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Post by machf »

Draconisaurus wrote:About the decimal comma thing... machf are you saying we should all use commas for decimal places???
It was meant to become a universal standard some 20 years ago...
3,14.. that seems rather confusing. What if I wanted to actually put a comma after a number, to make a list of numbers? 3,4,5
You leave a space after the comma... 3, 4, 5
- a standard location/orientation format, for example (x,y,z).
For that, you either used vertical bars (x | y | z)
or wrote the coordinates as a vector:

Code: Select all

  x
( y )
  z
(with the parentheses going all the way up and down, of course).

Commas seem pretty silly to me, used in place of dots..
It's really a matter of getting accustomed to them...
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Post by Draconisaurus »

Yes but why change? If they started out as , instead of . we would be used to them. They didn't, and we're used to them, and they are logical. And anyway, stating coordinates as (x,y,z) IS standard, besides written it is done this way in many programs, including with the TPM format itself, where commas are an essential interpirtation in code. Actually that's an even more important point.. Imagine a list of numbers looking like this:
1,32432, 43235,332, 23423,234
That looks pretty damn confusing and would easily confuse the hell out of a program trying to determine where the numbers began and ended, nevermind if you wanted to leave out the spaces. Programming gets buggy when you try overloading characters like that (such as the = sign, used for "equals" and "change to").
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Post by Rebel »

That's never going to be universally embraced, machf. No one is ever going to say pi=three comma one four!

A comma is a great separator, it should be used as such, and with coding the use of the | bar already has an 'or' value. All of the above just adds unnecessary confusion to both mathematics and programming.
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Post by Draconisaurus »

Rebel wrote:That's never going to be universally embraced, machf. No one is ever going to say pi=three comma one four!

A comma is a great separator, it should be used as such, and with coding the use of the | bar already has an 'or' value. All of the above just adds unnecessary confusion to both mathematics and programming.
Ahhh thank you Rebel. ;) And yes I forgot about that part with the |, definately can't go overloading THAT...
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Post by machf »

Yes, I think the introduction and growing popularity of microcomputers and personal computers around that time (second half of the 1980s) was one of the main things that prevented that standard to become widespread...

Just because of computer programmers, several languages have had to drop letters from their alphabet... for example, in Spanish, "ch" used to be a letter between "c" and "d", so any word starting with "ch" would come after any word starting with "ci", which was a headache for programmers because of them using ASCII code... same with "ll", which came between "l" and "m". And in German, I believe "sch", "sp" and "st" had a similar treatment...
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Post by machf »

Rebel wrote: No one is ever going to say pi=three comma one four!
Actually, I do... :wink:

And several other prople:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator
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Post by Draconisaurus »

I took german, doesn't sound familiar to me at all.. *remembers very well his musical german alphabet and his pre-computer-age teacher* "sch" is simply a sound in German, not a letter. In point of fact, it's 3 letters... having combination characters in an alphabet is a very poor choice to begin with. Now if they wanted to create a new intermediate character that was connected somehow (such as 'double-u' or 'double-v' (not something we say in English but in some other language they do), or the German scharfes s "ß" (constructed out of an old-english lower-case s "ſ"and small upper-case s)). Actually I kind of think those sounds SHOULD have their own characters (sh, ch), but that's not likely to happen now that everything is standardized.

EDIT: niiiice.. GigaY2k posted at the exact second I did.
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Post by GigaY2k »

I also use the decimal comma. It's standar in my country.

For separating coordinates you don't need to do anything. Keep it x,y,z (Without spaces. After the second comma it becomes evident that is not a decimal separator).

As for making list use use either ";" or "," as a separator, and keep numbers separated by spaces (3, 2, 1 could be written 3; 2; 1 or 3, 2, 1 -- 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 could be written 3,5; 2,5; 1,5 or 3,5, 2,5, 1,5). I admit that using the commas can be confusing, it's just a mather of analysing the information before you.

Of course this isn't useful when programming since most programming languages use the decimal dot. Basically you have to learn two languages (three in my case) and know when to use each. It's difficult but it's not impossible.

Yo lo estoy haciendo en este mismo momento :D

PS: I don't mind the elimination of "ch" and "ll" from my alphabet but I'll hate if it happens also to "ñ". It's not a very common character, but a lot of words use it.

And it's a shame that I can use it when programming. Try writing Año without "ñ" (Or replace it with "n". If you know spanish, you know the resulting word isn't the one intended :P).
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Post by Draconisaurus »

GigaY2k wrote:For separating coordinates you don't need to do anything. Keep it x,y,z (Without spaces. After the second comma it becomes evident that is not a decimal separator).
That's the same sort of fallacy that lets you make grammatical mistakes, you can figure out what they mean by the end of the sentense sometimes but that doesn't make it right, it becomes misinterpritted ahead of time, which is what a computer would do. Just the fact that humans can reason it out after the fact doesn't mean it's okay/logical.
GigaY2k wrote:As for making list use use either ";" or "," as a separator, and keep numbers separated by spaces (3, 2, 1 could be written 3; 2; 1 or 3, 2, 1 -- 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 could be written 3,5; 2,5; 1,5 or 3,5, 2,5, 1,5). I admit that using the commas can be confusing, it's just a mather of analysing the information before you.
";" is a very common programming character, usually marks the end of a line of code. Also in programming, except within "string" values, spaces " " are completely ignored, you can put in or leave out as many as you wish.
GigaY2k wrote:Of course this isn't useful when programming since most programming languages use the decimal dot. Basically you have to learn two languages (three in my case) and know when to use each. It's difficult but it's not impossible.
To each his own I suppose. Programming is meant to be a universal language in most cases (not language-specific, being logically based, although I suppose it is limitted to the Roman alphabet, mostly). But that's just as bad as having to learn MPH and KM. I'd actually rather be familiar with KM, knowing where it all came from... however I have no idea how long a KM really is, other than about .62 miles, which doesn't help at all. Hopefully in some future age, all kids can be raised under metric measurement.

So what I'm saying here.. is that there should be a single standard wherever possible. Language is one thing of course, of which there are unavoidably many (which is healthy as far as cultural preservation goes), however we're talking about numbers, which is just like measurements - it should be standardized. So it would not make sense to write one way and program another. Programming is based on language structure (statements, punctuation, grouping of ideas, etc).
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Post by GigaY2k »

Draconisaurus wrote:So what I'm saying here.. is that there should be a single standard wherever possible. Language is one thing of course, of which there are unavoidably many (which is healthy as far as cultural preservation goes), however we're talking about numbers, which is just like measurements - it should be standardized. So it would not make sense to write one way and program another. Programming is based on language structure (statements, punctuation, grouping of ideas, etc).
I'm very aware of all that, but it's also a mather of origin and semantics. Have computer programming be created in my country, it would have used our language structure (still being logical) and then you (english speaking people) would have problems adapting :D.

But the truth is that it wasn't created by us :P. It is like I said, it's a mather of understanding and adapting.

By the way, in the metric measurement 1 KM = 10 HM = 100 DM = 1000 M.
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Post by machf »

GigaY2k wrote: Of course this isn't useful when programming since most programming languages use the decimal dot. Basically you have to learn two languages (three in my case)
Which one is the third, may I ask?
and know when to use each. It's difficult but it's not impossible.

Yo lo estoy haciendo en este mismo momento :D

PS: I don't mind the elimination of "ch" and "ll" from my alphabet but I'll hate if it happens also to "ñ". It's not a very common character, but a lot of words use it.
The ñ IS the Spanish language, it can't be eliminated.
And it's a shame that I can use it when programming. Try writing Año without "ñ" (Or replace it with "n". If you know spanish, you know the resulting word isn't the one intended :P).
Or the other way around, try writing "cono" with an "ñ" and see what happens...

OK, we've deviated a lot form the original subject. Where are those commas that were mtnioned in the first place?
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Post by machf »

machf wrote: EDIT3: oh, and add a link to the 24MB version of the "Lost Models", it's only linked from that news entry from January 2006...
Well, I finally found what I was looking for... the disclaimer (or whatever you call it) refered to on the download page for the Lost Models:

http://trescom.3dactionplanet.gamespy.c ... 02&month=6
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Yes it sure was time for another update! And today it will be a fantastic one too, this we guarentee! We were able to regain all the lost models that Dreamworks Interactive left out in the shipping version of Trespasser. Some of which were supposed to be in the PineValley! So we decided to make them public the first time ever. Yes, you understood that correctly. So from today on, you will be able to add any of these lost models (via GeomAdd) to the Trespasser levels of your choice. But we would also like to state that it is still copyrighted work of Dreamworks Interactive, so we decided to scan your hard drive before downloading. If you happen to have the full version of Trespasser installed on it, then you will get a password allowing you to download any of these fantastic models. We do think that this is a safe way of doing it! Of course none of your data will be stored in any database and you will NOT be lined up for junkmail that way... as we said, it is only a way of protecting the copyright after all.
I think the download page should be reworked to include this text (or either, provide a link to the old news page), and, as I said, inlcude either the text from this other news page:

http://trescom.3dactionplanet.gamespy.c ... ive&uid=97
Mystery Models finally found
This one is too good to be true. We finally got the full set of TSOrd's missing models, some of which were never used in the final game. Many of these models were intended for some missing levels, including the mysterious "Pine Valley". Of course we are sharing this with you, enjoy downloading the full package right here:

mystery_models.zip (23.5 MB)

This file includes the authentic 3dsmax scenes containing the models last touched by the DWI modelers back in 1997/1998. The textures also include original bump maps.
We've also done some renders for those who don't have 3dsmax to view the files:

Mystery Models Image Gallery
or add a link to it...
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Post by GigaY2k »

machf wrote:Which one is the third, may I ask?
The third one would be a programming code (pascal, c, visual :|)
machf wrote:Or the other way around, try writing "cono" with an "ñ" and see what happens...
That's a good one :lol:.

---

Back on topic now, I've been thinking that perhaps there should be a link to Remdul's webpage somewhere on the site (perhaps on the featured links). I know his page isn't entirely dedicated to Trespasser, but he is after all the creator of TPDC.
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Post by Draconisaurus »

GigaY2k wrote:Back on topic now, I've been thinking that perhaps there should be a link to Remdul's webpage somewhere on the site (perhaps on the featured links). I know his page isn't entirely dedicated to Trespasser, but he is after all the creator of TPDC.
Actually that sounds like a good idea to me. :yes: And Rebel's site, if it's not there..
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Post by hppav »

Could always do it the scientific way, spaces for commas and commas for decimals. At least that's what we did in physics.

Example:

3,141 592 653 589 793 238 462 643 383 279 502 884 197 169 399 375 105 820 974 944 592 307 816 406 286 208 998

using pi for example, the first 81 decimal places. Makes it easier to read longer numbers. And for X, Y, Z, we did this:

X= 343

Y= 4 342

Z= 9
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