Documentation polishing.

[open-adventure.git] / notes.adoc

diff --git a/notes.adoc b/notes.adoc
index 1baf354d694a667a9c81a3049765ad15048d1587..cac3a133598d3120736c725df54f7b4d7b5f984b 100644 (file)
--- a/notes.adoc
+++ b/notes.adoc
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ The principal maintainers of this code are Eric S. Raymond and Jason
 Ninneman.  Eric received Don Woods's encouragement to update and ship
 the game; Jason signed on early in the process to help. The assistance
 of Peje Nilsson in restructuring some particularly grotty gotos is
 Ninneman.  Eric received Don Woods's encouragement to update and ship
 the game; Jason signed on early in the process to help. The assistance
 of Peje Nilsson in restructuring some particularly grotty gotos is

-gratefully acknowledged. Petr Voropaev contributed fuzz testing.
+gratefully acknowledged. Petr Voropaev contributed fuzz testing. Aaron
+Traas did a lot of painstaking work to improve test coverage.

 
 == Nomenclature ==
 
 
 == Nomenclature ==
 


@@ -60,11 +61,11 @@ Using "seed" and -l, the distribution now includes a regression-test
 suite for the game.  Any log captured with -l (and thus containing
 a "seed" command) will replay reliably, including random events.
 
 suite for the game.  Any log captured with -l (and thus containing
 a "seed" command) will replay reliably, including random events.
 

-The adventure.text file is no longer required at runtime.  Instead, it
-is compiled at build time to a source module containing C structures,
-which is then linked to the advent binary. There is an adventure.yaml file
-as well; this is also compiled to C code, and will eventually replace
-adventure.text altogether.
+The adventure.text file is no longer required at runtime.  Instead, an
+adventure.yaml file is compiled at build time to a source module
+containing C structures, which is then linked to the advent
+binary.  The YAML is drastically easier to read and edit than
+the old ad-hoc format of adventure.txt.

 
 The game-save format has changed.  This was done to simplify the
 FORTRAN-derived code that formerly implemented the save/restore
 
 The game-save format has changed.  This was done to simplify the
 FORTRAN-derived code that formerly implemented the save/restore


@@ -85,10 +86,14 @@ ugly and quite unreadable.
 Jason Ninneman and I have moved it to what is almost, but not quite,
 idiomatic modern C.  We refactored the right way, checking correctness
 against a comprehensive test suite that we built first and verified
 Jason Ninneman and I have moved it to what is almost, but not quite,
 idiomatic modern C.  We refactored the right way, checking correctness
 against a comprehensive test suite that we built first and verified

-with coverage tools (we now have over 90% coverage, with the remaining
+with coverage tools (we now have over 95% coverage, with the remaining

 confined to exception cases that are very difficult to reach). This is
 what you are running when you do "make check".
 
 confined to exception cases that are very difficult to reach). This is
 what you are running when you do "make check".
 

+In the process we found and fixed a few minor bugs. Most notably, reading
+the relocated Witt's End sign in the endgame didn't work. Behavior when
+saying the giant's magic words outside his room wasn't quite right either.
+

 The move to modern C entailed some structural changes.  The most
 important was the refactoring of over 350 gotos into if/loop/break
 structures.  We also abolished almost all shared globals; the main one
 The move to modern C entailed some structural changes.  The most
 important was the refactoring of over 350 gotos into if/loop/break
 structures.  We also abolished almost all shared globals; the main one


@@ -103,14 +108,14 @@ of sixbit code points in a restricted character set, packed 5 to a
 verb was one of these words, and what would be string operations in a
 more recent language were all done on sequences of these words.
 
 verb was one of these words, and what would be string operations in a
 more recent language were all done on sequences of these words.
 

-We are still in the process of removing all this bit-packing cruft
-in favor of proper C strings.  C strings may be a weak and leaky
-abstraction, but this is one of the rare cases in which they are
-an obvious improvement over what they're displacing... 
+We have removed all this bit-packing cruft in favor of proper C
+strings.  C strings may be a weak and leaky abstraction, but this is
+one of the rare cases in which they are an obvious improvement over
+what they're displacing...

 
 We have also conducted extensive fuzz testing on the game using
 afl (American Fuzzy Lop).  We've found and fixed some crashers in
 
 We have also conducted extensive fuzz testing on the game using
 afl (American Fuzzy Lop).  We've found and fixed some crashers in

-our new code (which occasionally uses malloc(3)) but none as yet
+our new code (which occasionally uses malloc(3)), but none as yet

 in Don's old code (which didn't).
 
 The code falls short of being fully modern C in the following
 in Don's old code (which didn't).
 
 The code falls short of being fully modern C in the following


@@ -132,13 +137,18 @@ ways:
   to fix it because doing so would (a) be quite difficult, and (b)
   compromise forward-portability to other languages.
 
   to fix it because doing so would (a) be quite difficult, and (b)
   compromise forward-portability to other languages.
 

-* Much of the code still uses FORTRAN-style uppercase names.
-
-* The code still assumes one-origin array indexing.  Thus, arrays are
-  a cell larger than they strictly need to be and cell 0 is unused.
+* Muxh of the code still assumes one-origin array indexing.  Thus,
+  arrays are a cell larger than they strictly need to be and cell 0 is
+  unused.

 
 * The code is still mostly typeless, slinging around machine longs
   like a FORTRAN or BCPL program.  Some (incomplete) effort has been made
   to introduce semantic types.
 
 
 * The code is still mostly typeless, slinging around machine longs
   like a FORTRAN or BCPL program.  Some (incomplete) effort has been made
   to introduce semantic types.
 

+We have made exactly one minor architectural change.  In addition to the
+old code's per-object state-description messages, we now have a per-object
+message series for state *changes*.  This makes it possible to pull a fair
+amount of test out of the arbitrary-messages list and associate those
+mesages with the objects that conceptually own them.
+

 // end
 // end