Jonathan Blow working on a games programming lang

Monkey Archive Forums/Digital Discussion/Jonathan Blow working on a games programming lang

Shinkiro1

(Posted 2014) [#1]

If you don't know J. Blow made Braid (and now working on The Witness).
He started to create a programming language specifically for games around 2-3 months ago.

This is the initial video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9VCN6UkyQ
Demos and more on his YT channel.

Thought you might find this interesting.

Sammy

(Posted 2014) [#2]

Thanks for the link, I've got to say I agree a lot with what he said. It will be interesting to see the final language, something to look forward too I believe.

FelipeA

(Posted 2014) [#3]

I really like the part of making the build process in the same language and program (shown in the last video). Some times I hate to depend on another tool (Makefiles, batch script or IDEs) to build a project and it's nice to see a unified process in this case.
I don't like the ^ for dereferencing a pointer, mostly because I commonly use that as XOR. I have no problem with using * but I do get that it could get a bit confusing so I wouldn't mind using another character.
A friend told me, and I agree, that it's funny how he started the idea as a hobby and a simple thing, and in the first demo he shows a "full" compiler doing so many stuff.

DruggedBunny

(Posted 2014) [#4]

I watched quite a bit of parts 1 and 3. He has a reputation as a total [arm]hole, but he actually seems alright and does make a lot of sense.

Also, want Defer now! Rough translation to Monkey/Blitz:

Function ReadPrefsFile ()

    file = ReadFile (xyz)
    Defer If file Then CloseFile file

    ' Read file contents...

    ' Do other stuff...

    ' File gets closed by Defer before exiting scope!

End

More here (22:45):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTqZNujQOlA&feature=player_detailpage#t=1365

Shinkiro1

(Posted 2014) [#5]

@ilovepixel
I also don't like his syntax for pointers, seems a bit weird.
And yeah, it's funny how the first video is more like a rant, a few weeks later he already has a working compiler.

@DruggedBunny
Yes. Defer would be awesome! Although I think it's not critical in monkey because of the GC.

And I never understood why he has that reputation. His views are actually quite consistent and as you say make sense. Probably a presentational thing.

Supertino

(Posted 2015) [#6]

Oh now this will kill a hour or two in work, thanks though I guess lots of this will go WAY over my head.