[Haskell-cafe] Re: Tim Sweeney (the gamer)

[Sebastian Sylvan]

On Jan 10, 2008 12:41 PM, Achim Schneider <barsoap at web.de> wrote:
> "Sebastian Sylvan" <sebastian.sylvan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > For those who don't know him, Tim Sweeney is the main programmer
> > > > behind Epic Games's popular Unreal Engine. When he talks, many
> > > > game developers will listen.
> > > >
> > > We will dream, most likely.
> > >
> > > > Perhaps more importantly, anything he does
> > > > will affect a large number of game developers.
> > > >
> > > Dreaming of pointy-haired bosses listening to him, that is.
> > >
> >
> > I think he meant in the sense that the unreal engine has *lots* of
> > licensees. If UnrealScript 4 is a Haskell-like language with lenient
> > evaluation and limited dependent typing, etc., then that's what a
> > large number of game developers will use in their day-to-day work.
> >
> Er, yes. Some gameplay programmers will, and also some level designers,
> seen 3d-wise, that most likely means gfx guys, who would generally
> rather work with some warm, fuzzy, graphical switch->event thingy. The
> rest is still afaict left with C++ which gets linked into the engine.

I would assume that if they did go this route of developing their own
language, they would probably put a much larger part of the code-base
in this new language, but this is all hypothetical.

>
> You make less bugs with that language? Fucking learn to write C++!

Excuse me?

>
> I don't think you would get even close to 1000 people who use
> UnrealScript to earn their living.
>

You don't need more than that. All you need to do is prove that it
works, and other similar languages will have an easier time. If you
get a couple of AAA titles using a purely functional language for >50%
of the code, then the resistance towards switching languages will
likely diminish.

-- 
Sebastian Sylvan
+44(0)7857-300802
UIN: 44640862