3 ms·

Dear Retro Community, Stop Writing Tools in C

1 points by ingve 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bell-cot 2y ago
> If you’re making a game for old DOS PCs, the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo 64, or some other retro system, there’s a good chance that you’re writing C code anyway. Why not write your tools in C? ... Who's this article's intended audience? The "retro community" could recite all of the author's arguments in their sleep. And his preferred modern languages - "like Java, C#, Go, Rust, Python, Ruby…" might have some serious tooling, runtime, and memory issues on the retro hardware he mentions. (And (2023) - not that that matters.)
- tssva 2y ago
  The author is talking specifically about the tools used on modern platforms in order to develop for retro systems.
- beardyw 2y ago
  > Who's this article's intended audience? Exactly my thoughts. It seems as if the author thinks C programmers have never noticed there are other languages. In my experience they use C or C++ for good reasons. I use many of the other languages mentioned but sometimes C is the right tool.
khedoros1 2y ago
Most of the time, if I'm doing something retro-related, I'm doing it for myself. There are engineering considerations being made, as you'd expect, but I'm doing it the way I'm doing it as much for the vibe as anything else. It's not about "points", speed, efficiency, portability, or whatever else. It's about what sounds fun, even if it sounds like it'll be "type 2 fun" (i.e. unpleasant now, but enjoyable in retrospect).
Rochus 2y ago
Instead of C I usually use a moderate C++03 subset together with LeanQt. I don't have any of the problems the author mentions. Whatever I implement runs on all relevant platforms, and - in comparison to e.g. Python based tools - my tools also run on old systems and have little dependencies. In contrast, Java and C# caused much more problems with cross-platform applications, where older system compatibility is necessary.
SpecialistK 2y ago
I would love to play with and learn Rust, Go, or Zig for my retro projects. But because I mostly play with a /retro/ platform (PPC Mac OS X) none of those platforms are supported. C is.

1 points by ingve 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

> If you’re making a game for old DOS PCs, the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo 64, or some other retro system, there’s a good chance that you’re writing C code anyway. Why not write your tools in C? ... Who's this article's intended audience? The "retro community" could recite all of the author's arguments in their sleep. And his preferred modern languages - "like Java, C#, Go, Rust, Python, Ruby…" might have some serious tooling, runtime, and memory issues on the retro hardware he mentions. (And (2023) - not that that matters.)

tssva 2y ago
The author is talking specifically about the tools used on modern platforms in order to develop for retro systems.
beardyw 2y ago
> Who's this article's intended audience? Exactly my thoughts. It seems as if the author thinks C programmers have never noticed there are other languages. In my experience they use C or C++ for good reasons. I use many of the other languages mentioned but sometimes C is the right tool.

khedoros1 2y ago

Most of the time, if I'm doing something retro-related, I'm doing it for myself. There are engineering considerations being made, as you'd expect, but I'm doing it the way I'm doing it as much for the vibe as anything else. It's not about "points", speed, efficiency, portability, or whatever else. It's about what sounds fun, even if it sounds like it'll be "type 2 fun" (i.e. unpleasant now, but enjoyable in retrospect).

Rochus 2y ago

Instead of C I usually use a moderate C++03 subset together with LeanQt. I don't have any of the problems the author mentions. Whatever I implement runs on all relevant platforms, and - in comparison to e.g. Python based tools - my tools also run on old systems and have little dependencies. In contrast, Java and C# caused much more problems with cross-platform applications, where older system compatibility is necessary.

SpecialistK 2y ago

I would love to play with and learn Rust, Go, or Zig for my retro projects. But because I mostly play with a /retro/ platform (PPC Mac OS X) none of those platforms are supported. C is.