I get you there. I’m not out to knock Inform, I just would kinda like to see TADS get its due.
I don’t know anything about Inform docs, but I feel like the TADS docs are pretty rich and helpful. I went from knowing zero about programming to working on a moderately complex game just through the TADS docs…
I’ve still never seen Workbench (on a Mac here)… is it an unheard of thing for people to work unless they have a full-fledged IDE? I feel like I’ve been doing just fine with BBEdit, although I can imagine a few features that would be helpful, like a Structure list to quickly get to your class definitions like PyCharm…
Sorry that throws you! It’s a pretty powerful convenience if you ask me. The single quotes are simply a string value to be stored, like strings in any programming language. The double quotes are a shorthand syntax for calling a method/function that displays that string right away, which is something that happens over and over in IF, for action responses and examine descriptions etc.
Do you mind sharing what parts seem complex? Again, as someone who knew no programming while learning TADS, I felt like it all made good sense, as long as you utilize the docs…
It doesn’t take long before it’s more helpful just to look at the source code for a method rather than the description. A lot of times you want to know what other methods a method calls, so you know best where to override or whether or not to call inherited. I have the adv3 library source linked to BBEdit’s multi-file search, so a lot of times if I know what method I’m looking at changing, a couple of keystrokes can show me its definition and also everywhere that it’s called within the library, which is sometimes what you need.
Does anyone know if MJR is indifferent to whether TADS eventually dies out, or whether he has any future plans for it (or for letting others develop it)?
If only I had more time, I would love to put in effort to re-establishing TADS 3 and trying to get it up to par in terms of IDE, portability, etc… I also would love to support a TADS jam, but I doubt I will have time to write a new game. Hopefully at least judging and/or testing though, if the competition happens!
That’s the $64 question. TADS is a very mature language and works very well as is.
However, as others have mentioned, operating systems evolve along with everything else computer related. If he doesn’t intend to maintain TADS any longer, I hope he releases it to some form of open source so it can remain viable.
Sorry, I misspoke there. The technical distinction between the two literals is pretty clear to me, the problem is remembering which library properties expects which kind of string.
As I said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with TADS’s syntax. But Inform 7’s english-like syntax looks simpler at first glance and sort of “lures you in”. By the time you realise that I7 is as complex as any programming language, you’re already invested in the system and unlikely to switch.
Nothing wrong there, many people prefer a more light-weight development environment. (Atom and VS Code are pretty darn popular for a reason!) But personally, I rely heavily on debuggers.
Gargoyle has the TADS sources under GPLv2, apparently.
I am looking at hosting a Winter TADS Jam that would take place well after IF Comp. I will publish the details shortly. Maybe there would be some interest. (Nov. 14 - Jan 15 entry period followed by judging via itch.io)
I’m down with that. Time to start cracking on an idea, assuming the jam actually takes place.
Nice to see! If you don’t have a particular theme already chosen, may I suggest a (slightly unusual) hybrid comp where T3ers can write either games or work on some other related project, like tooling, etc.?
I am good with that. Anything to increase the interest in TADS. I doubt there will be a specific theme for the Jam. It is mainly meant to showcase TADS.
I know I’m late to the party here, but I agree this is one aspect about the TADS library that could really stand improvement. This threw me when I tried writing a game in TADS 2 twenty years ago, and it’s still throwing me today.
It’s true there is a little bit of adjustment involved there… I think that for about 90 percent of it, it’s fairly easy to get used to which ones are which, and a small-sized quickref chart can cover the less common ones, so that having to check the library ref becomes pretty infrequent for the exceptional cases. Basically all of your name strings, cannotXXX, okayXXX, and player action messages are single quotes, while xxxDesc is a double quote. There’s a few oddball double quotes like explainTravelBarrier and so forth. Anyway, I think the double-quote syntax is so handy that it’s worth the trouble… I suspect it could have gotten complicated trying to define everything in the library as a single quote string, since so many of the properties are really methods that are being called – simply printing a string as the default, but allowing the potential to be overriden to include other code being carried out.
I hope you can get enough support! I would be willing to do what I can, but I’m afraid I won’t have time to drum up a new game to contribute. Unless I get a whim to put my big project on the shelf and churn out something bite-sized… otherwise I can try to help testing or judging… but either way, good luck!
well, I code (also) in TADS, both 2 and 3, but my dev time is definitively looong…
Perhaps I’ll try to at least ßrelease something tiny after the IFComp (this year I have preferred NOT to partecipate to it…) but no promises nor guarantees…
