Re: [Rails-devel] Unlimited tiles option

[Rick W. <wes...@pu...>]

brett lentz wrote:
> It's a play option for those that want it, It defaults to being
> disabled. The Simtex 1830 game had it.
>
> Other than requiring a lot of tedious XML editing, it's easy to
> support, so I see no reason not to add it.
>
> ---Brett.
>   
   The problem with tedious (and repetitive) XML is that it leads to 
tedious and much harder debugging.   One's eyes tend to glaze over when 
comparing a game's tile manifest.   As an example, when looking at tile 
#1 in order to check that the manifest correct, which is the easier XML 
to debug?

<Tile id="1" quantity="1" />
---

<Tile id="1">
<IfOption name="UnlimitedTiles" value="no">
<Attributes quantity="1"/>
</IfOption>
<IfOption name="UnlimitedTiles" value="yes">
<Attributes quantity="-1"/>
</IfOption>
</Tile>


   Obviously the first single line is easier.   Especially when looking 
at 50+ tiles.    It becomes hard to make sure all of the ones and the 
negative ones are correct.

   A rule of thumb that I use with my student programmers (and with 
myself and with my fellow professional programmers) is that whenever I 
find myself doing copy'n'paste then I should stop and ask myself, how 
can I do this better?  I.e., in a programmatic way?   I would prefer to 
see either:

<Tile id="1" quantity="1" unlimited="-1">

   Or better yet only exceptions to the rule if a given tile is not 
suppose to be unlimited.

<Tile id="4" quantity="2" nounlimited>

   Of course this will require program changes which, given my limited 
Java skills, I can not create.   Still I hope that someone more capable 
agrees with me that copy'n'paste is sloppy and thus will create such code.







-- 
Rick Westerman wes...@pu... Bioinformatics specialist at the 
Genomics Facility. Phone: (765) 494-0505 FAX: (765) 496-7255 Department 
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