Biggest Issue with D - Definition and Versioning

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 1/15/12 11:42 AM, Kiith-Sa wrote:
> I'm interested in game development using D, so I'll post my opinion.
>
> I think the discussions here show how particularly specialized people
> here are. I've seen some Manu's posts and it was clear that he is a person
> in gamedev who thinks most development is like gamedev and can't see the bigger
> picture. For a gamedev person, SIMD support is not simply a cool feature, it's
> a gamechanger. Just like const, ranges, D threading features and so on. However,
> his posts often show that he doesn't understand positions of other people in other
> areas, e.g. people here working on scientific computing, who are also interested
> in SIMD but their thinking of terms such as "vector" is completely different.
>
> I think you're making the same mistake here - you have very little (or no?)
> idea about gamedev and aren't exposed to game programmers, so you just assume
> specific gamedev issues don't exist or are unimportant. I don't think you get
> much of exposure to game devs when evangelizing D either - you don't evangelize
> D in game companies.
[snip]

You are making a good point, and I'm glad you chimed in.

I do have ties with the gaming community; I taught a course at ENDI and 
I am well acquainted with a few game developers. Also, at conferences 
and events gaming programmers are represented. Finally, game developers 
who are reading TDPL are likely to send me book feedback and questions 
in proportion to their representation. From where I stand, I can say 
there is more interest in D in other communities than in gaming.

Clearly gamedev-specific issues do exist and are important. But that's 
not even remotely the point. Allow me to explain.

Say we identified gaming programmers as an important community to 
address. If that happened, we would have done a /lot/ of things 
differently, and a ton of them before SIMD. That means focus on 
Windows64, graphic accelerators, and gaming CPUs. To claim that work on 
SIMD is good because it's good for gamers is to reverse engineer a 
rationalization after the fact. And the fact is - Walter has had the 
gusto to implement SIMD now. Technically, that's great. For gamers, 
that's an interesting development. Organizationally, that's a poor 
statement.

Again: if D is a hobby we have, all's great. Otherwise, we must show 
people that we are serious about finishing the core language 
implementation, that we make promises that we are able to keep, and that 
we make plans that we follow even in the broadest strokes. If we want to 
play with the big boys, we need to change the way we approach planning 
and organization quite drastically.


Andrei