Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 August 28

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August 28

Interactive Fiction Programming Languages

All right, not sure if I'll get any replies to this, but is anyone out there familiar with the languages used to write text adventures (or interactive fiction, or Adventure games, or whatever you call them... like ADVENT or Zork)? I'm quite familiar with TADS and I've used Quest before, but I was wondering if someone who knows a wider variety of IF languages (like ADRIFT, Inform, etc.) could tell me which they considered the best to use, that aren't too difficult to learn and use, but are still powerful? --Alinnisawest(talk) 00:46, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The original 'ADVENT' was written in Fortran. From what I recall (it was a VERY long time ago), it was mostly table-driven but used specific Fortran code for special cases. The program has been re-written and re-re-written in half a dozen languages over the years - added to and subtracted from - so it's perfectly possible that some kind of scripting language has been used in more recent implementations. Sadly, I've never used a text adventure scripting language - so I don't have any advice to give. SteveBaker (talk) 04:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think I want to learn FORTRAN... ADVENT has been rewritten in TADS, and something for MS-DOS, I believe. Like I said, I already know TADS (thanks to Eric Eve and his magnificent tutorial, praise be to his name!!), but I didn't know if there was another language was was easier, but still as powerful. --Alinnisawest, Dalek Emperor (extermination requests here) 04:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've played a little with Inform, but through lack of time/imagination I haven't actually created much of anything other than experiments. From the examples given though, it's certainly powerful enough to do a lot of things, and also pretty extensible. Inform 7 is written in natural language - see the article for an example. I love the concept, and it's fascinating to play with, but I guess it could take a bit of getting used to if you're more familiar with conventional programming. I can't say anything about other languages though. the wub "?!" 11:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is a comparison of the major languages (found as a link from the blog of Emily Short, one of the developers of Inform 7). Algebraist 11:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

TADS and Inform 6 are very similar in their capabilities, and I don't think one is significantly easier than the other. TADS is a conventionally designed object oriented language. Inform 6 is a mess—no type system, awful syntax, 16-bit integers and pointers limiting you to 64K of addressable memory. But it has some advantages. Compiling to the Z-machine gives it a certain retro appeal, and has the practical advantage that the games can be played on very low powered systems (like older handhelds). It has a larger user base than TADS, which makes it easier to get help, though TADS has plenty of users also. It has a very good manual (the DM4). And it has a star-studded clientele (Adam Cadre, Andrew Plotkin, Emily Short, ...), which isn't exactly an advantage but does draw many people to it, I think.

Inform 7 is almost totally unrelated to Inform 6 and probably shouldn't have been called "Inform" at all. It's a rule-based language with an even worse syntax than Inform 6. Full marks for coolness, though. I don't know a whole lot about it.

ADRIFT is not exactly a "language", it's a GUI for making old-school games where you walk around a map picking up and dropping objects and unlocking chests with keys and so on. It has a very large community, but it barely interacts with the TADS/Inform community and there seems to be a certain amount of bad blood between them. Mainly it's creative differences; the TADS/Inform crowd wants to create Art, the ADRIFT crowd wants to create dungeon quests. You asked for a powerful language, so I don't think you want ADRIFT. You can write a dungeon crawl in TADS or Inform, but you can't write Shade or Photopia in ADRIFT.

Another language that probably deserves mentioning is Hugo, which to the best of my knowledge is a well-engineered system on par with Inform or TADS, but gets very little use.

Probably the best place to get help and advice about writing IF is the Usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction. -- BenRG (talk) 12:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Colossal Cave Adventure was the first text adventure I ever played, and I was hooked for years thereafter. The Infocom adventures, in particular, were fun and fiendish at the same time. Wow, reading this article certainly brought back fond memories! Sandman30s (talk) 13:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

On the topic of ADRIFT, about the only game I've ever played in it was A Fine Day for Reaping which, while being extremely funny and pretty good, had horrible support for stuff like interacting with NPCs. I'm presuming that's a fault of ADRIFT, because in TADS there's default responses for things like that; in AFDFR, it just said it didn't understand or something, so I spent about fifteen minutes playing guess-the-proper-format-and-noun-for-dialogue every time I wanted to say something! I haven't checked out Hugo, maybe I'll see what it's about. --Alinnisawest, Dalek Empress (extermination requests here) 14:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: I'm sure that Inform is very powerful. But its pseudo-English qualities drove me nuts. I couldn't predict where it would operate like English and where it wouldn't. I personally would prefer something much more overtly structured and less "natural"—as a programmer, that sort of thing is much easier to deal with, because the "natural" is going to be artificial anyway, so you might as well have the structure be obvious. But I didn't spend more than a few days tinkering with it before I got frustrated, it must be admitted. It's clearly very powerful, but limited in its misguided attempt to try and appear "natural" to apparently appeal to non-programmers. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 05:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Vista Disk cleanup bug

I have recently heard that, vista should be reinstalled after files in my documents have been deleted due to the bug in vista disk cleanup. Why is this? I really doubt that there could be corrupt files as a result of this. Clover345 (talk) 13:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

What are these tags called?

What are these tags called?

$Id: index.xhtml,v 1.4 2008/07/26 22:14:32 root Exp $

$Date: 2003/10/27 05:33:06 $

$Id: newuser.xhtml,v 1.1 2008/07/29 23:37:34 root Exp $

--grawity 19:13, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Where did you see them? --LarryMac | Talk 19:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

First, second, third. --grawity 19:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Those are produced by certain version control systems, including RCS and CVS (and probably newer ones that I haven't used). The author of the file would write $Id$ or $Date$, and the version control software would expand it to the longer form automatically. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Zoom 1608

Hiya, i have recorded some songs from a Zoom 1608 multitrack recorder, and burned them onto CD. I now wish to have my friend listen to them, however, I dont know how to email the songs to her. how do i get them off the CD and onto my computer? if i click and dragg, or if i cut and paste or copy and paste, they just seem to create some sort of a shortcut. when I take the CD out of the drive I can no longer play them and it says, insert the CD into the drive. Please help Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.32.117 (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

You could turn the tracks into MP3 files with an mp3 encoder like Audiograbber.(Windows) APL (talk) 20:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you SO much!!! you have no idea how much you have helped me, if there is ever anything i can do for you just say the word. What a wonderful tool audiograbber is. Thank you again and again 86.18.32.117 (talk) 21:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)Zionist

Glad to help!. APL (talk) 02:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)