3 ms·

NetHack's source code is absolutely beautiful. It's probably the most well-kept, well-designed, well-structured and well-implemented K&R C program in history. A

by slondr 7y ago

NetHack's source code is absolutely beautiful. It's probably the most well-kept, well-designed, well-structured and well-implemented K&R C program in history. Although they are switching to ANSI syntax soon. It's even more amazing because NetHack is (1) a video game, where generally speaking code quality is sacrificed for efficiency, and (2) it has been developed by a constantly changing team of volunteers over the course of over thirty years, and there still isn't any spaghetti.

philsnow 7y ago
Nethack suffers somewhat because the era in which it was birthed required a lot of portability, so there is a ton of #ifdef-ery which can be difficult to reason about. #ifdefs are themselves spaghetti; windows.c [0a] and files.c [0b] have tons of platform-related ifdefs (but, mercifully, not too much nesting), hacklib.c [1] has some deep-ish ifdef nesting (though, again mercifully, well commented) Ok on re-reading some of this, I guess it was worse in my mind than it actually is. Nethack was the first large codebase I ever made any changes to and tried to understand, so maybe the relative enormity at the time made a negative impression. Check out the source for Brogue [2] for what I consider to be pretty readable game code. [0a] https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/windows.c https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/wind... [0b] https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/files.c https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/file... [1] https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/hacklib.c#L865-L895 https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/hack... [2] https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/ https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/
myth_drannon 7y ago
I bet they didn't have sprints and OKR like increasing the number of active users by 50% in one quarter. Nethack is a product of love to rogues and hobby software development.
mikekchar 7y ago
I have to agree with that. I once decided to hack in the "Drunken Master" after the Jackie Chan film. If you are a martial arts master, then every booze potion you drink increases your attack and your defence (thought you still walk around mostly randomly). If you drink too many (I forget how many it was), then you fall asleep. I also added a fortune cookie that said, "A boat floats in water, but sinks in it too". I think it took me a couple of hours to go from never having seen the code base before to completing the hack. Really lovely stuff. Unfortunately, I don't have the code any more, but if anyone wanted to add it, it's easy ;-)

by slondr 7y ago

philsnow 7y ago

Nethack suffers somewhat because the era in which it was birthed required a lot of portability, so there is a ton of #ifdef-ery which can be difficult to reason about. #ifdefs are themselves spaghetti; windows.c [0a] and files.c [0b] have tons of platform-related ifdefs (but, mercifully, not too much nesting), hacklib.c [1] has some deep-ish ifdef nesting (though, again mercifully, well commented) Ok on re-reading some of this, I guess it was worse in my mind than it actually is. Nethack was the first large codebase I ever made any changes to and tried to understand, so maybe the relative enormity at the time made a negative impression. Check out the source for Brogue [2] for what I consider to be pretty readable game code. [0a] https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/windows.c https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/wind... [0b] https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/files.c https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/file... [1] https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/hacklib.c#L865-L895 https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.6/src/hack... [2] https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/ https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/

myth_drannon 7y ago

I bet they didn't have sprints and OKR like increasing the number of active users by 50% in one quarter. Nethack is a product of love to rogues and hobby software development.

mikekchar 7y ago

I have to agree with that. I once decided to hack in the "Drunken Master" after the Jackie Chan film. If you are a martial arts master, then every booze potion you drink increases your attack and your defence (thought you still walk around mostly randomly). If you drink too many (I forget how many it was), then you fall asleep. I also added a fortune cookie that said, "A boat floats in water, but sinks in it too". I think it took me a couple of hours to go from never having seen the code base before to completing the hack. Really lovely stuff. Unfortunately, I don't have the code any more, but if anyone wanted to add it, it's easy ;-)