I wanna make a TADS 3 wiki / consolidate resources!

[pieartsy (Aster F)]

I like this idea

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

@doeadeer3

With T3, Mark Roberts threw the kitchen sink in, all preconstructed stuff, which actually makes iit harder to learn. Like back when there was a word processor called Multimate, it would do everythihng, but you could use function keys, menus and shortcuts, there were three ways to do anything. Great word processor but hard to learn. And you could actually open a code window that show you the basic formatting, letting you add and delete. Things like {pagination}. It was cool, but many “secretaries” could not learn it. I took a class on it. I was a temp secretary between programming jobs.

agree. I try to follow the KISS principle when feasible (for instance, one can’t keep simple the synonym handling; on paper, using the noun provided in the description(s) should suffice, but remain surprising how many synonyms never used in the narrative crops in the transcripts…); but once, for idle curiosity, I collated many pre-WIMP manuals of wordprocessors, editors, spreadsheets, databases, and often I find strengths and weakness not in the functions & features, but in the assignment of these functions to keystrokes and function keys. (and, in the end, one perhaps can get hunchs on the roots of the ancient *nix war between emacs and vi…)

sorry for the OT tangent, and

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

@Eric_Eve

Might you want to consider using adv3Lite? Just a thought.

Perhaps I should warn that I speak by myself, the lone author whose manages to shift a major WIP from adv3 to a3Lite (a feat I duly reported here a pair of years ago…) but IMVHO, a knowledge of adv3 helps in quickly grasping a3Lite. hence the usefulness of a3Lite’s extras.t, holding many (not so “shallow”, IMVHO) equivalents to tads3 classes.

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[doeadeer3 (Marnie Parker)]

Eric, I haven’t looked at it yet, but will. I think it is new or more developed than when I was around before. Thanks.

What I am more fascinated with is the graphic representation I started with for the T3 class diagramming is still viable. Listed on my dyslexia glob. A pdf file some one created from the Technical Reference Manual. The nodes and branches are labeled. Roby somebody did it and it is still a viable pdf.

I’ve downloaded it.

We were just charting part of it. I never did know how that guy did it; Looks like a bunch of lines, until you zoom in and things are labeled as to classes, subclasses, et.

I know you are proud of what you did, Eric, and you have a right to be. But I am 77 now and want to relearn things quickly. Can’t take years relearning.

Lots of whiz kids around now, better programmers than some of us were. Time for the changing of the guard, sort of. If they can expand and change things, or come up with a better way to get started quickly or learn easier, more power to them.

Seems like, why, not? Graham stopped working on Inform 7 and Mike stopped working on T3. Maybe something else has come along, but in my not so humble opinion they were the best game writing systems around. Maybe they can continue to be developed in new or additional ways. Passing the torch and all that.

I am also intrigued I could make some money entering games in the yearly comp. Hey, go away for 20 years, come back, and people CHANGED THINGS. Heh. I do predict some old timers may want to do some IF in their retirement. Some people get seriously bored when they retire.

Glad you are still around, too.

Later, Marnie Parker aka that Doe Person.

[Eric_Eve]

@doeadeer3

I am also intrigued I could make some money entering games in the yearly comp. Hey, go away for 20 years, come back, and people CHANGED THINGS. Heh. I do predict some old timers may want to do some IF in their retirement. Some people get seriously bored when they retire.

I’m one such old timer doing just that in continuing work on adv3Lite in my retirement. I’m 70 now.

@doeadeer3

Lots of whiz kids around now, better programmers than some of us were. Time for the changing of the guard, sort of. If they can expand and change things, or come up with a better way to get started quickly or learn easier, more power to them … Passing the torch and all that.

Sure. I hope I’m good for several years yet, but if adv3Lite is going to continue beyond that, then the time will come when someone younger will need to take over maintaining it.

[Eric_Eve]

@doeadeer3

What I am more fascinated with is the graphic representation I started with for the T3 class diagramming is still viable.

I doubt the adv3 class hierarchy has changed much, if at all, since you last worked on that so presumably it would still be viable.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

@doeadeer3

What I am more fascinated with is the graphic representation I started with for the T3 class diagramming is still viable. Listed on my dyslexia glob. A pdf file some one created from the Technical Reference Manual. The nodes and branches are labeled. Roby somebody did it and it is still a viable pdf.

I’ve downloaded it.

where you have DL’d it ? and you can care to upload it into the IF archive ? seems to me a potential major resource for adv3…

on the little retirement OT, I wish I can full retire (in politics and, well, “man of (service of) order”, I’m holding the baton. the Field Marshal one. Meaning, I have a status comparable to Coriolanus or Suvorov: if here the proverbial stinking organic matter hit the fan, I’m around the top of the short list of Comrades to be “recalled in active service ASAP”…), but having a legitimate EU welfare pension (deafness) and a little landlord income, I can call myself “half-retired” (aside a little “part-time public service”)

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[doeadeer3 (Marnie Parker)]

@Eric_Eve

Sure. I hope I’m good for several years yet, but if adv3Lite is going to continue beyond that, then the time will come when someone younger will need to take over maintaining it.

Exactly. I didn’t think you were THAT much younger than me But some people retire in their 50’s and normal retirement age is 65. So retirees even younger than us. As returnees. Odds are it is happening and may happen more and more.

Later. Marnie

[doeadeer3 (Marnie Parker)]

I am working on getting my Freehostia site back. Not much html left. Going to put the remains of my site back up and going to add the pdf, so other people can download it and spread it around if they want. So no worries.

Add a TADS page in other words. It was mainly IF Art Show and Inform 6 stuff.

[doeadeer3 (Marnie Parker)]

I am not overly fond of GitHub unless it has changed. Suggest static html site with links.

Developer contribution on GitHub if needed. When something is done, move copy to html site. How to use GitHub, itself has a high learning curve. I once took a class through GitHub, free class re Java. Got very confusing.

[tinman]

Sorry to be very late to this party, but FWIW I think the existing Adv3Lite docs are excellent as they are. While any project that helps people immerse themselves in the platform is fine, attempting to fork or otherwise set up some sort of parallel documentation is, at worst, liable to introduce errors and, at best, simply going to require a lot of work to keep current.

Far better, IMHO, is to check out a local copy of Prof Eve’s github repository, which brings down all the source code and documentation. Then a simple periodic “git pull” will update both to ensure that one is working with all the latest bug fixes and enhancements. After that, exploration and experimentation including making one’s own notes/cheat sheets/whatever is how anyone must learn any sophisticated software language/library/system.

The various resources – the Tutorial, the Manual, the Library Reference, and the Learning T3 Lite book as well as the Periplus – are brilliantly organized, definitive, and comprehensive. Keeping each open in a separate browser tab makes it easy to switch between the docs and the dev app (Workbench or whatever you use).

Of course the documentation is complex – it’s a complex system – but working with Adv3Lite requires and rewards deep investigation. Proper expectations are helpful: one should only attempt to catch on to enough of any given topic/technique such that the next time one encounters it, one is confused on a higher plane. But with enough upward increments, one will eventually get there. Besides, playing with Adv3Lite itself is almost more fun than what gets written with it. In any case, a “TADS for Dummies” is unwarranted. (Well, it already does exist and is called “Twine.”)

Adv3Lite is the only parser IF platform currently under active development, plus it complies most closely by far with the Principle of Least Astonishment (no disappearing into I6 where inscrutable miracles happen). One can step line by line not merely through one’s own code but also down through the entire system stack to find out what’s really going on. Absolutely brilliant.

This thread has at times sounded to me like a criticism of Prof Eve’s handiwork, and to the extent that that was what was intended, I must object. Instead, I think Prof Eve deserves the utmost praise (along with Mike Roberts, wherever he is) for what he/they have created and made available to all – for absolutely free.

My $0.02 anyway.

[pieartsy (Aster F)]

I’m not trying to set up parallel new documentation. the stuff I’m using is all the original documentation for both adv3 and adv3lite (and other resources people have made), just put in one place. that’s literally it. I have written nothing new other than what amounts to “here’s the links guys”.

[George]

This is a long thread so I think the original idea of a TADS wiki has evolved. As far as I understand it the goal now is to track releases of docs and put them in one place making them easy to find, easy to read online, easy to search, and even more importantly IMO to link to when we’re discussing them here.

None of that is at odds with exploring the language on your own. But for the record I would love a condensed, more visual guide to the TADS 3 language and the adv3lite library to use as a reference. Full credit to Eric and Mike for brilliant docs, but that doesn’t mean more good docs can’t be written.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

@tinman

The various resources – the Tutorial, the Manual, the Library Reference, and the Learning T3 Lite book as well as the Periplus – are brilliantly organized, definitive, and comprehensive. Keeping each open in a separate browser tab makes it easy to switch between the docs and the dev app (Workbench or whatever you use).

which IS my setup:

(this screenshot shows one of my stakes in the consolidation: astute people will immediately notice that once I have on my HD the consolidated resource, I can recover two slots my bookmark bar…)

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[Jonathan]

@tinman

In any case, a “TADS for Dummies” is unwarranted. (Well, it already does exist and is called “Twine.”)

Haha – definitely one for the “hot takes” topic!

[xxbbcc]

Yes, having the documentation all local is very useful.