Very confusing behavior difference between 'to say' and 'instead of'

[severedhand]

Just wanted to add in that this behaviour doesn’t happen with description-changing code you use for a say phrase that creates a room description, as spelled out more laboriously in this topic:

Does Inform ever expand the description of a room for comparison purposes?

My observation so far is that it doesn’t. I can create a say phrase for a room description that runs and analyses timer-type code to determine what to print, and it will work fine as soon as it’s seen. On the other hand, if I make a say phrase for a thing description that runs and analyses timer-type code to determine what to print, it won’t work when first seen, as it will already have run the code for comparison purposes and therefore changed the output to what I wanted the player to see nex…

-Wade