re:Starting at levels greater than 1

[woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff)]

Petri Heinila <hevi@lut.fi> writes:
> If starting level feature is made, please make it as a runtime
> option in archetypes, like expanding the object map into world:

I'm not sure if archetypes are the solution but I definitely agree
that it's much better to make the various options currently controlled
by config.h at compile time run time options controlled by a config
file read at start up.  In addition to the reasons Petri outlines (mostly
that it's a pain to recompile to test an option) this practice leads to
a lot of problems in the code as various pieces get out of sync because
of missing conditional directives.  For example the current build doesn't
work if you turn off skills, since there are arrays which are unconditionally
initialized to include entries for skills, but the global carrier for the
array size is controlled by a config macro.

The only advantage I can see for the compile time control is some slight
execution speed optimizations, but these are slight at best.

--Ken

+------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Ken Woodruff           | Most Latin words in -us have plural in -i,  |
| woodruff@cadence.com   | but not all, & so zeal not according to     |
+------------------------+ knowledge issues in such oddities as hiati, |
| Disclaimer: What tote  | octopi, omnibi, & ignorami; ...             |
| bag full of $20 bills? |     Fowler, "Modern English Usage"          |
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