Time Language

WHAT Language

"Whatever Historical As Transcribed"

History

• 9-4-2007: cleanup and wiki-conversion
• 2-27-2005: First Posting; Event Class, Global Events, Timespace postulated

Purpose

For sometime, I've contemplated making a game based on time-travel, and the ability to alter events in a "realtime" fashion. I am also curious about how events unfold in real life: the area of "alternative history" comes to mind, as authors have attempted to guess "what if" outcomes. I tried looking up different "time languages" to see if anyone's attempted to describe time as a program, and found some examples: however, their goals are more structured; my idea is something more abstract and robust, with the end result being able to map events and maybe predict different outcomes based on changing variables.

Glossary

• Event: a deliniated event of any kind in a place and moment in time.
• Prerequisite: Events that occur before a said Event and allow it to occur.
• Dismissive: Events that prohibit an Event from progressing or occuring past a certain place and time.
• Timespace: a series of associated Events that can co-exist with un-related Event sets / Timespaces.

Description of the Event Class

1. Name: a string describing what the Event is.
2. Location: a string describing where the Event took place.
3. When: a date-time (or float; depending on system) variable indicated when an Event took place.
4. Prerequisites: an array of Event class pointers that associate what allowed the Event to occur.
5. Mandatory: a boolean flag that indicates if an event is always expected to occur.
6. Dismissives: an array of Event class pointers that associate what prohibits an Event from occurring.

Global Events

1. Global Prerequisites: these Events will happen for all successive Events.
2. Global Dismissives: these Events will always happen at set points, and can dismiss some or all Events.

Timespace

Similar to "namespace" functions in most languages, events may belong to different groups that have no bearing on each other, but you wish to map them similarly. You could also apply the same Prerequisites and Dismissives to all co-existing Timespaces.

Links

• TimeML: temporal language meant for use in describing a sequence of events
• "Time Language" and "Time Algebra"