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Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

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Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ I don't see it as indicating undesirable character at all. I read the piece as more an indication that the guy knows when to cut his losses and stop allocating resources to unprofitable activity. Which to me, from a business perspective, is a sign of someone with their head screwed on straight. I also don't grasp the logic behind the notion that once a creator shows his work -- or work-in-progress -- to the public…

> I also don't grasp the logic behind the notion that once a creator shows his work -- or work-in-progress -- to the public that he is somehow bound by duty, honor, respect for his 'followers', or some other compelling consideration, to finish that work. You can show off your work in any way that you want. You are also not bound by duty or anything else to finish that work. However, if you are putting it out there fo…

Pretty much nobody but you has this perspective, it's completely irrelevant to the reality other people live in. And such a perspective is harmful, as it could discourage people from work under the false perception that an unfinished piece of work is worse than none.

I'm not sure where you got this whole idea from, but it's not true, neither in the real sense nor in the perceived sense. People benefit from working on projects they do not finish, and plenty of people are impressed with unfinished projects. This person is going to be a much better developer than average from this experience. There is literally no issue here. It's his work and it's his time and what he does with it is none of anyone else's business.

The only issue here is you making an issue out of it according to some strange ethical norms that nobody else shares. This is a massive overthinking/overjudge and the thinking here is rather unhealthy.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. If I'm doing the boring parts of a project at work, at least I get paid for it. If I'm doing the boring parts of a side-project, where the only benefit to me is that it's fun, what's the point?

The point is the completion of the project. Most parts of most projects that we do, whether we are paid to do those projects or not, are boring and tedious. Without those parts, nothing is ever built or completed.

>Most parts of most projects that we do, whether we are paid to do those projects or not, are boring and tedious

...to you. You find most parts of your projects boring and tedious.

Many people don't. I definitely don't find any of my work boring, and only very small parts tedious.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#83
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are still in need of a better language. I have some skepticism and hope for Jai. I really wish D as better C worked better in that realm, but it's missing a few crucial things. Rust asserts too much control over memory. I'm all ears for anything that's somewhere between C and C++ as an alternative to write games in. Most new languages just don't get the things right that C++ did, which is why despite it having…

The AAA company I work for has tried everything possible to work around C++, and let me tell you, had they not started any such efforts, they'd have been way better off. Seeing the results of it all makes me super sceptical of any C++-killers.

Pure OOP is a poor fit for implementing games, but it's a fine base to build a entity-component-system layer on top of which is excellent for games.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#84

I had a similar thought process (but luckily without spending time implementing something). I want to write a game. I thought, "None of the current languages works quite the way I want. I know! I'll write a language specifically for my game and just keep implementing the bits I need". Then I thought, "Wait. If I do that, I'll spend 90% of my time writing a language and 10% of my time writing a game". So I was saved.…

I did end up going the way of writing that compiler and never writing the thing I wanted to write the compiler for, even forgot what it was.

But it was and is a good experience, the last 13 years of writing a compiler. Especially if you like solving problems with no or few searchable solutions.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#85
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are still in need of a better language. I have some skepticism and hope for Jai. I really wish D as better C worked better in that realm, but it's missing a few crucial things. Rust asserts too much control over memory. I'm all ears for anything that's somewhere between C and C++ as an alternative to write games in. Most new languages just don't get the things right that C++ did, which is why despite it having…

I was almost like OP for a while. Working on game, fed up with existing languages (even C), wanted a better C. I was excited about Jai, but as time goes on I'm finding it looks less and less what I want from a language. Seriously considered making my own. Then I started working with Zig[0]. It's about 90% the language I want and even though it's still immature and the syntax, std lib, and semantics are in flux, I sti…

Zig is Linux-first, though. I don't think they have any dev who runs Windows. For games especially, you don't want Windows to be an afterthought. Maybe they'll get to it eventually, but it doesn't seem a priority.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#86
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish D as better C worked better in that realm, but it's missing a few crucial things. Such as? We are always looking for for things that get in the way of use.

Under "unavailable features" https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#consequences 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty sore points. 2 would be as well if it weren't extremely likely that for any game you create roll some sort of reflection system. It would be a sore spot for small projects. 3 - No access to classes and polymorphism is a bit of a downer. Although I'm a big believer of data-oriented design, I think there are still m…

These "unavailable features" are available in D. But NOT when you compile with a specific switch on.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#88
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under "unavailable features" https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#consequences 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty sore points. 2 would be as well if it weren't extremely likely that for any game you create roll some sort of reflection system. It would be a sore spot for small projects. 3 - No access to classes and polymorphism is a bit of a downer. Although I'm a big believer of data-oriented design, I think there are still m…

It seems to me like you should just be using D, not "Better C-style D"? All those features are not in BetterC because they need a garbage collector, but they are of course in D proper. For smaller projects, I'd recommend just ignoring the GC until you run into actual issues with it, then optimizing for the specific issues.

That's easy to say, but as long as C++ and other languages can do those things without a garbage collector, D seems somewhat less attractive. (I'm not the OP but I've had a similar experience with D.)

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#89
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under "unavailable features" https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#consequences 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty sore points. 2 would be as well if it weren't extremely likely that for any game you create roll some sort of reflection system. It would be a sore spot for small projects. 3 - No access to classes and polymorphism is a bit of a downer. Although I'm a big believer of data-oriented design, I think there are still m…

It seems to me like you should just be using D, not "Better C-style D"? All those features are not in BetterC because they need a garbage collector, but they are of course in D proper. For smaller projects, I'd recommend just ignoring the GC until you run into actual issues with it, then optimizing for the specific issues.

As I understand it, garbage collection is kind of a non-starter for games programming because it leads to unpredictable pauses in what should be a low-latency, interactive application.

Re: Sadly, I must say goodbye to Leaf, my programming language

#90
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me like you should just be using D, not "Better C-style D"? All those features are not in BetterC because they need a garbage collector, but they are of course in D proper. For smaller projects, I'd recommend just ignoring the GC until you run into actual issues with it, then optimizing for the specific issues.

As I understand it, garbage collection is kind of a non-starter for games programming because it leads to unpredictable pauses in what should be a low-latency, interactive application.

It is optional however and you can use custom allocators to get around it.
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