RE: New Interpreter

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at indiegamedesign dot com>]

From: Richard Hunt [mailto:0102806H@student.gla.ac.uk]
> From: "Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@indiegamedesign.com>
>
> >Finally, Python syntax is easy for novices to swallow.
> >Forth isn't; if ficl is Forth-like that's A Bad Thing for novices.
>
> Hey, I learnt Forth when I was 12! Well, I learnt how to use
> it as a calculator, anyway...

Hey, I learned PEEKs, POKEs, the Atari 800 memory map, and 6502 Assembly
Language Programming when I was 12.  That doesn't mean the stuff is
easy, it means I was bright.  One of the main selling points of Python
is you don't have to be that bright to pick up the basics of it.  If
someone can learn Visual Basic, they can learn Python.

> I agree that forth probably wouldn't be appropriate for
> xconq, if for no other reason than porting the existing game
> files would probably take a lot longer than porting to tcl.

As I attempt to actually understand the Xconq codebase, I'm realizing
there's all sorts of interop hell to pay no matter which way we go,
whether for game design or GUIs.  I will suggest some things once I've
got a better handle on the feasibility of them.  Many of the options
will depend on political will, i.e. will people actively develop things
in a new way, or will they insist on sticking with an old way?  It is
going to be difficult / impossible, for instance, to OO-ify Xconq if
people insist on producing new C code.

> Also, assuming this integration will be quite buggy to start
> with, I have found that forth programs (nothing big) were
> pretty hard to debug.

Well, that's a strike against forth.  But "integrating" things en masse
so that they are quite buggy is a strike against methodology.  We want a
migration path where the implement / test / debug cycle is incremental.
I don't see a point in writing bugs.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.