The "Which Authoring System is Better?" FAQ; TADS Update N. K. Guy, October 15, 1998 tela@tela.bc.ca _______________ In 1996 Bob Newell released the last version of his comprehensive "Which Authoring System is Better" FAQ, which compares the most popular development systems available for writing IF. It's a great piece of work, but hasn't been updated in the past two years and thus doesn't incorporate some of the most recent changes. I thought I'd write this little addendum concerning TADS, as that's the development system with which I'm most familiar. I'm not as knowledgeable about Inform or Hugo, so I haven't included much commentary on those development systems. Hopefully devotees of those systems can also offer updates on the latest news. 5.1 - TADS is now up to 2.2.6. - Mike Roberts can be reached at mjr_ @ hotmail.com. (remove spaces, of course) - TADS is no longer published as shareware. It is freeware software - ie, it continues to be a copyrighted work by Michael J. Roberts, but you do not have to pay a fee to use it. It is not in the public domain. Mike continues to release and update new versions of TADS himself, and he has dissolved High Energy Software, the company he used to publish the shareware version. - The most important recent change on the TADS scene was the April 1998 release of HTML TADS. This is a new and completely revised version of the TADS runtime system. It understands HTML, the HyperText Markup Language used to create Web pages. With HTML TADS it's possible to write TADS games that include graphics, sound, complex text formatting, multiple status lines and so on. In addition, an HTML TADS game can be written such that it's fully compatible with text-only runtimes as well. (so you aren't losing out a big share of the audience if you choose to develop a graphical TADS game) This is quite a step and there's currently nothing quite like it on any other IF development platform. Hugo supports graphics and sound and output formatting, but does not use HTML, which is a very popular and easy to use standard. It is theoretically possible to develop Z-machine z6 games, but the tools are not yet complete, nor are z6-compatible interpreters widely available. Unfortunately, graphical TADS interpreters are only currently available for Windows 95/98/NT and Macintosh, though source code is available for people interested in porting the code over to other platforms. There's more information at: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/html-tads/ 1: - The manual is now available online in HTML format. The URL is: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/tads-manual/ The various release notes have recently been consolidated and are no longer separate pieces, thus addressing Bob's very valid concern over "disjointed and scattered" documentation. Also, since it's readily viewable with any Web browser, it's possible to view both code and manual on-screen simultaneously. And naturally you can still print out a hard copy if you like. 3: - The source code to TADS is now available. You can download the C source and examine how it works. However, Mike asks that you don't go and release modified versions without his permission - he made the source available in order to ease porting, not so that people can create derivative works. Thus the TADS parser is not, at present, as readily modifiable as the Inform parser. 4: - As noted above, High Energy Software is no longer a going concern. Mike Roberts is maintaining TADS as a person, not a company. TADS is no longer shareware and is available as a free download in its entirety from ftp.gmd.de. Also, High Energy's bulletin board system is no longer in existence. 6: - Portability is still an issue with TADS. TADS games are playable on the majority of desktop systems out there, but Inform definitely has an edge, particularly in the palmtop category. Inform games are playable on many small portable palmtop systems, but TADS games aren't, because the interpreter is bigger. In addition, graphical HTML TADS interpreters are only available for Windows 32 and Macintosh. 7: - Regarding speed, I think Bob may have been misled somewhat by the WorldClass problem. Large games compiled using WorldClass libraries are indeed very slow on older machines. This is related to the way WorldClass handles its scope issues. However, very large games compiled with the standard adv.t libraries do not suffer from this problem. (ie: it's a WorldClass problem, not a TADS one) The TADS runtime may be slightly slower for some things than the Z-machine used by Inform, but I don't think it's a serious issue. 9: - The debugger is now freely available off ftp.gmd.de and thus distribution is no longer a problem. - HTML TADS ships with a new debugger. Currently it's Win32 only, but is a big advance from the earlier TADS debugger for MS-DOS. It's similar to the Macintosh windowed debugger, but with a number of extra handy features. Hugo ships with a similarly powerful debugger, but at present there are no Inform debuggers available. 10: - Mike Roberts did indeed go on hiatus for a couple years following the release of TADS 2.2. However he's been very busy the past year developing HTML TADS. TADS is far from dead. Of course, as TADS is entirely his baby the future of the system is entirely dependent on his own interests. The Z-machine, by contrast, is not owned by one person. (though it's also true that Mike can make rapid improvements to TADS whenever he wants to, whereas changes to the Z-machine require the cooperation of an informal cabal. Cuts both ways.) 12: - Very large games are indeed unplayable on very old MS-DOS machines, because of the 640K limit those machines are stuck with. However, TADS games can be considerably larger than Z-machine games - the limit is much higher. Also, although it's true that huge games can't be played on old 286 computers, I think that's becoming less and less of a problem as time goes by. - Note that games compiled with Inform tend to be much more compact than those compiled with TADS. It's obviously hard to compare the two, but various experiments by raif regulars seems to suggest that this is the case. The fact that TADS is 8-bit clean is probably a significant factor, as 8-bit bytes take up more room than the Z-machine's 5-bit Z-characters. Also, TADS games do not use text compression whereas Z-machine games do. 14: - Just as another data point, TADS was my first experience with a real programming language beyond BASIC back in the 1980s, and I didn't find it that difficult to get used to. I personally don't think it's really necessary to come to TADS with a sound knowledge of Pascal or C, though I'm sure it helps. But that's my take; your kilometreage may vary. 15: - As noted above, TADS is now completely free in monetary terms. You don't have to pay a shareware fee to use it. 16: - As noted above, the TADS source is now available for download. However, it's not public-domain and remains Mike Roberts' copyrighted property.