Jeff M. wrote:
> This doesn't belong in "Lisp sucks" or "C++ sucks". Nor is this a rant
> on either language, so let's not start any flame wars. However, as a
> professional, console game developer (that happens to love Lisp), I
> thought I'd post my feelings on this subject...
>
> http://www.retrobyte.org/essays.php
>
> I'm sure people will agree, disagree and agree to disagree. That's
> fine. But I'd like any [constructive] feedback on the essay.
Naughty Doc => Naughty Dog
Seemlessly => seamlessly
Upkept => isn't a word
The final sentence in your 'Conclusion' section is ungrammatical.
Your abstract doesn't mention your thesis, instead it discusses why you
felt compelled to write the essay.
We don't actually get your thesis until the conclusion: "Hopefully I've
shown that [Lisp] is just as good as C++, and that C++ is just as good
as Lisp [for games programming]."
Unfortunately, the reader isn't shown that the thesis is likely. You
mention a number of factors for and against each language, but without
data on the relative weightings of each, it is difficult to conclude
more than "there are advantages and disadvantages to each." More
concrete numbers, e.g. "As code and assets typically occupy 10% and 90%
of the storage medium respectively, a 25% increase in code size reduces
asset storage available by 2.8%" would help the reader weigh the
probability of your argument being correct.
That's the end of my comments on the form of the essay. As to the
argument itself, I think I must disagree.
It seems to me highly unlikely that two languages with such marked
differences in underlying philosophy and such different typical
developer use patterns would turn out to be so evenly matched in one
particular domain, viz the construction of state of the art video games.
It would certainly be difficult to create an experiment or to gather
numbers measuring the relative strengths of these languages in this
field. But difficulty marshalling resources for a definitively
persuasive argument should not tempt us to declare the contest a draw.
Thank you for the comments (and the spelling mistakes... no matter how
many proof reads are done, there's always one more to find).
I understand your request for numbers, but, to be honest, I don't
really have the time to try and pump out a mini-game for each, but a
co-worker and I have thought about doing it for a "show and tell"
argument. The difficulty in doing this is that (as you say) patterns
used for each -- even if they were the same end product -- would be
very different. Enough so, that perhaps a benchmark would be useless.
Then again, this may be exactly the kind of benchmark that is needed.
What I find most difficult to discuss in the essay are the differences
in programming styles, and how that would affect the final product.
Lisp programmers would (hopefully) take advantage of many things
available to him/her that a C++ programmer wouldn't. I wasn't
attempting to claim a draw between the two languages anywhere except
game-side, in terms of graphical performance. There is so much more to
game development other than this (tools, scripting, level design, the
list goes on), and that was a point I tried to stress. These are the
areas where one language will outperform another (but not necessarily
in all areas). Perhaps that didn't get stressed enough.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply.
Jeff M.