This is a remake of an old project using SDL 2. The project requirements were to simulate a factory with consumer and producer machines and a robot. The consumer and producer machines are stationary and work for a set time duration. The robot goes around the factory looking for a payload from a producer machine to be dropped off at a consumer machine. The robot can only carry one payload at a time, a producer machine can only produce one payload at a time, and a consumer machine can only consume one payload at a time. There were other minor requirements for the assignment, but this is the main idea behind the factory.
This project is an exploration in a number of ideas. Namely that I want to avoid using loops wherever possible inside the game loop. I also want to avoid using conditional branching as much as possible; the exception to this is using the ternary operator when choosing between two static values (as in a literal). It is also an exercise in practicing the use of SDL.
To get around using loops inside the game loop, I created an API that takes advantage of the game
loop itself. I call it an "iterative algorithm"; the idea being that instead of nesting loops, we
define steps of an iterative computation. This way, at each call to update, the next step of the
algorithm is executed. This happens until the algorithm completes. It is particularly useful for the
robot when it needs to pick a machine to move towards. The robot is given a collection of candidate
machines, iteratively computes a path for each one, then selects the machine with the shortest path.
As for avoiding conditional branching, in many cases, it is simply unavoidable, so I do the best I can.
Another interesting topic I think deserves mention is the events system--or, the change notification system. It uses callbacks, templates, and some standard c++ library collections.
Unfortunately, this project does not make use of any multithreading.
Created June 28, 2017 by CJ Dimaano