[cells-devel] Hoping for a kickstart

[momerath]

Greetings,

I exchanged a couple posts with Kenny Tilton on c.l.l about my project a
while back, but I was distracted by immediate practical concerns and didn't
really get into any details.  I've since read a couple of the bits of
documentation that accompany cells (as acquired through asdf-install)-
specifically the 01-cell-basics.lisp document, some of hello world and maybe
bits of something else I'm not recalling. At any rate, while I've been able
to work the examples and more or less understand things on the surface, my
initial attempt at using Cells for a very simple chunk of my own app was
frustrating.  Rather than showing you the feeble start I made, I'd like to
describe the desired functionality, and get some feedback as to the idiom(s)
to use.

The primary classes are cargo items, cargo holds and maybe cargo sets.

--Cargo items:

slots that wouldnt change in the object's lifetime:
item-id
type-id
volume-units (1-3 currently)

changable slots (c-in for now I imagine, but if Cells invades the rest of
the program, maybe not):
holder-id
authorized-holder-ids
recipient-id

calculated states I want efficient repeated access to and/or side effects on
change:
stolen (holder isnt a member of auth-h-ids)
delivered (holder is recip)
spaced (holder is not a char but a sector)

--Cargo holds:

static:
ship-owner-id
capacity

dynamic:
volume-used
cargo-type-to-quantity hash


--Cargo sets:
Basically I'd like to be able to create a cargo set that is bigger than any
cargo hold, and allow it to be distributed among the holds by both npc
agents and players, but retain a handle on the set and certain dynamic
subsets like the cargo in a particular ship, all the ships in a sector, all
spaced cargo, all
stolen cargo of a particular type in a sector, etc.  If the set mechanism
were flexible and fast enough, I imagine that Holds could just be a type of
set (the set of cargo held by character X), but there is a question of where
to enforce hold capacity.  These sets would be used by npc agents (eg
pirates) to drive potential actions (both at the level of posting a mission
to collect specific cargo, and a single agent picking the best cargo close
by that will fit in its hold).


So, I hope that made sense.  I don't expect anyone to go out of their way on
this; I think I really just need a push in the right direction.

~Michael Warnock
Guild Software Inc.
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