🔒 Conventions regarding when to make a class

[robust copper]

Is making a class overkill if what i want is a function that stores state? How else would i go about this without other bad practices like global variables?

[patent crane]

@robust copper

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[thorny grail]

Can you show some code?

[robust copper]

sure, give me a sec

[robust copper]

broadly, i want to be running something like this every frame

this is because the camera "moves too fast"

(now obviously there are probably better solutions to this)

[thorny grail]

This seems much more fitting as a method

[robust copper]

but i am curious as to this particular case

[robust copper]

so you think a class is fine, storing recent_camera_pos as an attribute?

[thorny grail]

Well, what's camera

since it's not in the signature

[robust copper]

it should actually be base.camera. base is a global variable storing lots of stuff

this is from a template in Panda3D

which i am very very new to

for context, panda3D is a bit like Pygame except with more 3D. when rendering a scene, mouse actions by default move the scene around. but i find this motion much too fast

[vague pivot]

no that doesnt sound like overkill, ive defined "get_state()" before.

[robust copper]

ok having looked this up a bit, it seems like "one-method classes are bad" refers to when no state is being stored

[vague pivot]

i would either define it as a normal function or attach it to an "Environment" object

[robust copper]

how do you mean?

[vague pivot]

idk what your code is but you could have an object that represents the world you are programming and define methods for it

i have a big simulation ive made that has class Environment with methods such as get_state, reset, fast_forward etc

if you dont need the class just define it as a normal function

[pseudo smelt]

creating a class is the main way of having a "stateful function". especially if you want to have more than one instance of it.

by "stateful function", I mean a function with persistent state between calls.

[vague pivot]

could be done by just returning the state and storing it

[pseudo smelt]

like what, a dict of all the variables in the function?

[vague pivot]

i interpreted state as location of entities within his game

but yeah a dict could work

[robust copper]

the state required is the position of the camera in the previous frame, which happens to be calculated in the previous call of the function

[pseudo smelt]

you can just have the previous frame as a variable in the scope where you're calling the function

[robust copper]

i am currently calling from global scope

[vague pivot]

which isnt terrible in pygame/python/pandas3D

[robust copper]

this seems to work

it's a bit odd having one instance that i never reference

ok (x+y)/10 is not a weighted average why is this sorta working

[vague pivot]

gonna have to define " sorta working"

[robust copper]

ok still weird but i can probably just figure the rest out myself

[robust copper]

working for Pos and not angle (hpr)

!close

[patent crane]

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