[Slackers] beta 1.20

[Steve Judd]

Yo Jaymz,

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006, Jaymz Julian wrote:

> as an aside: i just thought i'd say i'm really impressed with the ability of
> slang to put together something gameish _quickly_ - of course the hard part
> is actually getting game mechanics right, but going from 0 to something that
> i can spend 15 minutes killing things on in a day or so is pretty cool.

Thanks, that's good to hear.  When doing the sprite editor (and joymenu
etc.) I thought it worked well -- was able to get things going pretty
quick -- but I didn't know how it would work out for someone who, you
know, didn't write the freaking language.

I'm also interested in seeing how it works out for doing things like AI,
since that was part of the original motivation, and also how it works out
speed-wise.  That is, getting things going quickly is less good if it bogs
down after a few sprites.

Thanks also for the code.  That's something I've been waiting for for a
long time.  Also, it's how I test updates: do targeted tests, then
compile programs that used to work and make sure they still work.  Up
until now that's pretty much been slangdemo1.p.s (and spred, when
motivated).

I did compile and run the program -- cool!

Also, two things for what they're worth, which you probably already know,
but what the heck.  First, using + (if+, for+, case+, etc.) will make
things faster/more efficient.  Second, when mixing Slang and asm I think
it's best in general to use local labels, rather than global, i.e.

:loop

instead of

loop

It may be that global labels occasionally cause conflicts, although maybe
that's just an old wive's tale from the early days of Slang.  Beyond that,
locals make for much better code, and mean none of the "loop1 loop2 ..."
or "sortloop sortthis sortthat" goofiness, since the labels can be reused.
(In Slang/Sirius asm, a local label begins with :, and is 'anchored' to
the last global label.)

Finally, as to that bug... it's a rather bizarre bug.  I know where it
occurs, and what's happening, but I am totally flummoxed as to what's
triggering it.  The word of the day is: flummoxed.

cu,

-S