Re: Low-level vs. High-level programming (was My First Computer)

[wildstar <wildstar128@hotmail.com>]

pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote in
news:bd0rrq$2b2a$1@merope.saaf.se: 


> Easy: make ome HTML page for each combination of these quantities:
>  
>   ball position 
>   ball velocity 
>   paddle position
>   paddle velocity
>   current score

First off, ball position and movement change is dependent on velocity.
Velocity is not pre-determined in Pong always. Take a shot at Dynamoid
and you will indeed be in deep shit. 

Current score is a variable. HTML has no real Load/Store for data or
data collection capability. HTML has no yet to be define logic called
variables and therefore you get severely inhibited really quick. 

Secondly for the following to occur, how do you ever store a score. It
is simply an integer ( TotalPoints = TotalPoints + NewPoints ). This can
not be done without scripts languages/programming languages. HTML has no
variables. HTML can not redine tag values. It requires scripts or
programming languages to do that. 

In short, a variable is simply a data container.
  
> and link them to one anohter in an appropriate way.  The number of
> HTML pages will now become astronomical, of course.  But there's no
> real problem in adding score keeping to our HTML Pong game.  When the
> score reaches some specific limit, you can also add a "Game over"
> page. 
>  

Read above, no variable & no data container = NO score can be truly
kept. Now there is no item/object/container to be compared. Oops, there
is no comparative logic - um IF...THEN kind of logic - in HTML. Requires
scripts. 

> Should we take that as an admission of your part that your earlier
> claim it's "impossible" to implement Pong in HTML was erroneous?
>  
> BTW I've never played that game --- so you'll first have to explain
> its rules then, and how it's played....
>  
>> without the use of any script language or programming languages.
>  
> Are we allowed to use web browsers?  THey're implemented using
> programming languages.....  <g>

As long as it can be ran on a pure HTML viewer that does not have and
script processor or any script processor running in the background as
well as no hidden programming language processing. Must be pure HTML.
I'll allow CSS (cascade style sheets without any actual Javascript or
PHP or any other forms of scripts. 
 
>> Just strict HTML that will work with an 
>> HTML viewer. BTW: Links should work with an HTML viewer.
>> 
>> Score keeping is a must by the way as that is part of the
>> game/program. 
>  
> Adding score keeping is easy in principle: just increase the number
> of HTML pages by a factor of the largest possible score.....
>

HTML pages do not create new HTML pages so how are you to create a new
HTML page for every new point. Ok, if you have a determinable top score
that might be managable. If you have no definable max score because the
number of rounds are to be user definable. Also the rule is there is a
timer which is part of PONG as well as Dynamoid. Part of the sense of
PONG was there was no real max score. Only how many times you can put
the ball to the other side in the given time element for the round. You
can have preset range of rounds. Early Pong did have maybe 2-3 rounds so
lets say each round is 2 minutes counting down to zero perhaps. 

You may stick with one round for starters.
Get some music.