If C++ is so bad, what should game developers use?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6600577

by abddlt • 13 years ago

10 21 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For example, is C# really a good choice when developing on Mac or Linux? C is too low-level.

conductor2• 13 years ago

is C# really a good choice when developing on Mac or Linux

No, not for game development.

And who is saying that C++ is so bad? It is a really powerful language with lots of libraries. If you already know C++ then I think it is a natural choice to use it for game development.

abddlt• 13 years ago

Why is it not good particularly for gamedev?

conductor2• 13 years ago

C++ compiles into a fast and optimized native code while C# compiles into byte-code then being interpreted - so the programs can't be as fast as the native programs. And the GC (Garbage Collection) also slows the things down.

mscottmcbee• 13 years ago

It depends on the kind of game you're making, but C# is a less ideal language because of garbage collection. Fighting GC pauses are no fun when you're trying to make a real-time game.

C++ is largely used because of speed, memory control, and momentum with tools, libraries and experience.

fuj• 13 years ago

Who said C++ is bad?

Locke16892• 13 years ago

I don't think there's a good answer to this right now.[1]

Many games have fairly strict FPS/real time requirements, so any type of GC can get in the way more than it can help.

Once you restrict yourself to non-GC languages, your options are pretty limited. I would choose C++ for the library and platform support, personally.

[1] I'm assuming you want a mainstream language, not some experimental typed language with region memory inference or similar esoteric solutions.

saejox• 13 years ago

C++ is not bad. Code backend in c++ and use a scripting library for your game logic.

jacobquick• 13 years ago

At this point there isn't one language for game devs. Even companies that strictly develop for PC tend to do their engine in C++ and then extend the ide with a scripting language like lua or python. Civilization 4 is a great example of it because they put the python api out as the user-moddable part of the game and it spawned this huge community. Other platforms like android (with its giant installed base) are basically java. So C++ isn't really the only answer to begin with.

Based on what I've been messing around with lately I'd look at go for maybe being a good complement or replacement for C++. Most of the time I'm making something with two major loops: game logic and rendering. Because of the way go interacts with C++ it's not hard to do the game logic in go, where I get massive benefit from "free" concurrency and pretty nice execution speed and then render in C++ where you can get back down to pointer arithmetic if you have to. This is outside of supporting any kind of scripting api/ide which I typically don't deal with but just for familiarity's sake and expecting others to use it later I would probably do in python.

bl0cky• 13 years ago

When dealing with games you will most likely want great responsiveness and performance. to trigger both of these you will want to go to the lowest possible level, this can give absolute control over what happens in your game- (mostly for the graphics and the logic engine - A.Is and such). you will also probably want better control over the memory usage, which (mostly) can be just easier in low level which c / c++ offers.

frankohn• 13 years ago

I've got the impression that the D programming language is gaining some popularity for game programming but I'm not really sure about that.

jccooper• 13 years ago

C++ isn't bad. It's just ugly. If you can deal with the ugly, it's the usual way to do it and it'll work. If you have high performance demands, well, C++ will work if anything will. Not to say other langs won't handle it, but there's not a whole lot of exemplars in anything else. You clearly can write games in Java or C# or Python, but you might think twice before trying to do the modern equivalent of Quake in one of those. If you did, you'd be trailblazing.

Engine in C/C++ and logic/controls in Python (or Lua) seems to be a common architecture. Lets you have machine speed at the core and human speed elsewhere. Creates an easy way to do a 3rd party scripting interface while you're at it. (If you think performance demands won't be high, you could just write the whole thing in Python and optimize the most-used parts out to C after profiling.)

I think Go is interesting for games, given modern CPU architecture. It could potentially rock the socks off in a game engine, but it's not been done yet. A commercial game developer would have to be pretty daring to try; an open source game would be safer.

zachlatta• 13 years ago

A few of the larger studios have experimented with using Go in place of Python for the frontend. Unfortunately I think they're missing the point. As you said, Go would make an incredible game engine. Since it's so idiomatic, it could also potentially be used for the frontend, allowing developers to use the same language throughout the full-stack.

The biggest barrier for most studios is the current investment in C++. The majority of engines and most associated libraries are written in C++. Regarding the libaries, it's possible to write C wrappers around the C++ APIs and then access them through cgo, but the developer time required likely isn't worth it.

I'm hoping that a smaller studio will create some proof-of-concept, but we'll see. There was an interesting kickstarter for a game written in Go that ultimately failed, giving the language quite a bit of bad press in the community (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2066438441/haunts-the-ma...).

bendmorris• 13 years ago

Haxe (http://haxe.org/) is a great language, and it compiles to C++ and flash, among other targets.

asmman1• 13 years ago

C++ is not so bad, not at all. You could to use it on game development; but I recommend you look at D language someday (not so far away)... answering the second question, they aren't good canditates to such a job.

chris_va• 13 years ago

What kind of game? How many developers?

Like others have said, your best bet is to probably build your framework in C++, and use a scripting language (e.g. python) for the high level game dynamics. I see no reason to use C. C# will probably get you fighting with mono. Java may have issues if you have high graphics requirements (you really don't want to GC pause for 50ms).

informatimago• 13 years ago

Why, Common Lisp of course! cf. Naughty Dog. irc://irc.freenode.org/#lispgames http://lispgames.org/

ddp• 13 years ago

John Camack has some interesting things to say on this, http://functionaltalks.org/2013/08/26/john-carmack-thoughts-... and http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1g1mvx/john_carmack... .

adultSwim• 13 years ago

ATS

FellowTraveler• 13 years ago

The best language is D.

D is link-compatible with C, and it allows you to go as low-level as you wish.

Yet D also supports all the latest/greatest language features, and can be used to write high-level script-style code.

D is clean, simple, and is a high-productivity language.

D is what C++ should have been, and eliminates the complexities and problems of C++, without detracting from its expressiveness.

There is no better choice than D.

If C++ is so bad, what should game developers use?

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