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I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

jonathanwhiting.com

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Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#71

Post by randomtoast »

sandpaper26 wrote: post #60
randomtoast wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this play out a lot. People say they “write games in C” and then quietly rebuild half of C++ anyway with vtables in structs or giant switch statements, just without the compiler helping. That’s fine if it makes you happier, but it’s not obviously simpler or safer. Also, C++ compile times are mostly a self-inflicted wound via templates and metaprogramming, not some inherent tax you pay for having virtual fun…

This reads like an LLM generated response that simply restates the comment it's replying to

Heck the LLM accusations get a bit out of hand lately here on HN. I could delve into it now ... but I want to safe our time.

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#72

Post by doublerabbit »

leecommamichael wrote: post #10

Come try Odin!

I've been doing theory and really want to myself.

Time escapes me before I get a chance to type Hello World. Working in front of a screen eight hours a day leaves me exhausted that the least things I want to do is code more on my day off.

Although wanting to dive in to WASM has been a priority and checking Odin for wasm their 3D model example is super cool.

May just have to take a poke. TCL for web frontend; Erlang for DB and potentially Odin for wasm? This could be a cool mix.

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#73

Post by levodelellis »

torlok wrote: post #20

I write mostly like I would in C, but use C++ features as needed. It ends up looking similar to Rust if you squint. All these "I write games in C" people complain about C++ features, and then end up reimplementing virtual interfaces manually with struct headers or massive switch statements, just to feel better about themselves. Writing games in C is not harder, you just have to implement modern language features by h…

I measured once and to my surprise templates aren't (directly) the reason for long compile times. It's function bodies in headers, and obviously templates are in headers and they call other templated functions/classes which explodes code generation and time. But if it's only a few lines and doesn't call other templated functions it's likely fine. I wrote about it here https://bolinlang.com/wheres-my-compile-time

After writing that, I wrote my own standard library (it has data structs like vector, hashmap and sets; slices, strings, rng, print, some io functions, and more) which uses a lot of templates, and it compiles in <200ms on both clang and gcc. Many standard library headers take much longer to compile than that. It's not a terrible idea to have your own standard lib if you need quick compile times.

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#74

Post by 9rx »

ternaryoperator wrote: post #44
pjmlp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language is called Go, golang is the website domain.

The use of "golang" for posts and comments is desirable IMHO because it greatly facilitates search, especially on sites such as HN that cover many languages.

Searching "site:news.ycombinator.com go" on Google didn't yield any results that weren't about the Go programming language even after going several pages deep. What kind of search problems are you having, exactly?

And why is it unique to Go? I am sure there are comments on HN about metal oxidization, making sharp changes in direction, Norse gods, and letters of the alphabet.

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#76

Post by levodelellis »

petters wrote: post #70
torlok wrote: post #20

I write mostly like I would in C, but use C++ features as needed. It ends up looking similar to Rust if you squint. All these "I write games in C" people complain about C++ features, and then end up reimplementing virtual interfaces manually with struct headers or massive switch statements, just to feel better about themselves. Writing games in C is not harder, you just have to implement modern language features by h…

> C++ doesn't take longer to compile if you don't abuse templates. Surprisingly, this is not true. I've written a C++ file only to realize at the end that I did not use any C++ features. Renaming the file to .c halved the compilation time.

I don't believe you, I measured compile times in c compilers and my own. If you provide more information I'd be more likely to believe you

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#77

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

torlok wrote: post #20

I write mostly like I would in C, but use C++ features as needed. It ends up looking similar to Rust if you squint. All these "I write games in C" people complain about C++ features, and then end up reimplementing virtual interfaces manually with struct headers or massive switch statements, just to feel better about themselves. Writing games in C is not harder, you just have to implement modern language features by h…

It's possible to use only a subset of the language. You could write a Java program without classes if you really wanted to. Just put the whole thing in main().

A lot of smart people pick and choose what they want from the language, just like religion, they keep the good parts and discard the bad.

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#78

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

I want to write general apps in C. Such as a raster image editor. I have some idea and C has exactly the right mix of simplicity and flexibility that I need. C is a constructor, and as a constructor it places few limits on what you can do. Other environments are way more rigid. E. g. I find Python way too rigid compared to C.

Re: I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

#79

Post by whizzter »

mjburgess wrote: post #61
randomtoast wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this play out a lot. People say they “write games in C” and then quietly rebuild half of C++ anyway with vtables in structs or giant switch statements, just without the compiler helping. That’s fine if it makes you happier, but it’s not obviously simpler or safer. Also, C++ compile times are mostly a self-inflicted wound via templates and metaprogramming, not some inherent tax you pay for having virtual fun…

A switch statement is how you do ad-hoc polymorphism in C -- i dont thinks an own against C developers to point that out. If they wanted to adopt the C++ style that immediately requires the entire machinery of OOP, which is an incredibly heavy price to avoid a few switch statements in the tiny number of places ad-hoc poly is actually needed

You don't usually do C++ subsets if you want the full shebang.

I have a "mini-std" headerfile that's about 500 LoC implementing lightweight variants of std::vector, std::function, a stack-local std::function (unsafe as hell and useful as hell to avoid allocations), a shared-ptr, qsort and some other nifty stuff.

That does a lot of things, but even then I use other patterns that brings a lot of bang for the buck without having to go full C (hint: the stack-local function equivalent gets a lot of mileage).

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