[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [Patch] Watchtower v3

[Jules Bean <jules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 03:44:56PM +0200, Bert Buchholz wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 02:31:29PM +0100, Jules Bean wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 03:12:33PM +0200, Bert Buchholz wrote:
> > > No, but really, why? Of course I'm willing to change it, but not w/o
> > > reason. Probably there is a good reason, but I'd like to know why I do
> > > stuff.
> > 
> > Why?  Because it's exactly the sort of thing you'd want to change in
> > custom rulesets.
> 
> Hmm, yes of course, but that doesn't answer the why. Why does this
> belong into a ruleset and not changeable by the server commandline. For
> me, this wasn't obvious, as you explain in the next paragraph, that the
> "dichotomoy" (I suppose, it means something like difference? Man, I had
> 4 years of old-greek in school, and don't know this word... shame ocer
> me ;-) "between ruleset parameters and server variables is becoming
> harder and harder to understand". I don't understand them really. But
> okay, I will change this.

Suppose I want to design a 'large scale' ruleset for freeciv, where
each square is considered 'smaller'. Then I would, in that ruleset,
increase all the movement rates of the units, and increase the vision
ranges.  I would also want to increase the vision effects of the
watch-tower to match (especially since I now have units with vision >
2, so the watch-tower is useless for them).

Dichotomy means 'two-ness', or 'being two different things'.  It
doesn't really have a succint synonym, that's why it's such a useful
word ;-)

jules@blueberry [9] dict dichotomy
2 definitions found

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

  Dichotomy \Di*chot"o*my\, n. [Gr. ?, fr. ?: cf. F. dichotomie.
     See {Dichotomous}.]
     1. A cutting in two; a division.
  
              A general breach or dichotomy with their church.
                                                    --Sir T.
                                                    Browne.
  
     2. Division or distribution of genera into two species;
        division into two subordinate parts.
  
     3. (Astron.) That phase of the moon in which it appears
        bisected, or shows only half its disk, as at the
        quadratures.
  
     4. (Biol.) Successive division and subdivision, as of a stem
        of a plant or a vein of the body, into two parts as it
        proceeds from its origin; successive bifurcation.
  
     5. The place where a stem or vein is forked.
  
     6. (Logic) Division into two; especially, the division of a
        class into two subclasses opposed to each other by
        contradiction, as the division of the term man into white
        and not white.

From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:

  dichotomy
       n 1: classification into two opposed parts: "the dichotomy
            between eastern and western culture"
       2: a sorting of a class of things into two mutually exclusive
          subclasses

So there you go.

Jules