Neighborhoods (was room-based v coord-based)

[S001GMU at nova.wright.edu]

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 19:31:29 +0000 (PST8PDT)
From: clawrenc at cup.hp.com

>In <01IK40LS7M3690PX67 at nova.wright.edu>, on 06/15/97 
>   at 03:31 PM, S001GMU at nova.wright.edu said:
>
>>A tiny creature has a vastly different range of vision from a giant
>>creature (in general... yes I know there are exceptions on both
>>sides).  A flea on the rabbit that got pulled out of the hat may only
>>know that suddenly it is  light out rather than dark, and a dragon in
>>the next room may not even notice that those puny mortals are doing
>>much of anything.  What you see is entirely a matter of scale.
>
>The exceptions that you reference are what define this as an invalid
>model.  We cannot safely define the suitability of an event for an
>object as a function of the object's size.  What's worse, we can't
>even define the suitability as a function of size, and then add in a
>special-case function to track the exceptions -- it just gets too
>nasty.
>
>>>I don't see that scale offers a value here.
>
>>I disagree.  :)
>
>Now this not to say that neighborhoods should not segregate their
>members on the basis of some criteria so that two neighborhoods which
>occupy a single coordinate range may each contain objects the other
>does not.  *That* I think is a profitable avenue to explore.  Its
>using scale as the criteria that I don't see as workable.  

hmm.  I've been thinking about this quite a bit and I have changed my tune.
well, modified it a bit.  I agree that the scale of the being in question
is probably a faulty way of dividing neighborhoods.  Might it be better to
divide into neighborhoods based on the scale of the beings perception?  For
example, I am controlling a mouse.  As a _normal_ mouse I have fairly
limited sight (say 4 feet to be arbitrary).  Now, manfred the magician
comes along and straps some mouse-sized goggles of farsight onto my peepers
and suddenly I can see 40 feet.  As a result of the change in the scale of
my perception, I should be shifted into a different neighborhood that recieves
messages for beings with similar scale perceptive prowes.  Add this to the
dividing by physical location and I think it adds quite a bit to the model.

thoughts?

-Greg