[Freeciv-Dev] Re: non-existent technologies

["Eric S. Raymond" <esr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Dorje Short <vze49r5w@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> There are all sorts of other unnecessary ruleset dependencies in the 
> savegames, for instance units are stored by ID rather than by name. 
> This can be improved on greatly by avoiding using an "index" when a name 
> can be used instead.  But it will still break if a unit is removed, for 
> instance.  To get full compatability either a capstring is needed to 
> match ruleset and savegame, or the savegame should store all needed 
> inforamation about the ruleset it was originally played with.

I am in favor of any move away from magic numbers to readable tokens.
The marginal extra space cost of storage and the marginal time cost of name
lookup are well worth paying, IMO, in order to have a save format that is more
robust and more transparent to inspection.

Introducing an Apache practice, I say: +1 to this proposal.
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>