[off-topic] Sony releases PS Vita SDK

[Jameson Ernst]

On Thursday, 19 April 2012 at 19:37:28 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp at progtools.org> wrote in message
> news:jmpl39$1oa1$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> Hi,
>>
>> just wanted to announce that Sony has finally made the new 
>> Playstation
>> Vita SDK available, as we were discussing some months ago.
>>
>> http://www.playstation.com/pss/index_e.html
>>
>> The gamming industry seems to be slowing moving to C#. Would 
>> we still
>> be able to convince developers to move to D instead?
>>
>
> Yes. I suspect that the movement to C# is somewhat of a 
> compromise due to
> the fact that C/C++ has been the *only* real systems language 
> usable for
> most gaming systems. Obviously, something better than C++ is 
> needed, and
> thanks to the moronic VM/interpreted obsessions from the last 
> decade or so
> that rendered most new languages impotent, there was no real 
> alternative to
> C++. So, I suspect, that's why they made the compromise of 
> going with C#.
>
> But D is *real* systems language, unlike C#. And frankly, it 
> beats the snot
> out of C#. I'm not just saying that subjectively as D fan: Five 
> years ago
> (if not less) I considered C# and D tied as my favorite 
> languages. But the
> more I used both, the more I got fed up with C#'s dumb 
> limitations and MS's
> disinterest in addressing them, and the more I liked D.
>
> If D can't be made to attract game devs away from C++/C#, then 
> I'll loose
> what little faith I have left in mainstream games development.

As a C# game developer very interested in D, I'll chime in on 
this. The contrast from C++ is definitely a part of it. C# is 
very pleasant to work in for the most part. C# is actually quite 
fast, but would I prefer to also reap the full benefit of native 
speed? Absolutely, that's why I'm so interested in D.

I think there's more to it though. I mentioned this in the Fibers 
thread, but C# provides a limited form of coroutine built into 
the language. The utility of coroutines in game logic cannot be 
overstated. Being able to do things like:

{
     WalkTo(pos);
     WaitForSeconds(3);
     FireMyLaser(target);
}

And have it JUST WORK like you want is huge. You can get this by 
delegating out to a script language that supports it like LUA, 
but then we're back in JIT territory. Expressing this kind of 
thing in the native language itself would be ideal.

I think D is sitting on a game dev goldmine with 
core.thread.Fiber. Especially the bit about being able to migrate 
them across threads. Having 10,000 entity coroutines active and 
being able to load balance them across all your cores with a 
taskpool would be amazing. I'm just worried that since Fiber 
seems to be such a low-key feature that it won't survive a 
refactor of the library or fall out of favor over time and be 
deprecated.