AnssiR66 / AlanStdLib

The Standard Library for ALAN Interactive Fiction Language
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New "Library Attributes" Part #114

Open tajmone opened 3 years ago

tajmone commented 3 years ago

@AnssiR66, I've created a new Part (II) dedicated to "Library Attributes", and began moving therein all the various sections from the Part on "Library Classes".

This was done with these goals in mind:

  1. Make the "Library Classes" Part shorter and focused only on the specialized classes created by the Library.
  2. Keep all aspects of attributes that can make object instance behave in special ways all together in one single Part (attributes for actor will be presented in "Library Classes" » "Actors" though, for consistency).
  3. Because in terms of learning, studying how attributes can be used to change behavior of objects is easier than learning how to work with library classes, so it makes sense to have this Part precede the one on classes.
  4. Remove redundant sections across the StdLib Manual.

There are still some sections dealing with attributes to be found around the manual; these should either be removed because they're redundant (and cause extra maintenance work) or moved to the new "Library Attributes" Part, and adapted accordingly.

I think that Ch. 6. "Default Library Attributes" (in Part Introduction) should be dropped, and replaced with a dedicated Appendix providing a look-up Table with all the attributes defined in the Library. The advantage of using a Table is that we can have various columns indicating on which class an attribute is added, how its used by the StdLib, and how authors can use it — e.g. the worn attribute would mention that the library uses it only for clothing, but end authors can use it also for custom wearable items, etc.

I hope that this new structure will provide a better learning experience, and make it easier to look-up specific topics when consulting the Manual as a reference guide.

AnssiR66 commented 3 years ago

This sounds like a big improvement!

tajmone commented 3 years ago

I've just pushed the updated Manual, you can now see the results!

Although there's still a lot of re-organization work to be done, the Parts already look more balanced and easier to navigate.