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> C99 with code generators written in python or lua for the engine. Nice fantasy, but the real-life codebases that do this make even the most hellish C++ code

• JonChesterfield 4y ago
  I've been coding like that since at least 2016[1]. The trick is to make adding code generators as easy as adding source code. Not a game engine in my case, though there's a CppCon talk from 2014 which makes a passing reference to using code generators with C++ instead of templates for one. Assume source is src/foo.c and compiled to obj/foo.o, then introduce a third directory called gen. Change the makefile rule to copy .c from src to gen, and compile from gen to obj. Then add a makefile rule that says gen/foo.c can be built from src/foo.c.py by calling python on the source and redirecting stout. That means a C source file can be turned into a python program that generates the same source by wrapping it in a string literal, calling print and renaming the source file. No build system change. Then change the python as you see fit to work around the limitations of C. Works really well for a solo developer. Repo using this scheme is ~100 generated files (mostly lua, some python) vs ~600 C files. Plus ~20 C++ and one D, just getting started with that language. [1] https://github.com/JonChesterfield/boring-makefile/blob/master/src/makefile https://github.com/JonChesterfield/boring-makefile/blob/mast... $(GEN_PY_SOURCE): $(GEN_ROOT_DIR)%.c: $(SRC_ROOT_DIR)%.c.py $(PYTHON) $^ > $@