How to write better game libraries
handmade.network
How to write better game libraries
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Re: How to write better game libraries
#2Please add (C) to the title of the article. In this form, it is misleading because most of the advice only applies to C.
Re: How to write better game libraries
#3>> C is the lingua franca of programming
I don't have the exact numbers, but this seems debatable.
Re: How to write better game libraries
#4>> C is the lingua franca of programming I don't have the exact numbers, but this seems debatable.
It's the lingua franca in that it's the standard for interoperating. Every high level language I've used has had at least one C FFI readily available.
Re: How to write better game libraries
#5>> C is the lingua franca of programming I don't have the exact numbers, but this seems debatable.
I think the term lingua franca is most often used to indicate a commonly understood language, not one that everybody actively uses.
Six of the eight most popular programming languages (from https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/) have C-like syntax. I think most people would agree.
Edit: I think that in this context, Reelin's comment is more appropriate: This is not about understanding, but about interoperability.
Re: How to write better game libraries
#6Since this article lays so much emphasis on C, I have an honest question to everyone. What is a good way for a beginner to learn C in the current time? The minefield of undefined behavior is really overwhelming to a beginner. Are there any good resources that teach C the right way with good advice and best practices to navigate the UB minefield?
Re: How to write better game libraries
#7Please add (C) to the title of the article. In this form, it is misleading because most of the advice only applies to C.
The target audience isn’t C programmers, but library authors that want their library to be usable with multiple programming languages. Most of the advice applies to C libraries because the article starts by advising you to write your library in C, and gives several reasons.
Re: How to write better game libraries
#8This is bad advice on the c++ part. If you don't use RAII, then you could've just not done the c++ lib (and have just a c lib). Exceptions, raii and smart pointers are what makes modern c++ so pleasant, next to templates.
Re: How to write better game libraries
#9I don't see it mentioned, but it's important to note that you don't have to write your library in the same language that you expose to your users. You can write everything in C++/Rust/Python and expose something compatible with the C ABI and people will be able to use it (provided they have your toolchain…)
Re: How to write better game libraries
#10Since this article lays so much emphasis on C, I have an honest question to everyone. What is a good way for a beginner to learn C in the current time? The minefield of undefined behavior is really overwhelming to a beginner. Are there any good resources that teach C the right way with good advice and best practices to navigate the UB minefield?
I can’t advise on modern resources as I’ve known C for a while now, but I can speak a bit about the mindset required. Programming in C isn’t much different than programming in any other language, just without the safety railings. If you’re at the stage where you are typically fixing bugs by understanding what is happening and then making a single targeted change to correct the issue, you should have no significant trouble working in a C codebase.
If, on the other hand, you’re in the habit of shotgun debugging, where you make repeated changes to the problem code until it appears to work, you’re quite likely to leave behind various problems that will be hard to figure out.
Often, experience is the best teacher. If you’re not exposing your program to malicious users (aka. the public at large), the most serious issue you’re likely to run into is either a program crash or data corruption— nothing that will really harm your computer, but may cause you grief as you try to figure it out. In that process, though, you’ll learn an awful lot about how everything works. So, go write some programs for your own use and see how they crash and burn so that the next thing you make is more stable. Eventually you’ll start to intuitively spot trouble before it actually happens.