Live data from Hacker News

Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

raylib.com

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#21

>no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no auto-debugging... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way. Why is this being shown off as simple and easy to use? Or am I misunderstanding the project page's message?

because gamedev programmers are getting slowly shadowed by "scripters" since videogame industry is VERY lucrative, it attracts plenty of non-programmers

and you are exactly doing what a scripter would do:

"baahhh programming is daunting, can you give me some interface where i can click on things pls?"

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#22

>no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no auto-debugging... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way. Why is this being shown off as simple and easy to use? Or am I misunderstanding the project page's message?

because gamedev programmers are getting slowly shadowed by "scripters" since videogame industry is VERY lucrative, it attracts plenty of non-programmers and you are exactly doing what a scripter would do: "baahhh programming is daunting, can you give me some interface where i can click on things pls?"

I've heard that videogame programmers have some of the absolute worst salaries and work the longest hours and have a huge burnout issue because there's always another warm body who wants to work on games.

In fact I think this is the first time I've ever heard anything positive about it without a laundry list of caveats.

There have even been stories here about devs being threatened by fans, iirc.

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#23

>no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no auto-debugging... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way. Why is this being shown off as simple and easy to use? Or am I misunderstanding the project page's message?

because gamedev programmers are getting slowly shadowed by "scripters" since videogame industry is VERY lucrative, it attracts plenty of non-programmers and you are exactly doing what a scripter would do: "baahhh programming is daunting, can you give me some interface where i can click on things pls?"

Do you know any game developers? Because that’s just not true. People use the tools required for their job. What do you mean by “scripters”? Do you mean designers building gameplay systems out of the building blocks made by seasoned, experienced engineers so they can make fun games and not worry about the bare-metal stuff?

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#25

I've finished a couple projects in Raylib before and I really like it, however, the downside to Raylib for me is that there is no real documentation. You get a handful of examples an a "cheatsheet" of functions and nothing else. When you bring up the fact that Raylib's documentation is borderline non-existent the community almost takes it as a point of pride, points at the examples and goes "figure it out." This make…

This so much! This is the main reason why I left using raylib. Whenever you ask about the documentation, the function cheatsheet was mentioned. Eventually I got tired of figuring it out, which sometimes took a lot of time.

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#26
I love raylib. Cheatsheet has all the info you need. And I love that it's just a library and not a framework. The dev has also built a number of useful and simple gamedev tools like icon and sound effects editors. Also, he is super friendly and responsive.

For 2D, it's in the top 3 for me (GMS2 and Godot being the other 2). I have no idea if it's any good for 3D but it's cool that it even has VR support.

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an important distinction - it's "easy to use" as in you can put things on the screen, play sound, etc without having to read documentation or deal with boilerplate logic/steps longer than the custom code needed. It's not "easy to use" as in Unity where you want to have some complex physics apply to some premade models with certain rendering effects so you learn where to go to get each of those things and…

I get what you're saying and I agree up to a point but I don't necessarily believe the distinction is necessary. LOVE2D is very "easy to use", easier than Raylib in my opinion, and probably has the most extension documentation I've seen for a game framework. https://love2d.org/wiki/Main_Page

Yeah, I liked it too, right up until I tried to run some games made in it and they wouldn't run because my runtime was too new.

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#28

>no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no auto-debugging... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way. Why is this being shown off as simple and easy to use? Or am I misunderstanding the project page's message?

because gamedev programmers are getting slowly shadowed by "scripters" since videogame industry is VERY lucrative, it attracts plenty of non-programmers and you are exactly doing what a scripter would do: "baahhh programming is daunting, can you give me some interface where i can click on things pls?"

I've been a professional game programmer for the last 16 years and this is a pretty wrong headed and naïve point of view.

Let's preface things by saying there is nothing wrong with raylib or the approach where you write everything yourself. But vanishingly few games were made without other tools in particular tools to help with spatial layout and data entry. Have you tried setting up a moderately complex set of blend trees in a state machine for animation in text? This is more significant the more data driven your engine, in particular with modern composable entities a text only view of the world becomes very hard to understand quite quickly.

All more featured IDEs give you is a set of modifiable tools that you don't need to write yourself.

The view that there is a distinction between scripters and programmers is also poisonous. It's antagonistic and sows division when making a game is a team sport.

"Scripting" is also nothing new and scripting languages for game development are almost as old as games themselves. We're all just laying out logic to get the computer to do things. Whether that's using a visual language to setup game levels and AI, or text to sort and submit render jobs. Some of the better gameplay engineers I know actually started programming in scripting languages for games. Building tools at the right level for people to do their jobs is basically a good 80% of a programmers job in game development.

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because gamedev programmers are getting slowly shadowed by "scripters" since videogame industry is VERY lucrative, it attracts plenty of non-programmers and you are exactly doing what a scripter would do: "baahhh programming is daunting, can you give me some interface where i can click on things pls?"

I've heard that videogame programmers have some of the absolute worst salaries and work the longest hours and have a huge burnout issue because there's always another warm body who wants to work on games. In fact I think this is the first time I've ever heard anything positive about it without a laundry list of caveats. There have even been stories here about devs being threatened by fans, iirc.

Give some respect. You sound like a hater and jealous of game devs.

Re: Raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogame programming

#30

>no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no auto-debugging... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way. Why is this being shown off as simple and easy to use? Or am I misunderstanding the project page's message?

I disagree. It's easy to use and particularly easy to bind to other languages because it has a very simple and straightforward API. I'm using it in Go and it's fantastic, as long as your project is fine with its limitations. For most things you only need to take a look at the cheat sheet and you're done.
Post reply on HN