D - D and game programming
- Christian Schüler (32/32) May 30 2002 The criticism of Walter on C++ is just about right. The conclusions draw...
- andy (7/22) May 30 2002 Personally I think allowing control of the garbage collector would
The criticism of Walter on C++ is just about right. The conclusions drawn
from the lackings of C++ and their implementation in D is also mostly right.
Now the topic of this thread is "D and Game Programming". When D is a mature
language, I would love to use it for large scale game projects. But my needs
are not completely met with D as it is today:
(1) D would need the ability to create an operator overloaded vector and
matrix class (besides others) that allows the creation of uninitialized (!)
temporary objects, and also allows objects on the stack.
(2) D would need the ability to give a timeout to the garbage collector.
Ad (1):
Well this is really a convenience issue as one can certainly do without any
vector or matrix "class". What I have demanded is almost there. D has
structs that can be allocated on the stack as temporary objects and that are
not initialized if I do not explicitly say so (am I right?). What's missing
is the operator overloading that makes the code soooo more readable (which
is in discussion anyway, right?). Besides, why is it important that I can
have uninitialized vectors on the stack? Well, vectors arise in legions as
intermediate results in calculations. I don't want them to be allocated on
the heap, and I don't want them to be initialized when they are filled with
content right away. Also, I want to have uninitialized arrays of vectors for
geometry transformation and similar stuff.
Ad (2):
I agree that garbage collection is not evil in itself. But the prospect of
having the garbage collector put in a break at unpredictable times scares me
and certainly would lower the entertainment value of the software :-) But
the garbage collector doesn't need to make a *perfect* collection run each
time. It only needs to make sure that the memory isn't leaking on average.
So I would like to assign a variable portion of the frame time to the
garbage collector, and have a feedback mechanism to get to know if I must
assign more time to the garbage collector to prevent a runaway condition.
This way, heavy garbage collection activity may manifest itself in a dropped
frame rate, but not in an arbitrary pause.
May 30 2002
Ad (2): I agree that garbage collection is not evil in itself. But the prospect of having the garbage collector put in a break at unpredictable times scares me and certainly would lower the entertainment value of the software :-) But the garbage collector doesn't need to make a *perfect* collection run each time. It only needs to make sure that the memory isn't leaking on average. So I would like to assign a variable portion of the frame time to the garbage collector, and have a feedback mechanism to get to know if I must assign more time to the garbage collector to prevent a runaway condition. This way, heavy garbage collection activity may manifest itself in a dropped frame rate, but not in an arbitrary pause.Personally I think allowing control of the garbage collector would enhance D's use in a few places. Providing timeout + a way to take manual control of when the garbage collector runs would provide advantages over existing garbage collected languages. This should *not* be the default and should be used sparingly. I can say this should be rather difficult to make happen. -Andy
May 30 2002
"andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF6D96C.6040607 apache.org...Personally I think allowing control of the garbage collector would enhance D's use in a few places. Providing timeout + a way to take manual control of when the garbage collector runs would provide advantages over existing garbage collected languages. This should *not* be the default and should be used sparingly. I can say this should be rather difficult to make happen.It's already there. You can manually run it, or disable/enable it. Of course, if you run out of memory when it is disabled, it will throw an exception.
May 30 2002
When the garbage collector is off does it still track memory allocations? In some situations this could be a "Turn Off". But I'm probably talking out of "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:ad6nfq$1445$1 digitaldaemon.com..."andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF6D96C.6040607 apache.org...Personally I think allowing control of the garbage collector would enhance D's use in a few places. Providing timeout + a way to take manual control of when the garbage collector runs would provide advantages over existing garbage collected languages. This should *not* be the default and should be used sparingly. I can say this should be rather difficult to make happen.It's already there. You can manually run it, or disable/enable it. Of course, if you run out of memory when it is disabled, it will throw an exception.
May 30 2002
"Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> "anderson" <anderson firestar.com.au> wrote in message news:ad6shf$19n3$1 digitaldaemon.com...When the garbage collector is off does it still track memory allocations?Insome situations this could be a "Turn Off". But I'm probably talking outofWhat do you mean? If you mean scan, no, it doesn't. The mark & sweep happens only during an actual collection.
May 30 2002
Walter wrote:"andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF6D96C.6040607 apache.org...Can I turn it back on though?Personally I think allowing control of the garbage collector would enhance D's use in a few places. Providing timeout + a way to take manual control of when the garbage collector runs would provide advantages over existing garbage collected languages. This should *not* be the default and should be used sparingly. I can say this should be rather difficult to make happen.It's already there. You can manually run it, or disable/enable it. Of course, if you run out of memory when it is disabled, it will throw an exception.
May 30 2002
"andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF7099F.8080302 apache.org...Walter wrote:Of course: gc.enable();"andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF6D96C.6040607 apache.org...Can I turn it back on though?Personally I think allowing control of the garbage collector would enhance D's use in a few places. Providing timeout + a way to take manual control of when the garbage collector runs would provide advantages over existing garbage collected languages. This should *not* be the default and should be used sparingly. I can say this should be rather difficult to make happen.It's already there. You can manually run it, or disable/enable it. Of course, if you run out of memory when it is disabled, it will throw an exception.
May 30 2002
Of course:
gc.enable();
Right what I'm saying is a middle ground should be reached. Meaning
where I turn garbage collection off, then turn it on and have everything
that would have been garbage collected had it been on, collected. Is
that possible?
-Andy
May 31 2002
"andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF7A6CB.4000305 apache.org...That's how it works.Of course: gc.enable();Right what I'm saying is a middle ground should be reached. Meaning where I turn garbage collection off, then turn it on and have everything that would have been garbage collected had it been on, collected. Is that possible?
May 31 2002
Walter wrote:"andy" <acoliver apache.org> wrote in message news:3CF7A6CB.4000305 apache.org...Then that happens to be awesome. Thanks.That's how it works.Of course: gc.enable();Right what I'm saying is a middle ground should be reached. Meaning where I turn garbage collection off, then turn it on and have everything that would have been garbage collected had it been on, collected. Is that possible?
May 31 2002