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Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

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Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#21

Post by winterismute »

humanrebar wrote: post #11
winterismute wrote: post #7

While I do agree with various points in the article, it is kind of funny that the author works in the financial sector and has, apparently, no experience in working on big games devloped in long stretches by hundreds of people at the same time: for example, this article about "C++ and gamedev" shows examples from his own Quake VR codebase, an insanely cool but clearly one-man project started and brought forward by he…

Does the author have no experience developing C++ on large teams or are you asserting that large team game dev is unique compared to other industries?

> or are you asserting that large team game dev is unique compared to other industries?

Well, that would be a good question to ask to the author, since he titled the article "modern C++ gamedev" and not simply "modern C++" although to me what is discussed seems to be general enough, and "gamedev" here happens to be just the type of project the code comes from... To me, it does not look like he makes any significant contribution on how "modern C++ could serve specifically games development". IMHO he has detected that people in games react strongly to content about C++ and he benefits from the additional exposure he gets by putting "gamedev" in his C++ articles/tweets/anything (which is something I am not judging btw).

Personally, I do think that when your code is simulating a whole parallel universe using a not-super-high-level language, you might end up with challenges regarding readability and flexibility of the raw code that other softwares might not encounter. Not being really part of that industry I feel I can't know for sure, and therefore I have applied the same reasoning to him since he is also not part of that industry, it seems.

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#22

Post by papito »

PezzaDev wrote: post #6

After years of experience writing code for games, I find that the dumbest code is the best code. It doesn't matter if it's C# or C++, whenever I've used something like reactive extensions or template metaprogramming, it has been a terrible mistake every single time. Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time. Avoid using any complex abstractions or any overcomplicated syntactic sugar and you'll have a codeb…

Isn't that true for, like, any code? Don't turn your code into an academic exercise. You are not writing it for the compiler - you are writing it for me.

It's not that different from the English language either. Laying out your thoughts in a clear and structured way is the real skill. Start using words and expressions that I have to constantly google for, and I will hate you very quickly.

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#23

Post by deepaksurti »

krapp wrote: post #18
PezzaDev wrote: post #6

After years of experience writing code for games, I find that the dumbest code is the best code. It doesn't matter if it's C# or C++, whenever I've used something like reactive extensions or template metaprogramming, it has been a terrible mistake every single time. Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time. Avoid using any complex abstractions or any overcomplicated syntactic sugar and you'll have a codeb…

>I find that the dumbest code is the best code Not always, though. See every bug and exploit with C arrays or pointers that exists because C devs think even minimal attempts at safety are too complicated or slow, or old-style PHP code that builds SQL queries out of printf strings directly from POST values, or probably countless other examples in other languages. C++ code that uses raw pointers instead of references o…

> Not always, though. See every bug and exploit with C arrays ...

That can also be perceived as a a flaw of the language design in that it does not allow one to write dumb, safe and fast code. Which are such languages in existence today?

edit: fixed typos

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#24

Post by MauranKilom »

HelloNurse wrote: post #9
PezzaDev wrote: post #6

After years of experience writing code for games, I find that the dumbest code is the best code. It doesn't matter if it's C# or C++, whenever I've used something like reactive extensions or template metaprogramming, it has been a terrible mistake every single time. Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time. Avoid using any complex abstractions or any overcomplicated syntactic sugar and you'll have a codeb…

C++ fold expressions, the main C++ feature the article covers, are simple and dumb (at least, enough to use them) but not verbose, and definitely harder to get wrong than a much more verbose for loop.

I love fold expressions, but if you're inside a variadic template, you've long left the realms of "simple and dumb". IMO.

I mean, they're only readable to people who have dabbled in variadic templates in their free time. That's how many people on your (future) team?

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#25

Post by pansa2 »

PezzaDev wrote: post #17
pansa2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find that the dumbest code is the best code. This is the idea behind Golang, isn’t it? That everything should be written out explicitly and not hidden behind abstractions. Some people love that, others hate it.

I'd love to try Golang, but as a game developer, the gc makes it a no go due to perf. I begrudgingly accept C# due to unity. GC is a different topic altogether, but has also always been a pain. You end writing code to avoid allocations, which at that point you ask "Why am I not just writing C++?" I also discovered GC makes bad programmers worse by allowing them not to care about ownership, enabling them to develop sy…

While I’m not suggesting using Go for game development, don’t most games include code written in a language with garbage collection? If not C#, then a scripting language like Lua?

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#26

Post by microtherion »

PezzaDev wrote: post #6

After years of experience writing code for games, I find that the dumbest code is the best code. It doesn't matter if it's C# or C++, whenever I've used something like reactive extensions or template metaprogramming, it has been a terrible mistake every single time. Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time. Avoid using any complex abstractions or any overcomplicated syntactic sugar and you'll have a codeb…

> Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time

This is a frequently encountered argument, and sure, if you look at any single line, it looks very obvious what it does. But I would argue that verbosity and lack of abstraction has severe drawbacks for a programmer's ability to understand the overall codebase, and it is disastrous for long term maintainability.

You start out with 20 identical pieces of boilerplate code, and a few years later, you have 20 subtly different pieces of code. Good luck guessing whether the differences were intentional, or accidental. Good luck refactoring the code.

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#27

Post by microtherion »

lazypenguin wrote: post #15
PezzaDev wrote: post #6

After years of experience writing code for games, I find that the dumbest code is the best code. It doesn't matter if it's C# or C++, whenever I've used something like reactive extensions or template metaprogramming, it has been a terrible mistake every single time. Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time. Avoid using any complex abstractions or any overcomplicated syntactic sugar and you'll have a codeb…

Matches my experience as well in the hobby gamedev realm. I can give an anecdote, I’m involved in a “private server” dev community for an old niche MMO from 2003. There exists 3 codebases: first the original code written in a windows-style C++ with heavy use of inheritance, custom collections, Hungarian notation, etc. The second is a collaborative open source version that is written in a naive/basic C++ style (e.g. c…

So, naive code attracts naive programmers? I'm not sure this is the ringing endorsement you take it to be.

I should also add that Hungarian notation is the prototypical example of dumb, verbose code, that wants to make individual lines easier to understand by dragging type information into every single variable name.

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#28

Post by MauranKilom »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

Really the “problem” here is that C++’s functional constructs will never allocate memory, giving them somewhat strange signatures that don’t really conduce themselves well to typical functional concepts. At compile time there is no such goal and as such some of these constructs can only be found there.

According to https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/algorithm/stable_sort:

> This function attempts to allocate a temporary buffer equal in size to the sequence to be sorted. If the allocation fails, the less efficient algorithm is chosen.

Or is this not what you consider a "functional construct"?

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#29

Post by PezzaDev »

pansa2 wrote: post #25
PezzaDev wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to try Golang, but as a game developer, the gc makes it a no go due to perf. I begrudgingly accept C# due to unity. GC is a different topic altogether, but has also always been a pain. You end writing code to avoid allocations, which at that point you ask "Why am I not just writing C++?" I also discovered GC makes bad programmers worse by allowing them not to care about ownership, enabling them to develop sy…

While I’m not suggesting using Go for game development, don’t most games include code written in a language with garbage collection? If not C#, then a scripting language like Lua?

And everyone wishes they hadn't :P Even modders that use Lua have to write code that avoids allocations, caching and reusing all the objects they can. I can't stress enough how much time is spent on optimising code to avoid GC pauses. The main goal of my C# coding style is avoiding unnecessary allocations at all costs. I'm not exaggerating.

Re: Modern C++ gamedev: thoughts and misconceptions

#30

Post by fla »

lazypenguin wrote: post #15
PezzaDev wrote: post #6

After years of experience writing code for games, I find that the dumbest code is the best code. It doesn't matter if it's C# or C++, whenever I've used something like reactive extensions or template metaprogramming, it has been a terrible mistake every single time. Make your code simple, dumb and verbose all the time. Avoid using any complex abstractions or any overcomplicated syntactic sugar and you'll have a codeb…

Matches my experience as well in the hobby gamedev realm. I can give an anecdote, I’m involved in a “private server” dev community for an old niche MMO from 2003. There exists 3 codebases: first the original code written in a windows-style C++ with heavy use of inheritance, custom collections, Hungarian notation, etc. The second is a collaborative open source version that is written in a naive/basic C++ style (e.g. c…

Is the project you mentioned SWG:ANH by any chance ?
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