[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Development Strategies [Was Documentation, Usability and Development]

[Raimar Falke <hawk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 06:35:20PM -0500, Andrew Sutton wrote:
> > So, is it worthy to switch to a new development model with the current
> > code, or is this for Freeciv 2.0.
> 
> let the old version stay as it is... there's no sense changing things 
> drastically now.
> 
> > Since everyone else has commented about what language to use, I will too.
> > <snip>
> 
> i'm REALLY not a fan of java for performance critical applications. it's fine 
> for clients and web apps, but i just don't think a virtual machine can 
> guarantee the performance of a native application. 

> rewriting the server in java would mean that all would be developers
> would have to learn java and its subtelties in addition to the
> actual game.
> 
> i think c++ is probably the best choice above c. yes, c hackers will have to 
> learn c++, but since the syntax is similar, it shouldn't be too much of an 
> issue

IMHO for a c developer it is easier to learn Java then C++. Note than
IMHO C++ has many more pitfalls (missing GC, not save against
corrupted pointers, ...) than Java. Also note that the biggest problem
for a c programmer who switches to C++ or Java isn't the language
syntax but the new possibilities/(oo-)paradigm. Remember you can
continue to code in C even if the compiler is called g++. This is to
some lesser degree also true for Java. But for example you are forced
in Java to know what an exception is if you want to make any IO.

> , and advanced developers can always answer questions about code. it 
> also builds to native binaries and can take full advantage of 

> a) other c++ toolkits b) the stl c) dynamically loaded libraries.

A big advantage of Java is that is comes with a good set of ready to
use classes. You don't need this much external
classes/class-libraries. Well REs aren't included.

> if there were a *very* good reason to rewrite the server in java, some other 
> vm language (c#), or an uncommon programming language (smalltack, ocamel, 
> ada, fortran, basic, etc), than it would we would have valid considerations. 
> besides... you can write c++ to be very, very portable - without too much 
> effort.

        Raimar

-- 
 email: rf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 "How about the new language C&? No, that's not 'c ampersand', 'c reference', 
  'reference to c' or 'c and'. It's pronounced 'campersand', to confuse the 
  hell out of people who are unfamiliar with it, and it will, of course, 
  have no pointers."
    -- Xazziri in comp.lang.c++ about C#