[OT] Interactive Fiction is an Oxymoron
Jecel Assumpcao Jr
jecel at merlintec.com
Mon Jul 30 22:42:29 UTC 2001
He, he... these threads reminded me of all the fun I had fitting an
adventure game into an HP 41 calculator (not the big 41C types!) some
20 years ago.
One key aspects of my world domination plan is that people should learn
Smalltalk as their first language. Converting people who started with
something else is such a pain - why bother? Those who are already
programming today will be a minority in a few years, so it's no big
deal if my plan leaves them out initially.
The problem is that I have never read any Smalltlak book or tutorial
written for non programmers, which is totally amazing considering what
the language was created for. If I am wrong about this, please send me
the references right away.
Anyway, I came up with the idea of writing just such a book in the form
of an adventure game. Solve the puzzles and learn how to program! But
then I started thinking that the book should be available in printed
form in your nearest bookstore. If I am going after non programmers,
then going after them in a non computer environment might be the smart
thing to do.
But as Andrew pointed out, you can't have both a good story and a good
simulation. So it can't be both a good book and a nice interactive
"tutorial". The book by itself is unlikely to do much good (though I
learned Smalltalk from the "blue book" this way and C from the K&R
book, I am not a very typical person...) so I have to suppose the
reader has access to a computer.
I can't decide: how to get the best of both worlds? Should they be two
entirely different products?
-- Jecel
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