Hi Neill Here are a couple links that may be of interest
I agree with Bill that a loop makes sense. Sockets may ne unnecessary. Pascal's task scheduler can be used without sockets and it basically acts as a cooperative scheduler http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/PascalJasmin/OOP%20scheduler%20and%20ZeroMQ http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/PascalJasmin/OOP%20scheduler%20and%20jsockets I also did some timer work with libuv http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/JoeBogner/LibuvTimer Keep the questions coming On Aug 29, 2014 7:23 PM, "Neill Robson" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello to all on the forum! If any you happen to know Mr. (Henry) Rich, I'm > one of his students. > > The most direct way to create a constantly updating screen in J is to run > the relevant gl2 commands in a sys_timer verb, set to repeat at a certain > interval by the window driver. However, for a video game with any more than > rudimentary complexity, one would wish to separate "frames" (drawing the > image to the screen) from "ticks" (computing the game logic). Preferably, > ticks would happen at a constant rate per second, and then the remaining > computation time would be spent rendering frames. In Java, that would be > implemented somehow similar to this: > > long lastTime = System.nanoTime(); > double nsPerTick = 1000000000D / 60D; > double delta = 0; > while (running) { > long now = System.nanoTime(); > // Determine how long it has been since the last tick > delta += (now - lastTime) / nsPerTick; > lastTime = now; > > // If more than 1/60th of a second has passed, tick for each > 60th. > while (delta >= 1) { > ticks++; > tick(); > delta -= 1; > } > > render(); > } > > Of course, J is *much* different than Java in many respects. "While" loops > are frowned upon in this situation, because functional languages get hung > up in the while loop until it is "finished;" however, for video games this > "hanging up" seems to be exactly what is needed (without the side effects > of freezing the terminal, of course). > > I have been directed towards sockets for this sort of situation in the > past, but I've never progressed far enough down that route to understand > the gritty details of how to implement such a system. > > Would someone on the forum be able to guide me towards a solution? To > restate the problem, I'm looking for the functional (J) equivalent of a > "while" loop that repeats one function at a fixed rate and runs the other > as frequently as the host machine safely allows. > > Thank you for your assistance, and apologies for the protracted & ugly Java > example! > > -- > -Neill > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
