[HN Gopher] Elevator Saga: An elevator programming game (2015)
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Elevator Saga: An elevator programming game (2015)
Author : lnyan
Score : 114 points
Date : 2023-08-29 11:43 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (play.elevatorsaga.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (play.elevatorsaga.com)
| abridges6523 wrote:
| Somebody should add elevator recall feature for when a lobby
| smoke detector trips!
| radikalerludwig wrote:
| I'm really interested for something similar in c
| grishka wrote:
| The language is very much secondary here, this game is about
| coming up with efficient algorithms first and foremost.
| mschaef wrote:
| Agreed, but I find the JavaScript to be difficult to work
| with. (This is less about he language and more about the fact
| that the API is a little vague and errors are not well
| reported.)
| tuukkah wrote:
| Then I recommend the Typescript version.
| mcdonje wrote:
| Getting a high score requires good algorithms. However, it's
| a good language learning game.
| ericras wrote:
| A command line version of SimTower.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Previously:
|
| - 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8929314
|
| - 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27487111
|
| - 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33249988
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I've used something like this (my code, Java, ~1k LOC) for code
| interviews, because I was always thinking about what would be the
| best algorithm for an elevator when going in on - to this day.
| 1. Explain what is going on 2. Fix a bug in the code
| 3. Add a small feature
| emmanueloga_ wrote:
| I prefer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_Action :-)
| wumms wrote:
| Oh no, there's an online version:
| https://arcadespot.com/game/elevator-action/
| schemescape wrote:
| There's a version with autocomplete here:
|
| https://jaredkrinke.github.io/elevatorsaga/
|
| I swapped in VS Code's editor component (Monaco) and added
| TypeScript type declarations someone had posted. Note: The
| official game isn't accepting PRs anymore, but details and code
| are here: https://github.com/magwo/elevatorsaga/pull/137
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I enjoy this, though it's a bit hard since I don't know JS
| specifically. Definitely a nice game though!
| grishka wrote:
| There exist systems where, instead of selecting a floor when you
| enter an elevator, you select a floor in the hall and then are
| told which elevator to take. I wonder how much this advance
| knowledge about who is going where helps with scheduling.
| Intuitively I feel like it should help substantially, but in
| practice people get confused by these systems and end up on wrong
| floors.
| danpalmer wrote:
| We have this in my building. The lifts are terrible. I suspect
| the algorithm is actually better, but we can't A/B test to see
| how bad it would be otherwise, and the feeling is that you have
| less control, especially when a lift goes past you and doesn't
| stop. The result is that people hate it and blame the lifts.
| jan_Sate wrote:
| I've used a system that each worker of the building would be
| given a card. In the hall, there's a card reader. There's
| multiple elevators in the same building. To use the elevator,
| one would need to tap the card against the card scanner. Then
| the screen on the scanner would tell you which elevator's gonna
| serve you.
| mcdonje wrote:
| There are also lobbies where you choose an elevator for a
| specific range of floors. I wonder if that's a legacy solution
| and what you're describing has become the new standard.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Both work, but I think the range elevators simply have no
| exits for the unsupported floors and can go high speed to the
| first supported elevator. They probably do have exits though,
| in case another elevator breaks down.
|
| Taller buildings will require you to transfer to a different
| elevator once you've reached a certain floor; one because
| else you get cables that are hundreds of meters long (with
| the weight to match), and two because else you'll need more
| elevators and -shafts to service all hundred+ floors in a
| timely fashion, which takes up real estate / floor space.
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| > They probably do have exits though, in case another
| elevator breaks down.
|
| Floor space is generally too precious for that. In a
| typical multi-bank elevator setup, lower floors get their
| toilets or other utility spaces placed between two banks of
| elevators that don't stop at that floor; the corresponding
| point in the upper floors is the elevator lobby for an
| upper-floor elevator bank.
|
| There's a widely reported story that a group of people
| stuck in an elevator in the WTC on 9/11/2001 used a window
| washer's squeegee to cut their way through multiple layers
| of drywall to escape into a 50th floor bathroom.
| grishka wrote:
| I've seen that in several buildings in Dubai. Considering
| that most of Dubai was built since around 2000, these kinds
| of advanced elevator controllers should've been available
| when at least some of these buildings were planned and built.
| So no, probably not legacy. Maybe those hall-floor-selector
| systems are simply much more expensive. Or maybe they only
| make sense when you need a _really_ high throughput.
| edu wrote:
| I've worked in buildings with both systems. And the ones with
| the floor selector in the hall are way better!
| rtavares wrote:
| A problem with the floor selector in the hall is when some
| people enter the elevator together without selecting a floor.
| The system thinks that there is still space in the elevator,
| but in fact it is full, so it stops at different floors
| without anyone being able to enter. I've seen this happen
| quite often in a corporate building during the end of
| business hours and lunch hours.
| rco8786 wrote:
| At Twitter/X HQ they have these, and you can "trick" it
| into going express to your floor by pressing the button in
| the hall repeatedly so the car then thinks it is full and
| won't stop at other floors.
| airstrike wrote:
| I've had the same experience, it's terrible.
|
| Having said that, the default system is also ignorant to
| the current weigh of the elevator so it is still subject to
| stopping on floors without there being any space left.
| kevincox wrote:
| Trying to figure out space available from the number of
| people seems unreliable, but I wonder if you can use a
| set of heuristics such as having a max weight at which
| point the elevator is assumed full and if it stops to let
| someone on but the weight doesn't increase assume the
| elevator is full (maybe require this to happen twice in a
| row?, IDK, false positives probably aren't too
| expensive.)
| ghaff wrote:
| My assumption is that, above a certain number of floors, the
| floor selector in the hall is better because it has more
| advance information for any planning. The downside being that
| it's unfamiliar to anyone who doesn't use the system
| regularly.
| codetrotter wrote:
| I want elevators that have both.
|
| The buttons outside the elevator to help scheduling.
|
| The buttons inside so that anyone that walks into the wrong
| elevator can still tell it where to go.
|
| Then we mount cameras and other sensors in and outside the
| elevators, and we record statistics about how well the
| system is working.
|
| We use facial recognition to recognise our guests.
|
| If you take the wrong elevator three times in a row the
| concierge will take a wet towel and whip you one time on
| the back of your thigh.
| [deleted]
| grishka wrote:
| What about voice control so you could shout ELEVEN?
| TrueGeek wrote:
| The Terminus building in Atlanta works like this. You select
| your floor as you walk in (it's possible to do mid stride)
| and then the screen says "ELEVATOR 4" so when you get there
| you just walk in to an elevator that has no buttons, just a
| screen that says "TODAYS WEATHER: JSON FEED NOT FOUND".
| dylan604 wrote:
| >"TODAYS WEATHER: JSON FEED NOT FOUND".
|
| Reminds me of the jukeboxes with a windows XP screen
| user_7832 wrote:
| Also of the famous Shakespeare quote:
|
| _An SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to
| the server cannot be made._
| brk wrote:
| It's called destination dispatch
| [https://www.tkelevator.com/us-en/company/insights/what-is-
| de...]
|
| It can significantly increase the efficiency in a high-rise
| elevator bank, but like many things it takes a little bit of
| time to train people to utilize it properly.
| midasuni wrote:
| It's a right pain when you only visit a building
| occasionally. You push a button, ignore the number, then just
| move to the next loft which opens along with everyone else,
| then realise you're in the wrong lift.
|
| One of our offices has this system (it makes no sense too -
| there's only 5 floors) and it catches me every time. The
| building is designed to discourage use of stairs too (they're
| behind hidden doors)
| matsemann wrote:
| I've also been in buildings with double-decker elevators. So it
| stops at 1&2, 3&4 etc. So if you enter the building at floor 1,
| but need to go to floor 12, you have to take the escalator and
| enter the elevator at floor 2 so that you later can jump off at
| floor 12 when it stops at 11&12.
| grishka wrote:
| That's something I've never seen in real life.
| euroderf wrote:
| Can't this always be further optimized with an N+1 -decker
| elevator ?
| grishka wrote:
| Add enough decks to completely fill two shafts and you've
| invented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_lift
| namdnay wrote:
| This seems to be the norm for all new (or newly refurbished)
| skyscrapers in Manhattan. Very efficient!
| hoten wrote:
| Probably cheating, but behold! The Elevator wiki
|
| https://elevation.fandom.com/wiki/Elevator_algorithm
|
| https://elevation.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_elevator_special_m...
|
| I'm a fan of the Sabbath mode.
| i_don_t_know wrote:
| A long time ago I took an AI class where we wrote an elevator
| simulation. The elevators were intelligent agents that tried to
| learn strategies for moving people faster / reduce wait times /
| etc. This was long before neural networks came into fashion. We
| used logic, rules, but also decision trees. Fun times.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Hehe, from time to time I encounter an elevator like this:
|
| You step in, select floor, doors close, and then nothing
| happens.
|
| Turns out elevator controls want the doors to close first, and
| only _then_ look at what floor you select. And no that wasn 't
| a mis-press or something. Where encountered, it's repeatable.
|
| Talk about braindead design...
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(page generated 2023-08-29 23:02 UTC)