7 ms·

More proof that you don't need the source code to modify software. Then again, Java has always been easy to decompile, and IMHO the biggest obstacle to understa

More proof that you don't need the source code to modify software. Then again, Java has always been easy to decompile, and IMHO the biggest obstacle to understanding is the "object-oriented obfuscation" that's inherent in large codebases even when you have the original source.

pphysch 1y ago
Agreed; modding obfuscated Java is impressive, but not quite on the level of modding in the (Nintendo) emulation community. The things that have been achieved with classic Nintendo titles are absurd, like adding high-performance online multiplayer to Super Smash Bro. Melee.
- karlding 1y ago
  Said online multiplayer [0]. The devs also wrote a write-up here about how they handle the desyncs in netcode [1]. [0] https://slippi.gg/ https://slippi.gg/ [1] https://medium.com/project-slippi/fighting-desyncs-in-melee-replays-370a830bf88b https://medium.com/project-slippi/fighting-desyncs-in-melee-...
ed_elliott_asc 1y ago
Tbh decompiling software and figuring out how it works isn’t easy but that is part of the fun :) - it’s the reason ive ended up following many of the weird paths in computing that I have
beachy 1y ago
First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in the real world a person can be both employee and contractor at the same time, can flit between those roles and many others, can temporarily park a role (e.g sabbatical) and many other permutations, all while maintaining history and even allowing for corrections of said history. It would be hard to find any domain less suited to OO that HR records. I think these terrible examples are a primary reason for some people believing that OO is useless or worse than useless.
- pavo-etc 1y ago
  I am currently being radicalised against OOP because of one specific senior in my team that uses it relentlessly, no matter the problem domain. I recognise there are problems where OOP is a good abstraction, but there are so many places where it isn't. I suspect many OOP haters have experienced what I'm currently experiencing, stateful objects for handing calculations that should be stateless, a confusing bag of methods that are sometimes hidden behind getters so you can't even easily tell where the computation is happening, etc
  - Romario77 1y ago
    You could write crappy code in any language. I don't think it's specific for Java. Overall I think java is pretty good, especially for big code bases.
    - stefs 1y ago
      But there's a real difference how easy it is to write crappy code in a language. In regards to java that'd be, for example, nullability, or mutability. Kotlin, in comparison, makes those explicit and eliminates some pain points. You'd have to go out of your way and make your code actively worse for it to be on the same level as the same java code. And then there's a reason they're teaching the "functional core, imperative shell" pattern.
      - fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
        On the other hand, Java's tooling for correctly refactoring at scale is pretty impressive: using IntelliJ, it's pretty tractable to unwind quite a few messes using automatic tools in a way that's hard to match in many languages that are often considered better.
        throwaway2037 1y ago
        I agree with your point, and I want to second C# and JetBrains Rider here. Whatever refactoring you can with Java in JetBrains IntelliJ, you can do the same with C#/Rider. I have worked on multiple code bases in my career that were 100sK lines of Java and/or C#. Having a great IDE experience was simply a miracle.
5- 1y ago
indeed. with how good and cheap/free decompilers have gotten over the years my preferred way to read abstraction-happy c++ and rust code is to compile it with optimisations and debug symbols and then read the decompiler output.
Pannoniae 1y ago
Yeah, I honestly think that the thing which would kill modding in the future won't be any kind of (overtly) hostile action, it will simply be sheer inertia. Since the new "drop" system, pretty much every minor version requires rewriting many things in your mod, and modders find it hard to keep up, and there will be point when many mods just don't bother updating to the newest version. The game used to be simple, both conceptually and codewise but obviously, it became more and more bloated the more developers touched it and the more bureaucracy was added. Now, it's a complete nightmare, and I bet it's also a nightmare for the developers too, considering how hard it is for them to fix even basic issues which have been in the game for like a decade at this point.
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
But you don’t understand, it enables code re-use… You have to have Factories and inheritence.. /s

pphysch 1y ago

Agreed; modding obfuscated Java is impressive, but not quite on the level of modding in the (Nintendo) emulation community. The things that have been achieved with classic Nintendo titles are absurd, like adding high-performance online multiplayer to Super Smash Bro. Melee.

karlding 1y ago
Said online multiplayer [0]. The devs also wrote a write-up here about how they handle the desyncs in netcode [1]. [0] https://slippi.gg/ https://slippi.gg/ [1] https://medium.com/project-slippi/fighting-desyncs-in-melee-replays-370a830bf88b https://medium.com/project-slippi/fighting-desyncs-in-melee-...

ed_elliott_asc 1y ago

Tbh decompiling software and figuring out how it works isn’t easy but that is part of the fun :) - it’s the reason ive ended up following many of the weird paths in computing that I have

beachy 1y ago

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in the real world a person can be both employee and contractor at the same time, can flit between those roles and many others, can temporarily park a role (e.g sabbatical) and many other permutations, all while maintaining history and even allowing for corrections of said history. It would be hard to find any domain less suited to OO that HR records. I think these terrible examples are a primary reason for some people believing that OO is useless or worse than useless.

pavo-etc 1y ago
I am currently being radicalised against OOP because of one specific senior in my team that uses it relentlessly, no matter the problem domain. I recognise there are problems where OOP is a good abstraction, but there are so many places where it isn't. I suspect many OOP haters have experienced what I'm currently experiencing, stateful objects for handing calculations that should be stateless, a confusing bag of methods that are sometimes hidden behind getters so you can't even easily tell where the computation is happening, etc
- Romario77 1y ago
  You could write crappy code in any language. I don't think it's specific for Java. Overall I think java is pretty good, especially for big code bases.
  - stefs 1y ago
    But there's a real difference how easy it is to write crappy code in a language. In regards to java that'd be, for example, nullability, or mutability. Kotlin, in comparison, makes those explicit and eliminates some pain points. You'd have to go out of your way and make your code actively worse for it to be on the same level as the same java code. And then there's a reason they're teaching the "functional core, imperative shell" pattern.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
      On the other hand, Java's tooling for correctly refactoring at scale is pretty impressive: using IntelliJ, it's pretty tractable to unwind quite a few messes using automatic tools in a way that's hard to match in many languages that are often considered better.
      - throwaway2037 1y ago
        I agree with your point, and I want to second C# and JetBrains Rider here. Whatever refactoring you can with Java in JetBrains IntelliJ, you can do the same with C#/Rider. I have worked on multiple code bases in my career that were 100sK lines of Java and/or C#. Having a great IDE experience was simply a miracle.

5- 1y ago

indeed. with how good and cheap/free decompilers have gotten over the years my preferred way to read abstraction-happy c++ and rust code is to compile it with optimisations and debug symbols and then read the decompiler output.

Pannoniae 1y ago

Yeah, I honestly think that the thing which would kill modding in the future won't be any kind of (overtly) hostile action, it will simply be sheer inertia. Since the new "drop" system, pretty much every minor version requires rewriting many things in your mod, and modders find it hard to keep up, and there will be point when many mods just don't bother updating to the newest version. The game used to be simple, both conceptually and codewise but obviously, it became more and more bloated the more developers touched it and the more bureaucracy was added. Now, it's a complete nightmare, and I bet it's also a nightmare for the developers too, considering how hard it is for them to fix even basic issues which have been in the game for like a decade at this point.

ozgrakkurt 1y ago

But you don’t understand, it enables code re-use… You have to have Factories and inheritence.. /s