D and the world

[Alix Pexton]

Mike Parker wrote:
> Michael P wrote:
>> Is there really any benefits using scripted languages besides not 
>> having to compile? D is much faster than most scripted languages and 
>> it compiles fast and have a garbage collector. I myself find D easier 
>> and you get better performance!
>> "While the C++ parts of the engine are fast, UnrealScript is a 
>> relatively slow language to execute."
> 
> Scripting languages tend to be easier for non-techies to pick up and 
> learn, for one. By implementing the game logic in script, you make it 
> easier for the members of the design team (who may or may not have 
> programming experience) to implement functionality themselves and try it 
> out immediately. Otherwise, they'd have to write out what they want, 
> pass it off to the programmers, and wait for them to implement it and 
> compile a new build before they can test it. The art team can use 
> scripts to set up special effects and animations. The audio team can use 
> scripts to set up dynamic audio effects.
> 
> On a related note, the ability to implement changes to a script and see 
> those changes reflected immediately in the game world is a tremendous 
> time-saver. Even if you have to restart the game to see the effects it 
> is still a far-sight better than waiting for a recompile (especially 
> when the source tree is only recompiled on a strict schedule). New ideas 
> can be prototyped and evaluated much more quickly.
> 
> Finally, if the game is intended to be moddable by players, requiring 
> them to learn a scripting language to do so is a far sight better than 
> requiring them to learn C++. You can see a real world example by looking 
> at the modding communities for the Unreal Tournament and Quake games. 
> The latter is much smaller, but I'm certain it has to do with the fact 
> that to mod Quake 3 you have to use C. UnrealScript is much easier to 
> learn (and there is a lot of published material to help you do so).
> 
> 
>> It's a sad thing when ppl underestimate the advantages of good 
>> performance. Bump mapping could be done with an Amiga (demo but 
>> still). And if you install Win98 on a new machine it will fly! 
> 
> 
> No one is underestimating the advantages of performance. Game developers 
> are among the most performance-minded software developers out there 
> (often religiously so). But as code complexity, team sizes, and budgets 
> have grown they have had to look for ways to increase productivity and 
> reduce maintenance costs. Scripting allows them to do that. 
> Performance-critical sections of the game (such as rendering) are 
> implemented in native code, but the more of the logic you can put into 
> scripts the better. Data-driven development in has become the rule in 
> the game industry, rather than the exception.
> 
> I look forward to seeing a feature-rich game engine developed in D (and 
> would love to work toward that myself had I the time to do so). For such 
> an engine to be competitive, it has to be scriptable. Whether that be 
> with DMDScript, MiniD, Lua, Python, or (preferably) some 
> as-yet-undeveloped-game-centric-D-based scripting language, scripting 
> support is essential.

With D you can have your cake and eat it!

Whatever form your scripting language takes, you can have an interpreter for
your designers and modders to test there scripts with, and you can then take
the same scripts and include them in your final build using import()s and,
if you are lucky, some of the same interpreter code to make optimized native
code.

The trick is getting as much of the code of the interpreter to be pure
functions, so that it can shared with the DSL compiler and used in CTFE.

A...