[ruby-talk:18872] Re: Ruby as opposed to Python?

Todd Gillespie wrote:
> Niklas Frykholm <[e-mail]> wrote:
> :>Games! You're going to write games in Perl. You like a challenge don't you.
> 
> : It's my understanding (but I'm not in the gaming industry, so I may
> : be wrong) that most games today are written in a two layer-architecture
> : with a C/C++ engine in the bottom that does all the heavy stuff and a
> : scripting layer on top that controls the plot.
> 
> Oh ghod, how I wish it were so.  The smarter groups in the industry do
> this, for instance id & Unreal takes this approach[...]

Sure, but those two are also creating complete game engines that they
license to other publishers and developers.  Those are projects that
demand lots of flexibility and have a significant maintenance stage.
But if you're making, say, a baseball game, general-purpose scripting
like UnrealScript isn't a major priority.

The most common role for scripting languages in games is to facilitate
lightweight programming -- design by scripting.  Only games with a very
general architecture tend to use scripting in the more powerful "glue
language" sort of way, because of the time it takes to design, implement
and maintain an appropriate scripting interface. But hey, if you've got
the time, it's a slick way to do things.

---
Zach Baker <[e-mail]>
Any game can be improved with the introduction of a rocket launcher.