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What do you think of the D language?

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by stephenfx August 16, 2006 08:14 PM

92 comments, last by daerid 17 years, 6 months ago

October 04, 2006 03:54 AM

Quote:Original post by Promit
Quote:Original post by Conner McCloud
Quote:Original post by Stachel
Mono is nowhere near being a credible solution.

Oh man, now you've really gone and pissed Promit off.
It happens. This is just the part where I leave the thread, because the person I'm talking to is an idiot.

Mono doesn't support Managed DirectX, so it isn't suitable for games. End of story.

MaulingMonkey

1,729

October 04, 2006 05:09 AM

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Mono doesn't support Managed DirectX, so it isn't suitable for games. End of story.

"PS3 doesn't support DirectX, so it isn't suitable for games. End of story."

Seriously though. Managed DirectX is not your only option. If you don't have your head buried in the sand you'd have heard of The Tao Framework and know it includes bindings to OpenGL, making Mono just as viable a platform for gaming as the PS3 - well, based on that assine metric of "viability" anyways.

Quote:Mono is nowhere near being a credible solution.

If the chatter in #gamedev is any indicator, it is. Maybe not a credible solution for AAA titles, but I was under the impression that D as a whole was in this same situation. Where's the console support? At least C# has XNA (not that it makes it a "crediable solution", I'm too uninformed to make a statement to that regard - but it'd seem to be at least further along in this regard).

I'll certainly give you that Mono isn't a credible solution if you were planning on depending on the windows specific bits of C# (System.Windows, certain PInvokes, etc). Then again, nothing is, so it's hard to count that against C# as if it were unique in that regard.

Nitage

1,107

October 04, 2006 05:41 AM

Tao isn't viable for comercial game developement as it doesn't support the XBox

Quote:
making Mono just as viable a platform for gaming as the PS3

Spending time and money porting to PS3 is commercially viable - the same can't be said for porting to Linux.

MaulingMonkey

1,729

October 04, 2006 06:05 AM

Quote:Original post by Nitage
Tao isn't viable for comercial game developement as it doesn't support the XBox

I don't like this circle ~_~. Subsitute "Tao" with "OpenGL" and you'll see you've used a false assumption premises - since, obviously, OpenGL is quite viable for comercial game development, what with being necessary to implement a game on the PS3 and all. Or did I not get a memo detailing the introduction of OpenGL support to the XBox?

To the degree that the Tao isn't well suited for comercial game development, it's due to having no console support whatsoever, leaving little it little advantage over Microsoft's .NET w/ Managed DirectX in terms of multi-platform support. Then again the same can be said of D's OpenGL bindings as well, which is about the entirety of my original point.

I'm not saying Tao + Mono = Prawnage (Because quite frankly the both C# and D fail miseribly when compared to C++ in terms of game platform support). I'm just saying, with MS's .NET, Tao, and Mono, C# arrives at about D's level of "portability". That is, D does not have an advantage here.

EDIT: with respect to game programming at least.

Nitage

1,107

October 04, 2006 06:25 AM

Quote:
I'm not saying Tao + Mono = Prawnage (Because quite frankly the both C# and D fail miseribly when compared to C++ in terms of game platform support). I'm just saying, with MS's .NET, Tao, and Mono, C# arrives at about D's level of "portability". That is, D does not have an advantage here.

I'm not arguing with your conclusion, only your and Promit's opinion that Mono is a reasonable platform for game developement.

Quote:
I don't like this circle ~_~. Subsitute "Tao" with "OpenGL" and you'll see you've used a false assumption - since, obviously, OpenGL is quite viable for comercial game development, what with being necessary to implement a game on the PS3 and all. Or did I not get a memo detailing the introduction of OpenGL support to the XBox?

Ok then:
Tao isn't viable for comercial game development as it doesn't support the XBox, PS3 or Wii.

The only viable platform supported is Windows - so why not just use DirectX and make the XBox orders or magnitude easier?

Quote:
OpenGL is quite viable for comercial game development, what with being necessary to implement a game on the PS3 and all.

There's the thing. OpenGL is viable because the PS3 is a commerically viable gaming platform. Linux isn't a commerically viable gaming platform so Tao isn't viable.

MaulingMonkey

1,729

October 04, 2006 07:06 AM

Quote:Original post by Nitage
Quote:
I'm not saying Tao + Mono = Prawnage (Because quite frankly the both C# and D fail miseribly when compared to C++ in terms of game platform support). I'm just saying, with MS's .NET, Tao, and Mono, C# arrives at about D's level of "portability". That is, D does not have an advantage here.

I'm not arguing with your conclusion, only your and Promit's opinion that Mono is a reasonable platform for game developement.

It's quite a reasonable platform for prototypes, game concept demos, and non-AAA titles, I believe. In all of these scenarios, lack of console support is hardly fatal. The best solution? Maybe. I'm not familiar with DirectX at all, for example, so using Tao gives me the small benifit of not being forced to get up to speed on another API just yet.

Certainly, if you're unfamiliar with OpenGL or familiar with DirectX, sticking to Microsoft's stuff is probably going to work out better, and the console support is an added bonus (at least in the "to be a commercial title" area) that outweighs those of Tao.

Quote:Ok then:
Tao isn't viable for comercial game development as it doesn't support the XBox, PS3 or Wii.

Circle circle circle... s/Tao/Winsock2/ => Counterexample.

By the time you hack that statement to include Winsock by naming the major relevant platform it's used on (Windows), the Tao is supported on that list of platform alternatives, even if it isn't the the optimal solution (in most cases) due to there being a generally better alternative.

snk_kid

1,312

October 04, 2006 10:20 AM

Quote:Original post by DeadXorAlive
Especially the people that I think know what they are talking about, such as Sneftel, Promit and snk_kid.

Don't listen to me i'm just crazy [grin], seriously though I'm not that crazy about C# as some maybe. Man some of you guys just don't know what your missing with some of the non mass-majority languages out there, the more languages you try the more painful (and annoying) using mass-majority languages gets.

[Edited by - snk_kid on October 4, 2006 10:20:44 AM]

Promit

13,404

October 04, 2006 10:36 AM

Quote:Original post by Promit
Quote:As for me, I wouldn't use C# for the simple reason that it attaches me at the hip to one platform. What if you write the next big game hit in C#, and want to move it to the new Nintendo/Sony Gee-Whiz game box which has no .net on it?
That's legitimate. [...] Now don't get me wrong, the above story applies almost verbatim to C#, just with Mono instead of GDC. That's exactly why professional development is is not using C#; being locked out of consoles is not acceptable. However, D doesn't really have an advantage in this area, nor does Java or anything other than the native language which the manufacturer is supporting -- which is always C++.

You'd think people would at least read the things I write. But no, instead I'm assigned the opinions people think I'm supposed to have. I never even implied C# was suitable for professional game development. No languages other than C or C++ are, and there's no indication that their momentum will run out any time soon. (What I did imply is that as far as performance goes, C# is comfortably fast enough for professional game development.)

Oh, and Nitage -- everything you've said so far is completely illogical. By your reasoning, if I use DirectX I'm screwed when I need to ship for PS3, which is obviously bogus. C# goes nowhere on the consoles, but it has nothing to do with Tao and everything to do with the lack of a runtime.

SlimDX | Ventspace Blog | Twitter | Diverse teams make better games. I am currently hiring capable C++ engine developers in Baltimore, MD.

Nitage

1,107

October 04, 2006 10:47 AM

My entire point was that if you are looking for a Game library to use with C# you have 2 choices:

Tao, which supports only one commercially viable platform.
Managed Direct X, which supports two.

So - Mono, which only supports Tao, is unsuitable for commercial game programming.

How can I be clearer?

daerid

354

October 04, 2006 11:03 AM

What 2 platforms does Managed DirectX support? PC and XBOX? By that logic,
Tao can support 2 then: PS3 and PC.

daerid@gmail.com

What do you think of the D language?

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