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Re: Scripting



Chris wrote:

> Gregor Mueckl wrote:
> 
> 
>> slow to run. This approach is good for AI development, because during 
>> testing you can skip compilation entirely and when it's finished you 
> 
> 
> Why is there this fixation on avoiding compilation? Even my slowest machine
> 
> (a 700Mhz Athlon) will compile any small to moderate size code in less than
> a second or two. Unless you're developing on a P1 233 or something 
> (which isn't going to get you very far) compilation is a trivial step..


My best computer is a P-III 500Mhz, which is even slower (and I'm not 
even considering an upgrade yet; other computers in my home network will 
be more urgent - like my good, old 486 Linux (file-/ YP- /Samba- /DNS- 
/whatever-) server). And yes, it can do compilation rather fast. But 
with a new binary there also is the need to restart the game engine (or 
engines in case you develop a networked game as I do). With a script you 
might avoid this. This might be beneficial (and good for ones nerves) if 
it's tiresome to get to the point where you can actually test the new 
code after an engine restart.

Second, making the engine scriptable allows for mods, and/or further 
reusage of the engine with hopefully less work for the programmer. I 
must admit that I am the bottleneck in our team as I am the only 
programmer and have a lot of work to do to get things running. So it 
would be beneficial for me if I could delegate some simple programming 
tasks to them, while giving them the freedom to to the level-specific 
scripting themselves without having to bother me with "can you do 
this/that for me there?". Keep in mind that these people are mostly 
non-programmers. And bothering them with compilers would be more than 
they could cope with. They know how to do 3d modelling and animating, 
composing music, but they can't write a single line of code. And I'm the 
exact opposite of them. I know how to code, but not a lot more. Shure, I 
could stick some polys together, but it wouldn't look as cool as the 
stuff they can do. Scripting can serve as a link between these two 
worlds by cratinging a (hopefully) simple interface between these two 
worlds. That's my view on this topic.


> 
> Chris

Gregor

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* Gregor Mueckl                 GregorMueckl@gmx.de *
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