Re: [Alephmodular-devel] Detangling/de-Mac-ifying

[Br'fin <br...@ma...>]

On May 18, 2005, at 11:29 PM, Woody Zenfell III wrote:

> On Wednesday, May 18, 2005, at 09:01  PM, Chris Pickel wrote:
>
>
>> I'll of course put in my usual "make it a class!" line, since if  
>> there's a CActionFlags class, sticking a mutex in at a later date  
>> would be much easier.
>>
>
> Yes, bringing to bear language features we have now that were not  
> as available to Bungie when they wrote this stuff seems like  
> generally good practice.  It also seems in line with AM's  
> character.  The speculative nature of the latter part of your  
> statement sets me on edge a little, but perhaps it's intended as an  
> example of how proper use of language features and abstractions  
> smooths development, rather than a suggestion that developers  
> attempt to predict the future.  :)
>
> I thought in A1 I _had_ made ActionQueues objects, since there are  
> several different sets of them in A1 . . . but maybe I'm confusing  
> some things in my memory.  It's been years.

A1 I think did, but I've not looked into it since I hadn't really  
considered working on such on AM Yet. I'm not against it, just my  
focus wasn't there.

>> Random side note - glancing through the code, there are plenty of  
>> #define's still around. Converting them to const's and inlined  
>> functions might be a good idea for the future. Of course, many are  
>> things which MML is used to define in A1, so their final  
>> implementation might not be constants. But this is random and not  
>> the subject of this email.
>>
>
> Replacing #defines with safer language features also seems like  
> good practice.  So does typedef'ing certain things, like  
> action_flags.  And don't worry about trying to predict the "final  
> implementation" - it'll evolve and grow up the way it should, if  
> properly tended along the way.  Make things the best way you can  
> figure out now, for what they need to be now (e.g. by doing exactly  
> the kinds of things you're talking about) - it'll then be that much  
> easier to see how the code really wants to be, and that much easier  
> to adapt it once you do know where it needs to go next.
>
> Woody

In general, I do agree with doing typesafe things with language  
features and inline functions. I haven't done any specific attacks on  
excising them all. Though I've looked at a few specific ones and  
wondered... what the heck and I going to do about this? (Most  
specifically things like MAX() and NONE where they flex more in the  
context the number and values being used are expressed in)

-Jeremy Parsons
http://alephmodular.sourceforge.net/