From: Kero <kero@...>
Date: 2004-07-17T02:12:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Writing games in Ruby?

> I mean, is there any language specific reason why Ruby couldn't be
> used for writing games the way Python is (ie. we're not talking 3D
> action games, but smaller strategy and arcade games)? Is the Ruby
> garbage collector bad/slow, is the interpreter much slower or is
> something else wrong? Or is it simply a question of time until someone
> writes a multimedia plugin to handle sprites, buffered screens, audio
> and the like?

No, Ruby rules :)

I don't think many other languages allow you to change the way the core
engine works, then requiring virtually no changes to the code that uses
it, like I did here:

   http://rvv.rubyforge.org/

where I added history to the fields of planets/ships themselves, while
still treating them as regular numbers (coerce() is the trick, and yes
there are other languages that have that).

Note: Ruby-Wise is a widget lib around Xlib written for various reasons,
but not for targeting games.

On a different track, succesful (3D) games often use a scripting language
to glue all their things together, while using ubersophisticated low-level
code for the rendering. Simply because the scripting language makes gluing
easier :)  There is absolutely nothing wrong with applying several
programming languages to one software project.

+--- Kero ----------------------- kero@chello@nl ---+
|  all the meaningless and empty words I spoke      |
|                      Promises -- The Cranberries  |
+--- M38c --- http://httpd.chello.nl/k.vangelder ---+