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From: "John Colagioia" <JColagioia@csi.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Can't examine the pool of water (inform problem)
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 20:24:51 -0400
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Neil Cerutti <cerutti@12-104-16-35.trans-video.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 20:46:36 -0400 in <3D3F4A6C.4050103@csi.com>, John Colagioia wrote:
[...]
>> I'd be more comfortable if it allowed itself all alone, so that
>> the savvy player can refer to "the unbelievable thigamabob of
>> transgalactic squirrelhood" can type >TAKE OF and not have the
>> parser put up a fight.
>That's the thing I want to avoid, though.

I suppose it's a matter of priorities.  I've seen more games
with annoying-to-type names (where any abbreviation is
appreciated) than games where "of" gives too much away, or
there's an important "of"/"off" distinction.

To answer your question which I forgot about, "it's quite
easy to make 'of' behave as people expect, so why not do it?"
I'd say that it's because only programmers seem to expect
that behavior, and "nobody" should care about "them."

I've probably read this group for a couple of years, now
(and rec.games.int-fiction for a few months), and I've seen
lots of would-be authors ask "how do I force the player to
type this precise, arcane thing," but never seen a player
ask, "why is the parser so darn forgiving?"

I suppose the "best" approach would be to check all parses,
and see which is the most likely, before choosing an error
message.  That is, >GET OF probably doesn't mean >GET OFF,
if the player isn't on something.

I'm going to guess that *that* is what people (players)
expect.  It's a bit harder to program, though...

[...]
