RE: Writing games in interpreted languages

["Davis, Daniel" <Daniel.Davis@schwab.com>]

I guess I responded too quickly.  Your points are valid and I agree with
them.  I meant that Perl alone isn't a suitable language for writing high
performance games (such as Quake).  The hardware stuff such as OpenGL needs
a more robust language for effective use.  You could write games entirely in
Perl (and I've seen it done) but this is usually limited to 'low'
performance games such as web games and things such as card games.  

Daniel

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Christoph Reichenbach [SMTP:jameson@linuxgames.com]
> Sent:	Monday, December 27, 1999 1:30 PM
> To:	linuxgames@sunsite.auc.dk
> Subject:	Writing games in interpreted languages
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, 27 Dec 1999, Davis, Daniel wrote:
> 
> > Perl isn't a compiled language and therefore not suitable for gaming.
> 
> I disagree. The fact that Perl (or Python, Scheme, etc) code is 
> interpreted in software rather than being executed on an actual processor
> just means that this particular piece of code will need a few more
> processor cycles to be executed. On the other hand, it will give you all
> the advantages of sand-boxed development, like powerful in-game 
> debugging, increased stability, and portability (if done right).
> Of course, it's too slow for doing high-performance graphics "manually".
> But running the actual game logic in an interpreter makes a lot of sense
> and has been done in many historic games (All of Sierra's AGI and SCI
> games, LucasArts SCUMM games, Quake 1 and 3, and IIRC all Infocom
> adventures).
> 
> (Binary compatibility is another reason for interpreting code. But Binary
> compatibility is a kludge, and hardly worth mentioning).
> 
> llap,
>  Christoph
> 
> 
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