Re: Speeding up inform


Thu, 13 Jul 1995 00:40:47 BST

nelson@vax.oxford.ac.uk (Mathematical Institute, (01865) 2-73525) wrote:

> Also, it wouldn't save quite as much time as appears. It would make the
> compilation of tiny games very quick; but the time saving on really
> substantial games would be nowhere near as dramatic. I do have to wait 2
> minutes for "Jigsaw" to compile, but that's not the end of the world, and
> it is pretty huge.

> Well... a pusillanimous sort of post. I may yet reconsider.

No, I think you're right.

Compiling time seems okay to me, compared to compiling other languages, and
considering the complexity of what I'm doing. But then I am using one of
Acorn's fabulous Risc PCs, so maybe I /would/ say that. :-) Ah, the
pleasures of running Inform in a multi-tasking task window...

The mind boggles as to how you'd actually implement precompiled libraries,
seeing as how the library does so much more than compile its own code, and
that. (Especially the IFDEFs which require information from the program
they're being included in.)

I'm more interested in more trivial additions, like being able to have more
than three items in a (thing==stuff or gubbins or frob) condition, and some
sort of multi-case structure.

Anyway, don't let the pleas for additions fool you into thinking people
don't like Inform... it's utterly, utterly excellent. So there. :-)

BCNU, AjC