RE: A response to Walt

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@3DProgrammer.com>]

> To Jason's and Brandon's implications that theorizing is useless
> relative to
> practice: judging from the lack of discernable improvement in IS since
> about1980, I could suggest that practice is pretty frapping
> useless too.

Really?  Your opinion of the entire rec.arts.int-fiction community is that
low?  Is that based on firsthand examination of tons of work?  Or is it an
unfounded prejudice, a misconstruction that nobody's been doing anything
since the 80's, when clearly they have?

Mind you I'm not a RAIF apologist, 25% of that crowd hates my guts, and it's
the only newsgroup that will easily get profanity and killfiles out of me.
But I have perused enough of their works to feel that they do advance the
art and craft of IF.  In other words, I don't agree with your point about
practice no matter how you arrived at it.

> To Bob's and Laura's warnings about over-analyzing, I can only
> point out: my computer has no heart.

Why should the computer be doing the job of providing "heart?"  Even in the
Erasmatron, I see the emotional components as mere hooks into which skilled
authors can reposit good material.  Or bad material.  It's up to a human
being, not an engine.  Much as you can get abstract data types done in C,
but there are useful standard mechanisms for doing it in C++, and you can
fry yourself thinking it's all about turning everything into C++ objects.


Cheers,                                     www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every                           Seattle, WA

For plot and pace, writers use words; game designers use numbers.
Anything understood over time has plot and pace.