Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!newsserver.sfu.ca!sfu.ca!neilg
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: TADS efficeincy (eg Abe)
Message-ID: <neilg.722287585@sfu.ca>
Sender: news@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
References: <BxuAGw.ILt@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <librik.722242725@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 19:26:25 GMT
Lines: 25

librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik) writes:

>I guess my computer isn't slow enough to make evaluation of a bunch of
>compiled "compare" and "jump" instructions noticeable.  But what IS slow
>in TADS is resolving nouns: in a game with a bunch of different doors
>scattered throughout it -- each with a full name like "north door", "jail
>cell door", etc., but all accepting "door" as a synonym -- there is a really
>perceptible one- or two-second pause when you type "examine door" -- even
>though there's only one door in the room.  I'm guessing the parser is
>descending the list of "door"s, looking for one in the current room.

 This is a major wall I've run into also. My totally unfinished game
has the player wandering an empty deserted city. Naturally there are a
lot of doors, most of which are unopenable. So I got to the point when
it would take something like 10 seconds to do anything to a door. Agh!
Since selling my elderly Mac Plus and buying a 33 MHz Quadra is not
feasible, I was disappointed by this.
 
>This is TADS 1.2, by the way; the new version may have speeded this up.

 God I hope so... Does anyone know what the upgrade cost from 1.x to
2.0 is going to be, by the way? Assuming you don't have to buy a brand
new package.

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)
