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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Is this good or bad design?
Message-ID: <erkyrathE2MpI9.K5A@netcom.com>
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Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 21:39:45 GMT
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Magnus Olsson (mol@bartlet.df.lth.se) wrote:
> > The idea is that once you see the combination, you know it. Nothing that
> > has the combination written down has to be in scope or anything. It's
> > a flag in the player. What do you think?

> I'm afraid this wouldn't work very well for me *unless* you allowed me
> also to open the safe the hard way (i.e. by explicitly turning the
> dial to the right combination). Since you let me turn the dial, I'd
> expect to be required to set it to the correct combination. Your
> implementation would probably feel very confusing - in effect, I can
> set the dial to the wrong combination, but not to the right one!

> If you really don't want to bother with the combination and the dial
> (and I can understand why you wouldn't), let me suggest that you make
> it obvious that I don't need to set the dial to anything. For example,
> you could let the commands "turn dial", "turn knob to 23", "turn dial
> right to 4", "set dial to 25", "dial 4-5-1-2" all produce the text
> "You play around with the dial for a while, but since you don't know
> the combination, it's an idle exercise" as long as I don't know the
> combination. When I do know it, manipulating the dial gives the message
> "You set the dial to the correct combination, and are rewarded with a 
> soft click." 

I was going to post of all of that, but Magnus beat me to it. What he said.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
