User:Thijshijsijsjss/Human Parser/About Signalling: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:21, 24 January 2025

[disassociative anecdote, me waiting - (unavailable and apologetic?)]

In programming, often two agents A and B rely on each other. For example, A and B are processes and B needs to happen only after A has finished. Or A and B are physics objects and B is activated only when colliding with A. Or A and B are humans, dependent on each other. There must be a way way for A and B to communicate about this event.

A typical way of going about this communication is an 'observer pattern': B 'observes' A, to continuously check if it needs to do something. This makes B very passive, waiting patiently on A, and spending all their resources in a paralyzing state of monitoring. Reversly, A is forced to be intruded, always being watched. There's a lot of pressure on A's availability: if A were to be unavailable, B would crash.

An alternative to this is signalling: instead of A being observed constantly by B, A will shout whenever it's ready, and B will react accordingly. By doing this, the communicative channels are essentially reversed. A is freed from constant observation. B has a lot more autonomy, being able to do what it wants or needs, while not having to monitor A. Additionally, because B is not reliant on A, signal communication doesn't cause runtime crashes when the connected object is removed. This allows for great decoupling, and means even more autonomy: A doesn't need to be available at all times -- and doesn't need to apologize for that.

[me shouting]

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 [disassociative anecdote, me waiting - (unavailable and apologetic?)]
+In programming, often two agents A and B rely on each other. For example, A and B are processes and B needs to happen only after A has finished. Or A and B are physics objects and B is activated only when colliding with A. Or A and B are humans, dependent on each other. There must be a way way for A and B to communicate about this event.
-In programming, often two agents rely on each other.
+A typical way of going about this communication is an 'observer pattern': B 'observes' A, to continuously check if it needs to do something. This makes B very passive, waiting patiently on A, and spending all their resources in a paralyzing state of monitoring.
-E.g. thing B happends after thing A has finished
+Reversly, A is forced to be intruded, always being watched. There's a lot of pressure on A's availability: if A were to be unavailable, B would crash.
-Or thing B activates when it collides with A
-There must be a way way to connect these events.
-Typical 'observer pattern':
-B 'observes' A, to continuously check if it needs to do something.
-This makes B very passive, waiting patiently on A
-And it forces A to be intruded, always being watched
-If A would be removed, B would crash.
-Signals in Godot:
-Godot has a system in place for this called signalling. Signals provide a way to connect an event to a function.
-Essentially, this is the reverse of the observer pattern: instead of A being observed constantly by B, A will shout whenever it's ready, and B will reply accordingly.
-This gives A more freedom
-This gives B a lot more autonomy
-Also, signals don't cause runtime crashes when the connected object is removed. This allows for great decoupling, and means even more autonomy: A doesn't need to be available at all times -- and doesn't need to apologize for that.
+An alternative to this is signalling: instead of A being observed constantly by B, A will shout whenever it's ready, and B will react accordingly. By doing this, the communicative channels are essentially reversed. A is freed from constant observation. B has a lot more autonomy, being able to do what it wants or needs, while not having to monitor A. Additionally, because B is not reliant on A, signal communication doesn't cause runtime crashes when the connected object is removed. This allows for great decoupling, and means even more autonomy: A doesn't need to be available at all times -- and doesn't need to apologize for that.
 [me shouting]