Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Quite crappy headline (Score 5, Informative) 319

Metro is a UI on top of Windows 8.

WinRT is the new Windows 8 runtime, which will be accessible by C++, C# and any .Net language. The .Net standard libraries will be available for Windows 8 Desktop applications but not for Metro applications, which will be written targeting WinRT.

So, the summary is wrong because:
a) Metro is not a development framework
b) .Net-related skills remain central in Windows 8 even when targeting Metro

Comment Re:First of all, who the fuck are these guys... (Score 1) 295

Ok, not AI but physics and game logic run at 60 fps.

Still, js is not a viable platform for many (not all) games, and will never replace other traditional means of development. It will certainly gain lots of support, and it *may* kill some alternatives, but there are loads of shades of gray in this field...

Comment First of all, who the fuck are these guys... (Score 1) 295

...and why the fuck do their predictions matter in the least?

Secondly: javascript has nowhere near the performance needed for anything but games with simple mechanics. You simply cannot afford the overhead of js when dealing with thousands of entities with AI at 60 frames per second. Either stuttering or excessive battery draining will happen.

As always, variety is good, and it is obvious that HTML5/js will be a good fit for many games. Many others will still require *at least* flash, silverlight (silverlight 5 will integrate XNA and may work on OS X, very interesting for a game dev), or even C/C++.

The last question is why does a new technology always seems to imply that alternatives will automatically shrink? The world is not a zero sum game, and we constantly *expand* our horizons...

Comment Technology is useless... (Score 4, Interesting) 511

...when you keep teaching the same boring crap in the most boring way. Yes, even with laptops, iPads, projectors and all the bells and whistles.

Actually, I do know what I am talking about: I teach/research functional programming and game development, and guess what? I use the latter when teaching the former, to make it more entertaining. More than one student, after one such lesson, approached me to tell me that he was quite surprised to find that functional programming could actually be "fun" (pun intended).

The problem is that students are surprised when something is shown in a fun and entertaining fashion, and they accept it when stale notions are pushed down their throats. I'd start by fixing this...

Comment Re:Smart people know already... (Score 1) 616

Sims 3 used mono http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)

You are saying a bunch of crapload. Ignorance is less excusable if you are also aggressively pulling falsehood out of your ass.

The days when performance was extremely sensitive forcing you to stay close to the metal are over, and we live in a blessed day where a variety of tools can be used together. Gamedevs are among the last ones to make this transition *partially* away from C/C++ and this is a gargantuan step for a very technologically-conservative industry. Yes, C/C++ still has an important place in gamedev. No, you can (and will) use other languages as well in the final game. Designers do not program in C/C++, they never have and they never will, but you cannot hire a frigging dev to code for every designer you have; and so you use LUA, Python and C#.

And by the way, in C# you can easily use contiguous blocks of memory (arrays) where you do your own allocation, and you pass around value types that act as pointers and that nicely access the "custom heap" with appropriate properties. At that point the speed difference between C# and C++ becomes almost negligible (5%). So spare me your bullshit.

Asshole.

Comment Re:Platforms that limit which languages may be use (Score 1) 616

Yes, but still, "in general" applies here. In this case C# and F# are the best choices (I have used both for XBLIG games and they can be fast at runtime and cheap in terms of dev time).

In other cases/platforms you will have other best choices.

In game development, the idea is this:
If you have 20+ devs, 3 years of dev time and 5+ million dollars, then great, go with C++.
If you have 3 devs, 3 months of dev time and 5 dollars to buy snacks every other day, go with C#.

Slashdot Top Deals

HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib!

Working...