File compression?

[IBBoard]

Part of constructing an argument based on logic is taking the facts as they stand at the moment and deducing further facts based on them. The documentation makes a statement of truth about the compression format used in the file. With no further information, all we can do is assume that it is true. If the documentation for something makes a statement and you are evaluating something in relation to that statement then assuming the statement is true* is not a rash assumption.

If I had assumed the compression would be PKZip compatible if the documentation just said "it uses compression" then that would be a rash assumption as there are many different compression algorithms that are not PKZip compatible. What you're effectively saying is that you should ignore all statements in the documentation as any one of them could be false.

Besides, points 2, 3 and 4, and as a consequence point 5, already point out exactly what you have just repeated - the documentation is incorrect and the format is some different compression that is not, in fact, PKZip compatible.

As I said in my follow-up post, everything is based on the facts as I had them and with respect to the statement in the documentation and the future usability of the files the decision that was made could be considered to be the "wrong" one. Using zlib within a similar structure to what I had now would a) have allowed Lone Wolf development the freedom to move to other (potentially more efficient) compression libraries if they wanted, b) matched the statement in the document (which is what users read rather than source code) and c) made the file format more usable for others (which could improve the up-take of Army Builder as people build community tools around it, as I've done for Dawn of War and their SGA various "Chunky File" file formats).



* especially when it is in the 2.2c documentation - so it isn't as if it was in 1.x documentation and accidentally slipped in to the first revision, it was there for a while