Re: Request for Review

[Bert Peers <rat@larian.com>]

Damian Gryski wrote:

> >  I've written a new article, it's called
> > "Writing Modifiable Games".
> > http://www.larian.com/rat/programming/modgame/
>    Very good introduction to the different methods
> of adding scripting to games.  What it comes down to
> is the different between writing a game, and writing
> a game engine.

Thanks !
You're right about the difference, but I wouldn't put your
statement in the article; the trouble is that most people think of an
engine as something like Crystal Space : a closed component
with a fixed API, a black box which performs a certain function
for you.  Taking an existing game and making it modifiable is
sortof exactly the opposite : you drill a hole where the game
logic used to be and allow the user to fill it in by stubbing
scripting or DLL loaders in..  Telling beginning coders that
the two are equivalent after all could just confuse the hell
out of them :)  I don't know.

>    I personally like theory, but a lot of people
> need examples.  You mention many scripting languages
> in the article; links to more information about them
> would be useful.  Also, links to source code implementing
> the different methods of implementing scripting
> would be an asset.
>    Could a section on embeddable scripting languages for
> games be added to the LGDC? Maybe under Tools & SDKs?

Yes, see previous post; I suggest we start with a simple collection
of URLs to parsing/scripting tools, languages and tutorials, and if
that grows into a true resource let's fork it on LGDC.

> On a slightly related but somewhat different note:
>    Lexing/Parsing are two of the common tasks for large
> projects: config files, macro languages, and even trying
> to figure out what the user typed.  Are there any good
> resources for beginners o n how to do these tasks?

I'd like to know this too.  I may be writing about scripting and
yacc and all that but to be honest all my own scripting engines
are just of the homebrew-kind; I wrote the tokenizer, scanner,
parser, etc with a different parser for every config, .dat and
script.  It's fun, and once 1 works, variant parsers are usually
just a big deal of copy/paste and some tweaking...  But a good
programmer should be lazy, and who knows lex might be even
less work :)

> Compilers and Programming languages are one of my interests,
> so I've read a lot about this already.  However, I wouldn't
> recommend the Dragon book to someone who just needs a little
> more flexibility in their configuration files that option=value.
> Are there any good sites that could be scrounged for a simple
> article?

What is the Dragon book ?

Bert