OO and game design questions

[Terry Reedy]

On 10/19/2010 1:46 PM, Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 5:37 AM, Dave Angel <davea at ieee.org
> <mailto:davea at ieee.org>> wrote:
>
>       On 2:59 PM, dex wrote:
>
>         Using strong references, I have to remove room B from list of rooms,
>         and also remove door to room B, as it holds reference to room B.
>         To do
>         that, I have to keep list of doors that lead to room B.
>
>         Using weak references, I don't have to worry about removing all
>         doors
>         to room B. They all now have a dead reference, which better models
>         actual situation. If part of mine collapses, or if a module on space
>         station is destroyed, the passage to that location does not
>         magically
>         vanish - it's just obstructed.
>
>         Can you please tell me if there's something wrong with my reasoning?
>
>     Simply replace room B with a "destroyed room" object.  That can be
>     quite small, and you only need one, regardless of how many rooms are
>     thus eliminated.
>
>
> How does this avoid the problem of having to keep a list of doors that
> lead to room B?  You can't just replace one object with another.  You
> would have to replace every reference to B with a reference to the new
> object.  This is no simpler than deleting the references or replacing
> them with None.

One should rather *change* (not replace) the room into a 'destroyed 
room' or 'collapsed passage' or whatever, that cannot be entered. The 
keeps the room around but allows it to be repaired, rebuilt, cleared, or 
whatever.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy