So I've been without internet at home for about a week now. You'd think the limited access to information would make it hard to get any programming done. However, the opposite seems to be true. I just might have to give up GameDev.net simply for the productivity boost. Heh, just kidding; probably just the constant lounge surfing.

Anyway, I've implemented font rendering, finished my image -> OpenGL texture converter (it works with ANY image format now), and reworked various parts of the program. I'm now searching for a good scripting language to use as the building block for gameplay. I originally was against using a scripting language because it would limit gameplay capabilities. However, I'm now thinking I'll use scripting for all the basic interactions and hacks (yes, I'll even have a module named game/hack) to implement special cases.

So now I'm looking for a scripting language that is simple, object-based but without any unimportant fluff, and has useful features (like optional function parameters and named parameter passing). Since I don't have internet yet, I'll have to use the school computers and download the necessary documentation onto CD. Wish me luck (and give me suggestions!).

UPDATE: Lua seems to be what I want.

UPDATE: I'm flipping through the online book Programming in Lua and I'm liking most everything about the language. The only thing I don't like is Lua's convention of using 1 as the base index, rather than 0. That is going to be really confusing for someone like me coming from C/C++/Python that all use 0 as the base index. This is probably me speaking from ignorance, but why couldn't Lua just stick with convention? Why??! Oh well, I'll suck it up and use 0 for all my functions and 1 whenever I need to interface with the standard library. It'll probably lead to bugs but their perversion of the sacred and time honoured base index tradition shall not prevail.

ActiveChart.Location xlLocationAsObject, "Sheet1"
'can be changed to
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:="Sheet1"

def fn(a, b=4, c=2, d=8):
    return a+b+c
fn(3, d=1, c=0) # a is 3, b is implicitly 4, c is 0, d is 1