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> No programmer writes a physics engine to produce glitches, so if they magically appear, even though they aren't visible in the spec, the spec language is faul
by et1337 10y ago
> No programmer writes a physics engine to produce glitches, so if they magically appear, even though they aren't visible in the spec, the spec language is faulty.
I'm saying that popular physics engines generally have bulletproof, tried-and-tested code, and are even implemented in a very functional way on a conceptual level. Despite this, they exhibit glitches. The glitches don't appear magically out of the spec language, they are an inevitable result of the discrete nature of realtime physics simulations.
This is meant to be a counter-example to your assertion that bugs come from miscommunication between computers and humans. My argument is that more often than not, we communicate our ideas perfectly, but our ideas are flawed. In the case of physics engines, they are flawed by design in order to compromise accuracy for performance.
- runeks 10y ago> In the case of physics engines, they are flawed by > design in order to compromise accuracy for performance. This is an odd definition of "flaw" to me. I would call it a design choice, compromising accuracy over speed, which we're forced to do always, since we don't have infinite compute power. Would you call H.264 video and MP3 audio flawed by design because they prioritize bandwidth reduction over lossless reproduction? > The glitches don't appear magically out of the spec language, > they are an inevitable result of the discrete nature of > realtime physics simulations. You seem to be arguing both that glitches in physics engines are inevitable, and that they're a design choice (sacrificing precision over speed).