4 ms·

I know rust, I don't know game development (I've dabbled slightly). If I choose to build a game I either need to make it work in rust* or I need to learn a new

by gpm 3y ago

I know rust, I don't know game development (I've dabbled slightly). If I choose to build a game I either need to make it work in rust* or I need to learn a new language (Unity -> C#, Unreal -> blueprints, Godot -> gdscript). So your advice to "just use Unity/Unreal/Godot" is the opposite of your advice "you should stick with what you know" in my case. I suspect the former is good advice, and the latter is therefore wrong. * For the sake of argument, we can pretend I only know rust. In reality I know a fair number of other languages as well, but the list doesn't happen to include C# or "random game engine specific scripting language", which seems to be the options if we're going with an established engine for big 3d games.

mjr00 3y ago
This falls in the "you know that what you know isn't enough to build the thing" bucket, presumably. Even if you're a Rust expert, do you know how to manage game asset content pipelines? Sound and music? Have you done graphics programming at all in Rust? How are you going to store levels in your game, and how are you going to make them? How are you doing multiplayer? etc... You're going to have to learn something new, and it's a bit of a judgment call, but picking up C# or gdscript given that you already know programming should be straightforward compared to re-implementing all of those things yourself in Rust. Unless, of course, you do know a bunch of great Rust game development libraries that solve all those problems--in which case yeah, building a game in Rust might be the best choice. It's not impossible!
- gpm 3y ago
  > but picking up C# or gdscript given that you already know programming should be straightforward compared to re-implementing all of those things yourself in Rust. Right, this is practically my point. I suspect that the tools available from those languages mean that learning one of them would more than pay for itself in the course of developing a (single) game. Many many times over really. Like, yes, I've dealt with both sound, basic graphics programming (though I'd need to learn a bit more to make a modern looking 3d game), networking, ... in rust. If I had to program my sound system and graphics engine from scratch myself I'd do it in rust (and I believe I'd be more productive in rust than I'd be in <other language> while doing so). But I don't have to do everything from scratch, and the best not-from-scratch versions aren't in rust, and the cost of switching to something I don't know just isn't that high. Also OP is definitely right that rust has some anti-features that would be pain points for game development.
fooker 3y ago
Perhaps the more appropriate advice is : Use the right tool for the job. Use C++ for writing a high performance library or a database engine. Use Go or Java for writing a server. Use C for writing a kernel module. Use shell scripts for automation. Use python for trying out ML ideas or heavier duty scripts. Use Rust for ... I'm not quite sure what it's the right tool for yet. I suspect it's trying to become the right tool for all of the above and not succeeding much in practice.
- Wazako 3y ago
  Use Rust if crashes or memory bugs are not an option. For everything wasm, Rust is much more pleasant with good libraries than the competition.
  - fooker 3y ago
    Wasm seems more convincing to me than the magical 'no crashes or bugs' promise. Here's my wasm use case: tell me how I can use Rust. I have a command line tool written in C that ..say.. takes strings and outputs strings. How would I go about making a usable REPL out of this in Rust and wasm without rewriting the tool?
    - Wazako 3y ago
      But when you look at the disaster that was c++ for cloudflare, and the switch to rust. This is precisely the argument given against rust for video games: too much typing induced by memory safe, which is too restrictive. Is there any use if your c code works, the advantage of rust over wasm is the easy-to-use packages (which is a pain in c++), and the ease with which you can make a wasm project with wasm-pack that generates the wasm, js and ts interface. There really are a lot of libraries that support wasm, it's even a problematic point raised in the article on bevy, with wasm support (so webgl) limiting the api.
- tkubacki 3y ago
  It's C++ replacement just not yet there for game dev (maybe never for game dev)
sullyj3 3y ago
Learning a new language is basically trivial relative to the effort of bootstrapping everything yourself to compensate for a lacking ecosystem, or the effort of banging your head against the fundamental unsuitability of a tool for a job. Anyone who's learned one or two languages should be able to pick up the basics of any of the standard ones pretty much instantaneously.
- gpm 3y ago
  Exactly

by gpm 3y ago

mjr00 3y ago

This falls in the "you know that what you know isn't enough to build the thing" bucket, presumably. Even if you're a Rust expert, do you know how to manage game asset content pipelines? Sound and music? Have you done graphics programming at all in Rust? How are you going to store levels in your game, and how are you going to make them? How are you doing multiplayer? etc... You're going to have to learn something new, and it's a bit of a judgment call, but picking up C# or gdscript given that you already know programming should be straightforward compared to re-implementing all of those things yourself in Rust. Unless, of course, you do know a bunch of great Rust game development libraries that solve all those problems--in which case yeah, building a game in Rust might be the best choice. It's not impossible!

gpm 3y ago
> but picking up C# or gdscript given that you already know programming should be straightforward compared to re-implementing all of those things yourself in Rust. Right, this is practically my point. I suspect that the tools available from those languages mean that learning one of them would more than pay for itself in the course of developing a (single) game. Many many times over really. Like, yes, I've dealt with both sound, basic graphics programming (though I'd need to learn a bit more to make a modern looking 3d game), networking, ... in rust. If I had to program my sound system and graphics engine from scratch myself I'd do it in rust (and I believe I'd be more productive in rust than I'd be in <other language> while doing so). But I don't have to do everything from scratch, and the best not-from-scratch versions aren't in rust, and the cost of switching to something I don't know just isn't that high. Also OP is definitely right that rust has some anti-features that would be pain points for game development.

fooker 3y ago

Perhaps the more appropriate advice is : Use the right tool for the job. Use C++ for writing a high performance library or a database engine. Use Go or Java for writing a server. Use C for writing a kernel module. Use shell scripts for automation. Use python for trying out ML ideas or heavier duty scripts. Use Rust for ... I'm not quite sure what it's the right tool for yet. I suspect it's trying to become the right tool for all of the above and not succeeding much in practice.

Wazako 3y ago
Use Rust if crashes or memory bugs are not an option. For everything wasm, Rust is much more pleasant with good libraries than the competition.
- fooker 3y ago
  Wasm seems more convincing to me than the magical 'no crashes or bugs' promise. Here's my wasm use case: tell me how I can use Rust. I have a command line tool written in C that ..say.. takes strings and outputs strings. How would I go about making a usable REPL out of this in Rust and wasm without rewriting the tool?
  - Wazako 3y ago
    But when you look at the disaster that was c++ for cloudflare, and the switch to rust. This is precisely the argument given against rust for video games: too much typing induced by memory safe, which is too restrictive. Is there any use if your c code works, the advantage of rust over wasm is the easy-to-use packages (which is a pain in c++), and the ease with which you can make a wasm project with wasm-pack that generates the wasm, js and ts interface. There really are a lot of libraries that support wasm, it's even a problematic point raised in the article on bevy, with wasm support (so webgl) limiting the api.
tkubacki 3y ago
It's C++ replacement just not yet there for game dev (maybe never for game dev)

sullyj3 3y ago

Learning a new language is basically trivial relative to the effort of bootstrapping everything yourself to compensate for a lacking ecosystem, or the effort of banging your head against the fundamental unsuitability of a tool for a job. Anyone who's learned one or two languages should be able to pick up the basics of any of the standard ones pretty much instantaneously.

gpm 3y ago
Exactly