
interaction. Although, If you decide to use ALan, I (and several
others on this group) might be able to help with problems that arise
due to the limitations of ALan. (It is possible to have an NPC
react_before an action in ALan...You just have to have the default
verb act on the NPC's behalf.)
> #2 it's supposed to be a simple lang does that limit it in any way?
What do you mean by limit?
> #4 is there anything the "which system" didn't tell that I should know?
Yeah...if you ever want to have the player able to refer to an object
that isn't in the room, you're in for a slight hassle.
> #6 what is "object oriented"?
Object-oriented is the most popular programming buzzword of the
90's.
--
Brad O'Donnell
"In any battle between the will and the imagination,
the imagination will win:
If you imagine you can, you _might_ not;
If you imagine you can't, you _will_ not!"
--T.L. Rampa
Thomas Nilsson
Sandsquish wrote:
>
> Dan Dalton <rim...@shadetree.com> wrote:
>
> >#1 How powerful a game can someone write with ALAN?
>
> (how many different thing you can do), then ALan is reasonably flexible,
> significantly more so than AGT, but somewhat less so than TADS, Inform and
> Hugo. If you're talking about the ability to "boldly go where no man has
> gone before," then you might be disappointed.
And if you mean "much function for little work" I'd say Alan is quite
powerful. But as someone recently stated: it can't toast your socks...
Thomas
--
"Little languages go a long way..."
(ThoNi of ThoNi&GorFo Adventure Factories in 1985)
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Thomas Nilsson
Brad O`Donnell wrote:
>
> dan dalton wrote:
>
> > #4 is there anything the "which system" didn't tell that I should know?
>
> Yeah...if you ever want to have the player able to refer to an object
> that isn't in the room, you're in for a slight hassle.
>
Comin' up, comin' up...