Canonicality?
Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 7:14 am
Hi!
I'm not really sure wether this belongs here or elsewhere, but I'll give it a try.
I'm working on a Perl module that gives me all the Elite/Oolite galaxy data. I started off with the Data found in the Wiki, found it insufficient for my goals and implemented the formulas used in the spreadsheet and in Ian Bells TXTELITE.C source.
So far, the data I generated matches the data I see from all the sources, except for one item on the agenda: The planet description string (you know: "Lave is most famous for its vast rain forests and the Laveian tree grub.").
It works well with Lave and many others, but as soon as the "random name" is used in the planets description, the rest of the description text differs between the one in the original Elite and TXTELITE on the one hand, and Oolite on the other.
In Elite Wiki:Random Number Generator I read that the random name is generated last in Oolite instead of "in process", thus altering the order in which the random numbers are consumed.
a) Is this considered a bug, and thus potentially a subject for change, or is this considered canonical for Oolite, and thus set for ever and ever, amen?
b) Questions for the code gurus: Is this interpretation in the wiki article technically correct? That is: Can I just generate the description string with a placeholder instead of the random name and replace it at the end of the description generation process with the then-generated random name?
c) There is another difference I noted between Oolie and (Txt)Elite random names: In TxtElite, Ian bell uses only the first character of the first digraph, not both. It might be a bug on Ian Bells side, though: with the same "if" condition he avoids the classic "A?erin gargle blasters".
Yours, Christian Treczoks
I'm not really sure wether this belongs here or elsewhere, but I'll give it a try.
I'm working on a Perl module that gives me all the Elite/Oolite galaxy data. I started off with the Data found in the Wiki, found it insufficient for my goals and implemented the formulas used in the spreadsheet and in Ian Bells TXTELITE.C source.
So far, the data I generated matches the data I see from all the sources, except for one item on the agenda: The planet description string (you know: "Lave is most famous for its vast rain forests and the Laveian tree grub.").
It works well with Lave and many others, but as soon as the "random name" is used in the planets description, the rest of the description text differs between the one in the original Elite and TXTELITE on the one hand, and Oolite on the other.
In Elite Wiki:Random Number Generator I read that the random name is generated last in Oolite instead of "in process", thus altering the order in which the random numbers are consumed.
a) Is this considered a bug, and thus potentially a subject for change, or is this considered canonical for Oolite, and thus set for ever and ever, amen?
b) Questions for the code gurus: Is this interpretation in the wiki article technically correct? That is: Can I just generate the description string with a placeholder instead of the random name and replace it at the end of the description generation process with the then-generated random name?
c) There is another difference I noted between Oolie and (Txt)Elite random names: In TxtElite, Ian bell uses only the first character of the first digraph, not both. It might be a bug on Ian Bells side, though: with the same "if" condition he avoids the classic "A?erin gargle blasters".
Yours, Christian Treczoks