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Geek Culture / What's more important Language or Engine ?

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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 6th Jul 2006 23:04 Edited at: 12th Aug 2010 16:11
Just a quick question.

As game developers, what's the most important aspect of your chosen game development tool(s) ?

A) The structural strength of your chosen language
B) The strength of gfx/sound engine
C) Both A +B.

Alquerian
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Posted: 6th Jul 2006 23:14
C ... Definately.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle
Jeku
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Posted: 6th Jul 2006 23:18
I can see pros and cons of having either A xor B, so I would say C definitely. Most of my language purchases have been based on both, not just one.


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
Oddmind
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 01:49
indeed, theres so many one can only narrow it down based on more than one aspect.

formerly KrazyJimmy

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hyrichter
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 02:45
Both are very important, so my choice goes to C.

Good performance is better than a good excuse.
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Van B
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 09:49
B.

Thing is that most coders are a bit arrogant about it - we can forgive any amount of strangeness in the code structure, because of course we can learn it and make it work for us.

Discrepencies in what the engine could do are a lot more important, like if someone made a BASIC language that could'nt read or write bytes to a file, then that would be a gaping hole in functionality, if those commands are there, then they can be as complex as they like - just as long as the functionality is there for us to get frustrated at.

If someone came to you and said, choose a function and I'll add it to your language of choice, but you must also refer to bitmap images as pitchurs everywhere in your code - pitchurs, mitbaps, freights, hound styles, and tearrain it is then...

...just gimme my timer interrupts!.

Aegrescit medendo
BatVink
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 10:09
It's a subjective question. I code for a living, so the engine is most important. Like Van B says, you can learn any language, but you can't change the engine.



IanM
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 15:27
It depends on the flexibility of the language. If I can implement B using a third-party library because the language is capable then I won't worry too much about it.

I want a language that is simple to use, tells me when I'm doing something wrong, but still allows me to be boss. Does that match what you mean by A? If it does, then I choose A.

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the_winch
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 15:30
I'd say the engine isn't as important as long as it does what you want to do. The reason being if you have a good language and poor engine you only have to touch the engine once when writing a wrapper.
With a poor language you have to deal with its deficiencies every time you write some code.

By way of demonstration, he emitted a batlike squeak that was indeed bothersome.
Kevin Picone
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Posted: 8th Jul 2006 19:38 Edited at: 12th Aug 2010 16:14
Cheers All.

That's pretty much the response i was anticipating, in particular given the respondents here.

Three Score
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 07:03
I say B. You can write a translator to convert to a more effiecent/easier coding system(very rarely done however aside from scripting) but if the engine is poor then well its just stupid
think about if dbp, a very easy language, but if it had a horrible engine that although supports dlls, does nothing to help you do stuff(no globstruct and had to somehow write your own) then really how well can you improve the engine

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MikeS
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 19:29
I have to say C. The language and engine need to have a balance. Having a great 3D engine is going to be useless if the language doesn't support features or makes those features hard to use. So in a way, that makes the language a little more important then the engine. Most the times, languages have support to use third party engines. I mean, we've even seen users code their own OpenGL engines for Darkbasic. Not that they're particularly useful, but it still shows that if you have a good language you're not necessarily relient on the 3D engine stuck with it. So I say option C, leaning more towards language structure being more important.



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
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TKF15H
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 20:45
Both are important, but the language is more. I think DBP has a great engine under the hood, but I feel the language does not give me the flexibility to make a nicely organized and large project. Well, at least not as easily as C++ does.

Three Score
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 00:48
lol this is so mixed its like asking which is better
pie or ummmmm some other kindof pie

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 02:05
pie?

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
TKF15H
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 04:21
I think pie is a less controvercial topic. So long as it's not shrimp pie, it PWNZ!

Saikoro
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 04:34
How about fish pie?


Really, I think B is more important so long as the language is at least moderately flexible/tweakable to take advantage of the graphics engine. I think the really important thing is that both the engine and language be in balance with each other.


TKF15H
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 05:15 Edited at: 10th Jul 2006 05:15
Fish pie ain't bad actually, but, living underwater means that most of the meat you eat is fish, so it gets boring after a while. I want beaf. I want chicken. I WANT KITTEN.

Thoth Onegan
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 05:25
You should try kitten huffing

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Kitten_Huffing

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<MrTus> coding
<SomeMSNGal> isnt that illegal
TKF15H
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 06:04
While the idea sounds awesome, I think it may not have any effect on me (or have a different one) due to my lack of lungs. Maybe I can make a tea out of them or something? Kitten Brownies?

Virtual X
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Posted: 10th Jul 2006 13:51
C for me!

the language has to be logical and the engine has to be a gud'en! if anyone has used Python your know what I mean, the engine is quite good but the language structure is aweful IMHO

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