Message-ID: <3c8ad4f0_4@corp-news.newsgroups.com>
From: CardinalT <cardinalt@helpmejebus.com>
Subject: Re: Making a parser - what are the minimal requirements?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 19:35:49 -0800
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Kodrik wrote:

> CardinalT wrote:
>
>> Kodrik wrote:
>>
>>> This works incredible well and the parser understands people writing
>>> plain english:
>>> "put the pot that I found in the blue room on the stove that is in front
>>> of me"
>>
>> It would still break down, though, in a case, say, where the player finds
>> a pot in the blue room and another in the red room, right? For example,
>> if you distinguished them in the code by naming them "blue room pot" and
>> "red room pot," the parser would no longer understand the above input
>> correctly. Or am I wrong about that?
>
> If you use this system, ordering your inputs is very important and
> associating clauses to them also. Since you can associate conditions to
> your keys, you can make them act differently depening on the status of the
> game.
>
> if(blue pot in inventory)
> put * pot * blue * stove ->"put blue pot"
> else
> put * pot * blue * stove ->"you don't have pot"

Ok, I understand that your parser is capable of disambiguation. That's not
the issue. What I'm saying is that if you have two pots and you distinguish
them in the code by their color, such that you have a "blue [room] pot" and
a "red [room] pot," the player is no longer going to be able to type "put
the pot that I found in the blue room on the stove" because the words "pot"
and "blue" will now both be tokens understood by the engine but will be in
the wrong word order.

If this much is true, it's a problem for the player because in cases where
things aren't specifically assigned the distinguishing adjective "blue" but
are nevertheless found in the blue room--let's take, for example, a radio,
where this radio is the one and only radio in the game--the player is going
to be allowed to type "put the radio that I found in the blue room on the
stove," while "put the pot that I found in the blue room on the stove" will
be rejected. Do you see the problem with that? It will be a huge source of
confusion and frustration for the player.

However, are you saying that with your system a designer can avoid the
situation I'm describing by specifically ordering the engine to recognize
the word order "pot, blue" in addition to "blue, pot?"

If so, I think I'm beginning to understand that your engine doesn't have a
default parsing behavior, but only follows whatever rules the designer
tells it to follow, and that moreover the designer must write these rules
in toto and anew for each and every referenceable object he creates. Is
that correct?

--
--CardinalT
  Archbishop of Frith and Funeral Barker to the Stars
