Comments on: The RPS Electronic Wireless Show Episode 19

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:08:38 +0000

Hmm, interesting. I was under the impression that the point of (well-written) OO was to enable code to be more maintainable, so that you could, say, replace one interface with another and just change a thin intermediary layer of the code. I guess I’ve only heard the pro side, really (aside from the fact that OO is much harder to do well than straight-up functional programming). That, and polymorphism in C++ is a bit shabby, what with inheritance and all.

Also, my only real experience of big projects are:
1) An organically-growing piece of commercial code that has probably abandoned the purist interpretation of OO through being changed by different people (including me) and
2) Functional Fortran written by academics who like what they know and don’t really care for learning new programming philosophies (which is an understandable position, as learning new techniques on-the-fly could undermine a project or make it take longer)

By: jalf

jalf — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:13:31 +0000

@Gap Gen:
Games are rarely written from scratch. Pretty much any AAA game is based on last year’s game’s code. Even when a company decides to write a “new engine”, they still port over tons of the old code. Of course, the code is still written *as if* it would never be needed again. But that doesn’t stop it from being reused. ;)

As for future-proofing, how would that work? What does “the” interface for an engine look like? Every game engine is different, has different capabilities and responsibilities, and requires different things from the user code. You can’t just abstract away 80% of your game and pretend that it can be substituted for 80% of any other game.
The entire point in switching to another engine is that it is different. There would be nothing gained in switching to one that did exactly the same things in the same ways.

(Apart from that, there’s nothing like a good dose of OO to really tie *all* of your code into a big knot where *nothing* can be ripped out and replaced in less than 500 lines of code. But that’s a rant for another day, and another site)

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:46:09 +0000

As for copying code into modern engines, I really should take a look at some code that has been released for older games. I’ve been generally taught that OO and abstraction and so on are good practices, but given that games are often rewritten from scratch, I’d guess that some are a bit lazier as they don’t need to be future-proofed. If the code was done with the best possible practice, then ripping out the interface and installing a new engine should be relatively easy, without needing to really touch the core code.

By: graham

graham — Mon, 25 May 2009 01:01:29 +0000

Baseball? isnt that like that game girls and children play, also called Rounders?
I think RPS should talk about manly sports like badger baiting, white collar boxing and thumb wars.

By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:54:14 +0000

Thanks for doing these, guys, you’re one of the few genuinely entertaining (and occasionally informative) podcasts around. Keep it up!

Oh and yes, your American listener(s?) do love you for the baseball chat, if for no other reason than that it was so charmingly unexpected.

By: graham

graham — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:45:14 +0000

Great cast chaps.
I got a ‘U’ for Philosophy in Religion and an N for sociology at A-Level. 13 years later I manage a community mental health team. A-levels are overrated the emphasis should be on what you do in the rest of your life.
Also I burn out of Civ games really quickly. Often I will find a cheat to get money then the game always loses its appeal. You would have thought I would have learned not to cheat at Civ but with A-Level grades like mine what to do expect.
Bring on E3 sounds like some PC gaming surprises. My bets are on Spore:-the beginning (a prequel) and a duke Nukem RTS.

By: Rabbitsoup

Rabbitsoup — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:01:34 +0000

On the whole angry free update thing I am happy about getting new stuff for free, but I did buy with an expectation of that there would be more stuff released. I am only angry about the fps drops they keep managing to pop in the game.

also is it worth playing an old thief?

By: Cian

Cian — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:19:03 +0000

I play Civ in the same style as John’s father. Building an empire is so much more satisfying than the routine of running one. Disliking Civ is clearly inappropriate and offensive to PC gamers.

By: Henrik J

Henrik J — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:07:51 +0000

Is it wrong of me that i only listen to the RPS podcast when Jim and John are doing it?

By: Theoban

Theoban — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:02:06 +0000

In Ultima Underworld, the numbers 1 and 3 allow you to look up and down. 2 recentres your view.

By: DigitalSignalX

DigitalSignalX — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:47:17 +0000

950 KB/s from your new host, sweet. – thank them for us!

By: Kadayi

Kadayi — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:32:53 +0000

There definitely does need to be some form of company that basically remakes classic old games such as Deus Ex but with better graphics etc, etc. One can’t help but ponder wistfully the Alternative universe the undoubtedly exists where such a company exists and wishing the ability to step though (Ala TV show Fringe) to purchase a few choice titles ;)

Also I’m not sure what scares me more…the undead in Thief, or the thought if I actually click play on that CiV IV Icon on my desktop I might lose the next 5 years of my life…