[gme-users] various complaints about constraints

[Matthew J. Emerson]

I don't think that the constraint manager really evaluates constraints
in the order of their priority.

 

I have two priority-1 constraints that need to be checked before all
others, because if those two constraints evaluate to false then the
other constraints will crash gme.  Well, no matter what priority I make
the other constraints, gme crashes.  If I delete the lower-priority
constraints, gme does not crash.  If I turn my priority-1 constraints
into constraint functions and then call them as part of the
lower-priority constraints as pre-conditions, then gme does not crash.
But I'm going to have a hard time finding every case where I need to
check these pre-conditions and inserting the necessary function calls.
I'm going to miss some and gme is going to soundlessly crash when the
constraint manager goes into an infinite loop.

 

I think that if the constraint manager would just check my priority-1
constraints first and then stop checking constraints if they evaluate to
false, my life would be much easier.

 

Also, if the "implies" statement used short-circuit evaluation, it would
make my life easier.  For instance if you say "A implies B", and A is
false, then don't check B.

 

Finally, it would be good if some priority levels beyond level-1 could
result in critical evaluations.  Assuming that the constraint manager
eventually checks constraints in priority order as I described above, it
would be good to be able to specify an evaluation order among critical
constraints.

 

--Matt 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.isis.vanderbilt.edu/pipermail/gme-users/attachments/20040418/d7c9448c/attachment.htm