[rfk-dev] Getting this train moving

[Eric S. Raymond]

Peter A. H. Peterson <pedro at tastytronic.net>:
> > 4. New major version number is now 'e' (2.7182818), making the sequence
> > monotonic-increasing. Policy will be for the minor number to be a count
> > of shipped APIs. 
> 
> Akittenic Positioned Items?

No, I had hash collision in my acronym table. :-)
 
> I like this. Especially with the new codebase, and other changes like
> external NKIs, e seems like a good choice that actually works with the
> long minor number tradition. 
> 
> In a desire to keep the minor number "sensible", I would be OK with
> shortening this to 5 significant digits (at a minimum) but am also
> completely happy with up to 7. 8 is right out.

I think there's some value in having the major numbers all be the same
length, so I haven't tried to shorten it.
 
> > A. Behavior on resize is somewhat wonky.
> 
> I think this should be fixed before we ship. Here are the two simple
> solutions I would be in favor of (OTOMH):
> 
> 1. Resize the frame but don't move the NKIs. If the frame is resized,
> robot should be able to explore the space. 
> 
> 2. Don't resize the frame, ever.
> 
> In both cases, if the terminal is resized *below* the original size, I
> think the message "Stop, you're crushing me!" (or whatever it is in
> the code) should be displayed. I think that's a fun (and frankly
> surprising) behavior and I loved it the first time I saw it.
> 
> I find it somewhat confusing when the NKIs move or are respaced minutely
> as a result of resizing the frame. I'd be willing to consider resizing
> triggering a "shuffling" of the current NKIs (perhaps with a
> Boggle-like animation) but that seems really elaborate.

I just implemented a compression/expansion behavior, with the robot
able to explore the new space after expansion.  If, while the resize
handler is trying to compress the playfield, an object lands on
another, the following message is omitted: 

	 You crushed the simulation. And the robot. And the kitten

Then the program exits.

FYI. to accomplish this I had to significantly refactor the code.  All objects,
including the robot and the kitten, now live in the same array.  This makes
it possible for the resize code to move all of them in the same way.

> > B. The "You found kitten! Way to go, robot!" message only shows if you
> > set term=VT100, and does so after curses mode has been exited.
> 
> This should definitely be fixed before shipping.

I have fixed this.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>