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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Z-Machine
Message-ID: <GH16x3.IAv@world.std.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 13:31:50 GMT
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Kevin Bracey  <kevin.bracey@pace.co.uk> wrote:
>Which kind of misses the point of using the Z-machine: portability. There
>is a state-of-the-art (if I say so myself) Z-code interpreter for my
>platform, but nothing even vaguely resembling a usable glulx one.

Glulx interpreters are more widely deployed than Z-code interpreters
which support any of the hypothetical features currently under discussion.

Widespread deployment of either Glulx or an enhanced zterp
will probably occur when there's a "significant" or "important"
game released for either platform (where these terms are in
the eye of the beholding community). As far as I know, Zarf
writes rather portable code, so the only thing holding Glulxe
back from being ported is lack of desire.

Creeping featurism always makes code less maintainable. In the
short term it may look easier to creeap a feature, but in the long
term, over many of these changes, it's better to have started from
a clean slate.

None of these argue in favor of an enhanced Z-machine, to me.

SeanB
