T w e n t y S i d e d

Whenever people get talking about the things you need in a game development language, we usually end up with a handful of features like manual memory management, pointers, low-level code, the lack of safety features like bounds-checking, and so on. One of the big items on this list is the ability to use external libraries.

Being able to use libraries is indeed a good thing. I certainly wouldn’t want to attempt to use C++ without access to a good set of libraries! At the same time, I think we often overlook the fact that importing and integrating external libraries is enormously expensive. A game developer will complain that they don’t want to have to roll their own sound library and someone will dismiss them saying, “Bah. There are lots of free sound libraries out there. Just pick one and start coding!”

While it’s true that there are free libraries all over the place, people are really bad at factoring in the cost of using them.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Programming Vexations Part 8: The Problem With Libraries”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Last week I talked about the compiler and what it takes to turn source code into a program. At the end I talked about the apparent problem where the compiler seems to be slowing down in proportion to Moore’s Law, creating a stalemate where faster processors don’t do much to reduce compile times. This naturally leads to the question:

So what is the compiler doing with all those CPU cycles?

There doesn’t seem to be an agreement on this. I can’t even find any proper research on the topic. All of the discussions take the form of repeated platitudes and received wisdom on Stack Overflow.  As far as I can tell, nobody has done the homework to compare the performance of C compilers in the mid-90s with the compilers we’re using todayIf I’m wrong and there is indeed research on the topic, then please drop a link in the comments!.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Programming Vexations Part 7: Where Does the Time Go?”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.