Re: Scripting

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

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Chris wrote:

>Jan Ekholm wrote:
>
>
>>>Not necessarily easier - just no harder.   And if it's no harder to
>>>write in C++ than in a scripting language, you should use C++ because:
>>>
>> 
>> Oh, please. You can't possibly say that C++ is easier to use than a
>> script language? 
>
>
>That depends. I've found a lot of things easier to do in C/C++ and even 
>assembler than in interpreted lanugages because interpreted languages
>tend to be rather restrictive, at least for the things I do. Ever tried to 
>pick up a pin while wearing boxing gloves? That's what programming in an 
>interpreted language feels like to me - too restrictive, too much work to
>do something I know I can do in another language with little effort. The 
>interpreted solution may well be "simpler" - easier to understand, or less 
>syntactically complex, but it is often easier for me to write the more hairy
>version because it lets me do things in a few lines that would otherwise 
>need many.

Ok, you may be right there. Could you give some examples of things that
are much simpler in a compiled language?

>>>In action games, you tend to want to use all of the resources you
>> True. But more and more of the actual gfx is just a call to OpenGL/DX to
>> draw some pre-setup vertex array or display list. Which can be done as
>> fast in any language. So for static data the difference isn't huge. 
>
>You've never really gone near the innards of a fast 3D game have you? They 
>tends to be very far from static inside - there are all manner of routines 
>applied to the underlying map before you ever get near creating the data to 
>send to the card. Grab a copy of the Quake2 engine source and have a look
>at it, some of the stuff going on in there will surprise you. Or have a look
>at some of the stuff on www.vterrain.org, especially the LOD stuff...

No, I haven't. How many of the games out there actually are "fast 3D"  
games? But as was already kindly pointed out in an earlier message by
someone else I've never done a game, so I'm fairly clueless about game
development. :)

>> 99% of games aren't too complex. 
>
>Only because 99% of Linux games are tetris clones. I doubt that the vast 
>majority of people on this list make tetris clones - they are here to make 
>real games, not toy programs. So maybe 99% of Linux games aren't too 
>complex, you'll probably find that 99% of the people responsible for the 
>other 1% are on this list.

So they are on this list? So what? So they are Tetris clones? So what? The
issue is IMHO not about that Linux game developers do simple games, but
what language they should be given for their Tetris clone. Recommending
the new developers to automatically go with C++ is just a little bit
silly.

-- 
  The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to.
                                        -- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods