Entity Valkyrie wrote:Next time when anyone sends me a synthesis, can you also send me a full synthesis?
The big question is, why is a synthesis of an object actually needed? I personally find one huge synthesis from a bunch of gliders to be of little use. In most cases, synthesis of a particular object is just a means to an end, e.g. it may be a partial step in the synthesis of something larger, or a larger synthesis may require several different objects to be placed in a particular orientation to each other.
Specifying a synthesis in separate steps has several advantages. First, any amount of time bay occur between steps, which allows incoming groups of gliders to be placed as far apart as convenient, while a single synthesis may require gliders to be placed uncomfortably close together, which may require many more gliders to actually synthesize (e.g. from a puffer). Second, many steps can be done in several different ways (e.g. if a step adds a boat, there are many ways to make a boat, with gliders coming from different combinations of directions). These allows a synthesis to be customized according to various constraints, e.g. if a glider needs to come from a direction where another object has already been constructed, an alternate step may be needed.
None of this flexibility exists if all the steps are combined into a single synthesis. Rather, such a synthesis must be retroactively deconstructed into its individual steps, which can then be altered, and then reconstructed again. Modifying such a single synthesis is about as easy as editing the text in a ZIP file with a text editor. Also, a complicated synthesis made of a large number of steps usually generates an extremely large pattern that is very difficult to examine with the naked eye.
If someone REALLY needs a single synthesis, making one from the separate steps is a trivial exercise for the reader.