Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: gil@snsys.com (Gil Jaysmith) Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.freetalk Subject: Re: object-oriented support? Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:15:11 GMT Organization: SN Systems Lines: 62 Message-ID: <5r82ds$5na49@chuka.playstation.co.uk> References: <33b69d9c.138132316@news.scea.sony.com> <5p81kr$fv57@chuka.playstation.co.uk> <33D702CE.22A9@hubcap.clemson.edu> <5r7c25$5na47@chuka.playstation.co.uk> <33D77A4E.3BDB@hubcap.clemson.edu> Reply-To: gil@snsys.com NNTP-Posting-Host: gil.snsys.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 "Michael C. Lee, Jr." wrote: >Don't trust me, take a look at the number of times a temporary object is >created for a small task. You will be very surprised I'm sure. Don't worry, squire, I'm not trusting you - it's just, you're wrong... This isn't intended as an insulting comment, but it happens to be true. I take the GNU compilers apart as part of my job; SN Systems is the company which makes the professional PSX and N64 development kits and has a history stretching back to cross-development on the Atari ST and Amiga, and I handle compiler support and compilation tool development. I *do* see PlayStation games in C++, and they are *not visibly slower* (the only criterion which matters in gameswriting) than those in C... >Bad for games. Bad. True, compiler technology is getting better, but if >that were a truism, assembly would not still be as prevelant in games >(and I HATE ASSEMBLY). ... and I don't see *any* games written in assembler, except for the occasional stunningly important fast-throughput routine which can exploit some MIPS instruction the compiler doesn't want to generate. >Incidentally, what did your school teach you about Smalltalk? Or oop >design? Or compiler technology and design? As for LISP, what does that >have to do with anything. They can write Crash Bandicoot in interpreted >REXX for all I care. I'm just trying to help. The questions are irrelevant but here are the answers: Smalltalk - nothing. OOP design - quite a bit. Six years as a business programmer may have helped too. Compiler technology and design - quite a bit, to the extent that I wrote parsers and code generators. (The first two of those are in fact so irrelevant that I'd love to know why you asked them...) As for what LISP has to do with it - the point is that LISP is not noted for being a fast or attractive language or a common choice for games programmers, but someone managed to make it perform satisfactorily, and to prove that something is possible you only need one instance. So LISP is, in my opinion, now proven as a viable choice for gameswriting - if not necessarily the preferable choice. If you don't believe C++ has an important and growingly popular place in gameswriting, well, that's your decision, and I wouldn't think to tell you you were wrong to have your own opinion. But I disagree 100% with the body of that opinion, and plenty of companies (see the message from Nick in another subthread) concur and have enough confidence in C++ to use it at an industrial-strength level. I hope you think again about your entrenched position, because the programming world needs fewer people in the new generation who are addicted to C and believe there will never be a substitute. <\opinion> Gil Jaysmith SN Systems Software Ltd, makers of Psy-Q... http://www.snsys.com Disclaimer: What I say when I post here represents me, not my employers.