Re: Scripting

[Jan Ekholm <chakie@infa.abo.fi>]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Steve Baker wrote:

>Jan Ekholm wrote:
>
>> Why not write the game logic in Python/Perl/whatever and call C functions
>> for stuff that needs more speed? Games that get developed for Linux aren'
>> too complex and don't anyway need all the power that current machines can
>> offer, so why not make the development process easy?
>
>I'd object to the idea that development is easier in Python/whatever than
>C++ - and once you take away that, why write slow code when for the same
>effort or less, you can have fast code?  I know a lot of Python/whatever
>enthusiasts are going to object to that view - but for me personally, it's
>CERTAINLY true.

Oh, you do really mean that doing stuff in C++ is so much easier than
doing it in, say, Python (popular in this thread)? Good for you then. :) I
tend to introduce a few bugs in my C++ every now and then, and some of
them can be pretty scary to track, especially those where memory is
corrupted by some totally unrelated part of the code (also mentioned in
this thread). Using an interpreted language I can at least get an
immediate stack trace when something goes wrong, which enormously shortens
the time it takes to track the bug.

As for speed, you do lose some, and in some cases lots and lots of speed.
I don't really care that much about that. I develop using low end machines
(lack of euros), so what runs ok on my machine flies on machines everyone
else has. I could never harness all the power of a modern machine anyway,
so I rather "waste" it on the interpreter than "save" it as idle time.

>I'd also object to the idea that games that get developed for Linux aren't
>too complex...if we give into that idea then it will become a self-fulfilling
>prophesy.  Games I'm working on certainly *do* use all the resources of a
>modern PC.  I *want* to write the most complex game I can within the mental,
>temporal and physical resources at my disposal.

Well, Linux games aren't too complex. It's a fact of life. Especially true
for hobbyist games. There are the notable few exceptions to this rule,
such as some of your games, FlightGear, FreeCiv and some others.

Well, I've never written a game using either C++ or Python, so my opinions
don't really matter. But if I'd write a game I'd do it in Python.


-- 
     "I name you... Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre!"
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