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Re: Prolegemona To A Future Scripting Language: Game Of Life In Perl 6

by TheDamian (Vicar)
on Apr 27, 2003 at 01:31 UTC ( [id://253438]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Prolegemona To A Future Scripting Language: Game Of Life In Perl 6

That's a great effort, especially without a compiler. Here are a few corrections and some more "idiomatic" solutions.

Comments in bold italics explain corrections on the previous line.
Comments in normal italics explain stylistic choices on the previous line.


my $life = new life: 20;
# Indirect object syntax requires colon after invocant
loop { $life.display() }
# Argumentless &loop is cleaner that &while for infinite loops
class life { has Int $.count; has Int $.max; has Array of Bit @.grid;
# Bit is potentially much smaller than Int for 1/0 values
method BUILD(Int $dim)
# BUILD is the object initializer.
# CREATE is something else entirely (see Apocalypse 12 ;-)
{ $.count = 0; $.max = $dimension-1; my Array of Bit @grid is dim($dim,$dim) is default(0);
# Setting default value to 0 reduces initialization costs
@grid[$dim / 2 - 1][$dim / 2 ] = 1; @grid[$dim / 2 - 1][$dim / 2 + 1] = 1; @grid[$dim / 2 ][$dim / 2 ] = 1; @grid[$dim / 2 ][$dim / 2 - 1] = 1; @grid[$dim / 2 + 1][$dim / 2 ] = 1; @.grid := @grid;
# Can't declare variably dimensioned array as attribute.
# Have to declare it when dimension known (i.e. in
# constructor) and then bind it to attribute
} sub iterate (&block)
# Utility sub to factor out repetitive 2D iterations
{ for 0..$.max -> $x
# Prefer &for over &loop when possible (e.g. here)
{ for 0..$.max -> $y { block($x,$y); } } } method calculate() is private { my @newgrid; iterate { my $live = sum(@.grid[$^x-1..$^x+1][$^y-1..$^y+1]); @newgrid[$^x][$^y] = $live==2 && @.grid[$^x][$^y] || $live==3; }
# Pass &iterate a block with placeholders for $x and $y
@.grid = @newgrid; } method display { iterate { print $.grid[$^x][$^y] ?? '+' :: '.'; print "\n" if $^x == $.max; } print "\n"; print "Turn $(++$.count), press enter to continue or ctl-c to quit +; <$*IN>;
# STDIN is now $*IN
.calculate(); } }
Update: Fixed display method (thanks jkahn)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Prolegemona To A Future Scripting Language: Game Of Life In Perl 6
by TheDamian (Vicar) on Apr 27, 2003 at 02:16 UTC
    I should point out that the line:
    my $live = sum(@.grid[$^x-1..$^x+1][$^y-1..$^y+1]);
    is somewhat speculative. It's not clear to me how multidimensional slices will interact with flattening contexts (such as the argument list of the standard &sum function).

    It might be that that line needs to be:

    my $live = sum(map {sum .[$^y-1..$^y+1]} @.grid[$^x-1..$^x+1]);
    Though, given how ugly that is, I'd naturally prefer sum to be smart enough to flatten multidimensional slices.
Re: Re: Prolegemona To A Future Scripting Language: Game Of Life In Perl 6
by jkahn (Friar) on Apr 27, 2003 at 06:33 UTC
    Seems like the method display as written would actually print all the cells in one row -- method iterate doesn't have an explicit hook for "reached end of line". That's fine, since we have $.max available within the object.

    I think method display should actually look like this:

    method display { iterate { print $.grid[$^x][$^y] ?? '+' :: '.'; print "\n" if ($^x == $.max); # print each row on own line } print "\n"; # blank line follows grid print "Turn $(++$.count), press enter to continue" print " or ctl-c to quit"; <$*IN>; .calculate(); } # end method display

    A separate style comment: wouldn't it be a bit cleaner to remove the .calculate(); line from method display and change the loop at the top so that it reads:

    loop { $life.display(); $life.calculate(); }
    Then there's no nasty surprise when someone does:
    # somewhere far, far, away $life.display; `shell-script;clear`; # weird stuff on screen tty $life.display; # refresh terminal *only*
    later. I recognize that's personal preference, but Side Effects Are Scary.
      As for changing the control flow in .display, yes, I was tempted to do so too.

      But that went beyond "idiomaticization" and became an issue of software engineering. In the end I deliberately didn't hoist the call to .calculate because I felt it was more important to preserve as much comparability with the original as was consistent with an idiomatic Perl 6 implementation.

      Quite so. Fixed in the original node. Thanks!

      (Hopefully someone will tie this back to the thread on "Damian Isn't Infallible" :-)

Re: Re: Prolegemona To A Future Scripting Language: Game Of Life In Perl 6
by jryan (Vicar) on Apr 27, 2003 at 09:36 UTC
    # Setting default value to 0 reduces initialization costs

    How does setting a default value reduce initialization costs? Zero is the default initialization value for PMCs anyways, so wouldn't setting it explicitly just create extra work?

      I meant: reduces initialization costs in comparison to the previous version, which was iteratively setting every element to zero in a pair of nested for loops.

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