Re: Game Logic

[Pierre Phaneuf <pp@ludusdesign.com>]

Chris Purnell wrote:

> > I suggest you take a serious look at Perl.
> 
> > It is very dynamic, has a compiler that optimizes well, it can be called
> > by/call to C/C++ (check out Swig), is well supported in the community
> > and there is a very good book telling about its internals and the
> > process of embeddeding it into a program.
> 
> Perl is a language optimized for textual processing.  With things
> like it's built in regex engine it does this very well.  But it is
> not what I'd call appropriate for embedding into a 3D game.  I don't
> need operations on strings of text but I do need operations on vectors
> and stuff.

This is common thinking, but is also very often wrong!

What do you think is optimized in Perl for textual processing? And how
would any such optimization prevent optimizing other tasks as well? If
you don't do any regex, well, yeah, those text-oriented optimization
won't do you any good, but they won't do any harm either!

And it is very much Larry Wall's objective to have Perl become useful
and successful in as many different applications as possible. He has
always become a bit irritated as to how Perl is pigeon-holed. The oldest
one is the textual processing, then it was for CGIs ("well, Perl is sure
nice for itty-bitty CGI scripts, but for Real Application..." is
something I heard a bit too much).

In fact, I think that the general all-around efficiency of the Perl
interpreter implementation would be a great asset for 3D games. Also the
easy of integrating C/C++ code (call right into OpenGL? no problem!
hand-optimized C and MMX/3Dnow! assembler vector routines? call them
right from Perl!) and the structure you can give with the OO facilities.

I never tried Python (I hear it is also very good), so I can't speak for
or against it, but I know Perl and it's a shame seeing such a good tool
not get used where it would make such a perfect fit!

-- 
"I invented the term 'Object-Oriented' and I can tell you I did
not have C++ in mind." -- Alan Kay

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