6 ms·

I think Inform 7 is pretty cool. I suggest checking in to that as well.

rmunn 5mo ago
Inform 7 source code, at first glance, looks like plain English. It makes you start to wonder whether Inform 7 is actually an LLM and not a compiler. Then as you look at more code, you quickly start to see the structure of the language, and realize that it is indeed a programming language merely structured to look like English at first glance. But it's very cool that you can do things like this (example from the Inform 7 documentation): Definition: a room is neighboring if the number of moves from it to the location is 1. Every turn: if a random chance of 1 in 2 succeeds: let current location be the location of the lurking critter; let next location be a random room which is adjacent to the current location; if the lurking critter is visible: say "The critter [one of]slouches[or]slithers[or]shambles[or]lurches[at random] away."; move the lurking critter to next location; if the lurking critter is visible: say "A critter [one of]oozes[or]staggers[or]ambles[or]creeps[at random] into the room."; [Whether or not the critter has moved, we need to adjust the sword-glow, because the player may have moved.] if the lurking critter is in the location: adjust sword-glow to glowing brightly; otherwise if the lurking critter is in a neighboring room: adjust sword-glow to glowing faintly; otherwise: adjust sword-glow to glowless. This snippet omits the definition of "the lurking critter" (a standard NPC) and the sword (a standard object with a custom defined method called "adjust sword-glow to"), but it should give you a good idea of what Inform 7 source code looks like. (Inform 6 looked much more like a traditional programming language).
- lIl-IIIl 5mo ago
  > [Whether or not the critter has moved, we need to adjust the sword-glow, because the player may have moved.] That must be a comment, right? In that case: "The critter [one of]slouches[or]slithers[or]shambles[or]lurches[at random] away."; [one of] [or] [at random] are also comments?
  - chordbug 5mo ago
    In code, square brackets indicate comments. But inside a string literal they indicate variable interpolation or other commands.

rmunn 5mo ago

Inform 7 source code, at first glance, looks like plain English. It makes you start to wonder whether Inform 7 is actually an LLM and not a compiler. Then as you look at more code, you quickly start to see the structure of the language, and realize that it is indeed a programming language merely structured to look like English at first glance. But it's very cool that you can do things like this (example from the Inform 7 documentation): Definition: a room is neighboring if the number of moves from it to the location is 1. Every turn: if a random chance of 1 in 2 succeeds: let current location be the location of the lurking critter; let next location be a random room which is adjacent to the current location; if the lurking critter is visible: say "The critter [one of]slouches[or]slithers[or]shambles[or]lurches[at random] away."; move the lurking critter to next location; if the lurking critter is visible: say "A critter [one of]oozes[or]staggers[or]ambles[or]creeps[at random] into the room."; [Whether or not the critter has moved, we need to adjust the sword-glow, because the player may have moved.] if the lurking critter is in the location: adjust sword-glow to glowing brightly; otherwise if the lurking critter is in a neighboring room: adjust sword-glow to glowing faintly; otherwise: adjust sword-glow to glowless. This snippet omits the definition of "the lurking critter" (a standard NPC) and the sword (a standard object with a custom defined method called "adjust sword-glow to"), but it should give you a good idea of what Inform 7 source code looks like. (Inform 6 looked much more like a traditional programming language).

lIl-IIIl 5mo ago
> [Whether or not the critter has moved, we need to adjust the sword-glow, because the player may have moved.] That must be a comment, right? In that case: "The critter [one of]slouches[or]slithers[or]shambles[or]lurches[at random] away."; [one of] [or] [at random] are also comments?
- chordbug 5mo ago
  In code, square brackets indicate comments. But inside a string literal they indicate variable interpolation or other commands.