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Rebooting a 15 year-old game written in D – Part 1 Compiling

106 points by arunc 6y ago

dpc_pw 6y ago
I used to play this game! I loved the aesthetics and it was a great showcase for D being suitable for games. For impatient, the game is now playable in the browser here: https://torustrooper.xyz/ https://torustrooper.xyz/
- echelon 6y ago
  This is a lot of fun! Fast paced, well put together. I don't play many shoot-em-ups, but it feels like F-Zero meets Galaga.
david2ndaccount 6y ago
I’ve been getting into D lately and the language is great. The meta programming is top-class and it’s been very easy to replace my C code file by file with much nicer D code. Instead of writing out descriptors of structs for serialization purposes by hand I’ve been able to replace them with a template that introspects the data members of the struct directly.
echelon 6y ago
Maybe WalterBright will comment. I'd like to see his thoughts on this. :)
- swuecho 6y ago
  Having someone who wrote the compiler to answer the question is very lucky, especially when port the code to new version.
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    He does come on HN and posts in comments quite often when D is brought up so it wouldn't be too unlikely to see, also he's coded his own games as well.
  - Doxin 6y ago
    WalterBright is unusually active in pretty much all D-related communities I've visited. I've had him answer my nooby questions on IRC on multiple occasions.
swuecho 6y ago
reading the blog and finally play the game feels great, even though I do not know much about D.
speps 6y ago
Author here, thanks for the comments! Note the articles are completed already and all 4 parts are available! It was a very fun project overall :)
ofrzeta 6y ago
Everytime I read about D I think it fits the definition of the oft-quoted "boring technology" perfectly. One has to wonder why it did never take of like say Go. This has to be one of the greatest historical accidents in the evolution of programming languages.
- gkya 6y ago
  D is featureful and harmonious but it's inevitably complex. With Go, you learn the grammar in one or two days and from then on almost all you'll ever need is the library docs. It has a Scheme-like quality in that aspect, but it combines that with a usual procedural imperative approach and a standard library that has more than call-cc. A lot of languages have a lot of "syntactic sugar" but actually what's important is more invisible basics: good GC, good concurrency primitives, good method dispatch, good and comprehensive standard library, supportive compiler, etc. Go has a few warts (the whole select / <-chan syntax, god-mode functions like `make', the interface{} problem, the whole go mod / dep kerfuffle), but it does tick all those boxes. Ofc all that modulo the Google factor, but then there's Dart...
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Dart tried to replace JavaScript and faced oppposition from Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft on that regard. Just like we have WebAssembly because those same companies did not bought into PNaCL.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    To me the weirdest thing about Go is the package/directory thing It's a weird way of enforcing structure and the last time I looked into it I couldn't get my head around it
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      ASDF in Lisp does it too. I absolutely hate it and I agree it doesn't make any sense.
    - gkya 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
teleforce 6y ago
This is an interesting YouTube channel on D game programming tutorials [1], and the most recent discussions on game programming based on D libraries [2]. [1]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK3fxU3_7tzBhZZ_6rljAQA/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK3fxU3_7tzBhZZ_6rljAQA/vid... [2]https://forum.dlang.org/thread/r4lqd3$ad1$1@digitalmars.com?page=1 https://forum.dlang.org/thread/r4lqd3$ad1$1@digitalmars.com?...
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Thanks for this, I've been learning D on and off for ages never found any decent YouTube channels course I have not looked for a while.
stelonix 6y ago
When I read "15 year-old game written in D", I calculated 2020-15 in my head but I already knew this could only be Torus Trooper. What an amazing game, I only wish it had a few more features! It's also where I first learned about D. This article was great and it's kinda "wow" how little had to be changed on a codebase that's 15 years old.
crazypython 6y ago
Think Kubernetes and Docker: They are trendy technologies. But they are declining in popularity, they are fragile over time. D is Lindy Effect. It's been around for 19 years, it'll probably stay around for at least another 19. > The Lindy effect is a theory that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy.[1] Where the Lindy effect applies, mortality rate decreases with time. So Rust may be hot now– but remember, NoSQL and Docker were hot once too, and they are now not popular. Plus D is adding Rust's ownership and borrowing. D compiles faster than C++20 and is easier to learn.
- virtue3 6y ago
  What are people using instead of Docker now? I'm a bit confused about your statement.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    What about not using it at all, just plain application servers and VMs as always.
    - virtue3 6y ago
      I personally saw a lot of value when we (top 20 site) moved to docker over VMs. Using hammer / provisioning VMs kinda sucks. Being able to dynamically scale your app with containers is really really trivial.
- vips7L 6y ago
  > Plus D is adding Rust's ownership and borrowing. Is this for GC code or just @nogc and DasBetterC? Ownership seems a bit heavy when running the GC.
- tinco 6y ago
  In what universe are Docker and Kubernetes not as popular now than they ever were before? The core of Docker became a standard that I'm pretty sure is used in every new production pipeline on the planet. And I don't much like Kubernetes but it works and I don't know if a competitor that is as powerful and that is gaining popularity.

106 points by arunc 6y ago

I used to play this game! I loved the aesthetics and it was a great showcase for D being suitable for games. For impatient, the game is now playable in the browser here: https://torustrooper.xyz/ https://torustrooper.xyz/

echelon 6y ago
This is a lot of fun! Fast paced, well put together. I don't play many shoot-em-ups, but it feels like F-Zero meets Galaga.

david2ndaccount 6y ago

I’ve been getting into D lately and the language is great. The meta programming is top-class and it’s been very easy to replace my C code file by file with much nicer D code. Instead of writing out descriptors of structs for serialization purposes by hand I’ve been able to replace them with a template that introspects the data members of the struct directly.

echelon 6y ago

Maybe WalterBright will comment. I'd like to see his thoughts on this. :)

swuecho 6y ago
Having someone who wrote the compiler to answer the question is very lucky, especially when port the code to new version.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  He does come on HN and posts in comments quite often when D is brought up so it wouldn't be too unlikely to see, also he's coded his own games as well.
- Doxin 6y ago
  WalterBright is unusually active in pretty much all D-related communities I've visited. I've had him answer my nooby questions on IRC on multiple occasions.

swuecho 6y ago

reading the blog and finally play the game feels great, even though I do not know much about D.

speps 6y ago

Author here, thanks for the comments! Note the articles are completed already and all 4 parts are available! It was a very fun project overall :)

ofrzeta 6y ago

Everytime I read about D I think it fits the definition of the oft-quoted "boring technology" perfectly. One has to wonder why it did never take of like say Go. This has to be one of the greatest historical accidents in the evolution of programming languages.

gkya 6y ago
D is featureful and harmonious but it's inevitably complex. With Go, you learn the grammar in one or two days and from then on almost all you'll ever need is the library docs. It has a Scheme-like quality in that aspect, but it combines that with a usual procedural imperative approach and a standard library that has more than call-cc. A lot of languages have a lot of "syntactic sugar" but actually what's important is more invisible basics: good GC, good concurrency primitives, good method dispatch, good and comprehensive standard library, supportive compiler, etc. Go has a few warts (the whole select / <-chan syntax, god-mode functions like `make', the interface{} problem, the whole go mod / dep kerfuffle), but it does tick all those boxes. Ofc all that modulo the Google factor, but then there's Dart...
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Dart tried to replace JavaScript and faced oppposition from Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft on that regard. Just like we have WebAssembly because those same companies did not bought into PNaCL.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  To me the weirdest thing about Go is the package/directory thing It's a weird way of enforcing structure and the last time I looked into it I couldn't get my head around it
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    ASDF in Lisp does it too. I absolutely hate it and I agree it doesn't make any sense.
  - gkya 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

teleforce 6y ago

This is an interesting YouTube channel on D game programming tutorials [1], and the most recent discussions on game programming based on D libraries [2]. [1]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK3fxU3_7tzBhZZ_6rljAQA/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK3fxU3_7tzBhZZ_6rljAQA/vid... [2]https://forum.dlang.org/thread/r4lqd3$ad1$1@digitalmars.com?page=1 https://forum.dlang.org/thread/r4lqd3$ad1$1@digitalmars.com?...

giancarlostoro 6y ago
Thanks for this, I've been learning D on and off for ages never found any decent YouTube channels course I have not looked for a while.

stelonix 6y ago

When I read "15 year-old game written in D", I calculated 2020-15 in my head but I already knew this could only be Torus Trooper. What an amazing game, I only wish it had a few more features! It's also where I first learned about D. This article was great and it's kinda "wow" how little had to be changed on a codebase that's 15 years old.

crazypython 6y ago

Think Kubernetes and Docker: They are trendy technologies. But they are declining in popularity, they are fragile over time. D is Lindy Effect. It's been around for 19 years, it'll probably stay around for at least another 19. > The Lindy effect is a theory that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy.[1] Where the Lindy effect applies, mortality rate decreases with time. So Rust may be hot now– but remember, NoSQL and Docker were hot once too, and they are now not popular. Plus D is adding Rust's ownership and borrowing. D compiles faster than C++20 and is easier to learn.

virtue3 6y ago
What are people using instead of Docker now? I'm a bit confused about your statement.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  What about not using it at all, just plain application servers and VMs as always.
  - virtue3 6y ago
    I personally saw a lot of value when we (top 20 site) moved to docker over VMs. Using hammer / provisioning VMs kinda sucks. Being able to dynamically scale your app with containers is really really trivial.
vips7L 6y ago
> Plus D is adding Rust's ownership and borrowing. Is this for GC code or just @nogc and DasBetterC? Ownership seems a bit heavy when running the GC.
tinco 6y ago
In what universe are Docker and Kubernetes not as popular now than they ever were before? The core of Docker became a standard that I'm pretty sure is used in every new production pipeline on the planet. And I don't much like Kubernetes but it works and I don't know if a competitor that is as powerful and that is gaining popularity.