D and the world

[Tom S]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Tom S wrote:
>> First of all, thanks for all the feedback, guys :) It matters a lot to 
>> us.
> 
> I want to put together a slide on your project for my talk at the 
> upcoming game developers' conference.

That'd be awesome :D And if you do, we won't hesitate to mention it on 
our presentation either :>


>> It wouldn't be quite possible in any other language...
> 
> Why? (I want to know, because I'll get asked this!)

I've written my share of C++, Java and Python code (as well as tried 
other languages) and only D gives the right 
runtimePerformance/codingEase ratio. When I write code in D (and I hear 
it happens with other team members as well), it simply... compiles and runs.
Debugging is also trivial, especially when using the backtrace hack. DBC 
and lots of non-release checks do the job really well. If the code 
crashes, it crashes early and it's instantly visible where. The only 
non-trivial problems are memory corruptions that can happen when playing 
too much with pointers or deleting objects carelessly and escaping local 
delegate contexts. With a bit of experience, these can be found quickly 
as well, though.

On the other hand, if we coded in C++, we'd spend ages on constant 
re-compilation, then deep within a debugger battle bugs which are 
normally trivially caught by D's DBC. Templates would be terrible to 
write, instead of the breeze that D yields. We'd have to use lots of 
Boost, read 200-line error messages, and write at least 40% more code 
just because the language needs us to. And for the 100th time when 
someone on the team used a delete instead of delete[], I'd slash my 
wrists. Just as with 'if (a = value)' or 'for ( ... ); {}'. Not to 
mention that some stuff would be quite impossible, such as my custom 
preprocessor for the rendering kernels/shaders.

Had we coded in Java, we'd have to be more careful about memory 
allocations than in D or C++, use lots of hacks to make the resulting 
code fast. Before the end of the project, we'd all have RSI because of 
typing 'new' too many times. In the end, it would turn out that the 
presentation PCs have JRE 1.5.0.1.3.5.3 instead of 1.5.0.1.3.5.4 which 
our project was designed for and we'd have another reason not to believe 
that Java is portable (as 2/3 of teams at the univ realize each year on 
the team programming course).

As far as other languages are concerned, that'd be mix of the C++ and 
Java horror scenarios, plus-minus performance implications that'd cause 
the game to be too sluggish to be fun.

The only language better than D for game programming would be D coupled 
with a dynamic lang, such as Io, Squirrel, Lua or Python.


> This is good stuff, mind if I quote you for my presentation?

Not at all :) *thinks* Woah I will be famous ;D *thinks*


> My talk will be on the 11th.

Aye! We'll share a video recording, will you ? :D


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode