Ada suitablity as a game dev language

Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeff Houck]

Greetings Ada NG,
I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual 
scripting languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...

I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)

Anyway, I'm really intrigued by Ada and I'd like to "go out on a
limb" and see how Ada measures up to C/C++ for game development. I'm
thinking about both the 2D and 3D regimes, such as an isometric style
game in 2D and a FPS for 3D.

You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game 
development circles. Is there a specific reason why?

I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the 
subject. Thx!

--

FREENET By X-Privat - http://www.x-privat.org/infofreenet.php

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[John B. Matthews]

In article <41a152c2$1@x-privat.org>,
 Jeff Houck <jhouck@northrim.net> wrote:

> Greetings Ada NG,
> I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
> assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual 
> scripting languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...
> 
> I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)
> 
> Anyway, I'm really intrigued by Ada and I'd like to "go out on a
> limb" and see how Ada measures up to C/C++ for game development. I'm
> thinking about both the 2D and 3D regimes, such as an isometric style
> game in 2D and a FPS for 3D.
> 
> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game 
> development circles. Is there a specific reason why?
> 
> I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the 
> subject. Thx!

I've enjoyed tinkering with linxtris:

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/linxtris>

-- 
John
jmatthews at wright dot edu
www dot wright dot edu/~john.matthews/

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[David Botton]

You can find a list of known freely available games with Ada source code at:

http://www.adapower.com/index.php?Command=Class&ClassID=Applications

David Botton


On 2004-11-21 22:00:10 -0500, "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.com> said:
>> I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the 
>> subject. Thx!
> 
> I've enjoyed tinkering with linxtris:
> 
> <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linxtris>

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Manuel Collado]

David Botton wrote:

> You can find a list of known freely available games with Ada source code 
> at:
> 
> http://www.adapower.com/index.php?Command=Class&ClassID=Applications

This page doesn't mention:

     http://sourceforge.net/projects/othello/

Also written in Ada
-- 
To reply by e-mail, please remove the extra dot
in the given address:  m.collado -> mcollado

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[David Botton]

It does now :-)

> This page doesn't mention:
> 
>      http://sourceforge.net/projects/othello/
> 
> Also written in Ada

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeff Houck]

David Botton wrote:
> It does now :-)
> 
>> This page doesn't mention:
>>
>>      http://sourceforge.net/projects/othello/
>>
>> Also written in Ada
> 
> 
> 

Hmm, the sourceforge page says "This Project Has Not Released Any Files" 
and the homepage it refers to doesn't exist.. 8(

--

FREENET By X-Privat - http://www.x-privat.org/infofreenet.php

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Martin Krischik]

Jeff Houck wrote:

> David Botton wrote:
>> It does now :-)
>> 
>>> This page doesn't mention:
>>>
>>>      http://sourceforge.net/projects/othello/
>>>
>>> Also written in Ada
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> Hmm, the sourceforge page says "This Project Has Not Released Any Files"
> and the homepage it refers to doesn't exist.. 8(

At least one of my sourceforce project did not release files. But there are
files in the CVS archive. A "cvs commit" takes just a few sec. while a full
release takes at least an hour and usualy longer.

With Regards

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Manuel Collado]

Jeff Houck wrote:
> David Botton wrote:
> 
>> It does now :-)
>>
>>> This page doesn't mention:
>>>
>>>      http://sourceforge.net/projects/othello/
>>>
>>> Also written in Ada
> 
> Hmm, the sourceforge page says "This Project Has Not Released Any Files" 
> and the homepage it refers to doesn't exist.. 8(

Oops! The source code can be downloaded from the author's page:

    http://adrianhoe.com/adrianhoe/othello/

Quoting it:

   "AdaOthello is a SourceForge project. You can visit my SourceForge
   project site by clicking on the SourceForge's logo above. However,
   I have trouble using ssh to update information at SourceForge. So,
   you may not be able to obtain the source code from SourceForge server.
   You can download from the link below."

-- 
To reply by e-mail, please remove the extra dot
in the given address:  m.collado -> mcollado

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[David Botton]

On 2004-11-24 04:50:55 -0500, Manuel Collado <m.collado@lml.ls.fi.upm.es> said:
>     http://adrianhoe.com/adrianhoe/othello/


AdaPower listing also modified.

David Botton

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[stephane richard]

"Jeff Houck" <jhouck@northrim.net> wrote in message 
news:41a152c2$1@x-privat.org...
> Greetings Ada NG,
> I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
> assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual scripting 
> languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...
>
> I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)
>
> Anyway, I'm really intrigued by Ada and I'd like to "go out on a
> limb" and see how Ada measures up to C/C++ for game development. I'm
> thinking about both the 2D and 3D regimes, such as an isometric style
> game in 2D and a FPS for 3D.
>
> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game development 
> circles. Is there a specific reason why?
>
> I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the 
> subject. Thx!
>
> --
>
> FREENET By X-Privat - http://www.x-privat.org/infofreenet.php

Hi Jeff,

If you go to my website (http://www.adaworld.com) in the Ada Projects then 
Binding Projects page....you'll see a project of interest there...AdaOpenGL

Likewise, in the library projects you'll see one called Engine_3D  this one 
is 100% Ada...no dependencies on other libraries, and you'll see it's got 
alot to offer.

Hope this helps. 

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeffrey Carter]

Jeff Houck wrote:
> 
> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game 
> development circles. Is there a specific reason why?

Primarily ignorance, with bias unsupported by facts a distant 2nd.

You'll find a lot of pointer on Ada at adapower.com and adaworld.com. 
Among them you'll find the Mine Detector game:

http://home.earthlink.net/~jrcarter010/mindet.html

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Alms for an ex-leper!"
Monty Python's Life of Brian
75

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Martin Krischik]

Jeff Houck wrote:

> Greetings Ada NG,
> I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
> assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual
> scripting languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...
> 
> I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)

If you don't might 20% more typing and 90% less debugging than you are right
here ;-) .

> Anyway, I'm really intrigued by Ada and I'd like to "go out on a
> limb" and see how Ada measures up to C/C++ for game development. I'm
> thinking about both the 2D and 3D regimes, such as an isometric style
> game in 2D and a FPS for 3D.

Ada is true multi purpose language and that includes games. Interesting for
games might be:

 * the ability to defined you own float types (speed vs. precision).
 * abritatry sized integer (12 bit integer - no prob).
 * packed or un-packed arrays and records (speed vs. size).
 * true multi dimensional arrays.
 * choice OO or non-OO programming.
 
> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game
> development circles. Is there a specific reason why?

Because they don't know better. It takes a month of two to see how cool Ada
truly is.

With Regards

Martin


With Regards

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Nick Roberts]

"Martin Krischik" <martin@krischik.com> wrote in message 
news:4770972.9DtAtPAQWM@linux1.krischik.com...

> ...
> Ada is true multi purpose language and that includes games. Interesting 
> for
> games might be:
>
> * the ability to defined you own float types (speed vs. precision).
> * abritatry sized integer (12 bit integer - no prob).
> * packed or un-packed arrays and records (speed vs. size).
> * true multi dimensional arrays.
> * choice OO or non-OO programming.

The feature of Ada that Martin seems to have egregiously omitted is its 
especial
support for multi-tasking, something that can be of especial importance for 
some
kinds of games programming. Often it's actually quite fun to write a game in 
Ada
where you simply have a task for each automaton (or indeed every entity 
which
has individual behaviour). There is at least one MUD written in Ada for 
precisely
this reason.

DoD (and other NATO) contractors often use Ada to create (most of) the
software for military and commercial flight simulators and related systems. 
This is
often because: they write real flight systems in Ada, so they already have 
Ada
programmers and expertise; much of those flight systems can be directly 
re-used
in the simulators anyway; Ada is great at multi-tasking. If you consider a 
flight
simulator (or battlefield management simulator, etc.) to be a kind of 
grown-up's
big game (and I know the people who 'play' them do!), then you could 
consider
Ada to be a language much used for games, in fact.

>> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game
>> development circles. Is there a specific reason why?
>
> Because they don't know better. It takes a month of two to see how cool
> Ada truly is.

I suspect the answer is more accurately "For all the same reasons that most
programming shops don't use Ada." Of course, ignorance is undoubtedly one
of those reasons, but (as we havce discussed in this news group recently) 
the
main reason seems to be the lack of a big commercial player willing to 
support
and promote the Ada language (or an implementation of it).

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Sandro Magi]

Martin Krischik <martin@krischik.com> wrote in message news:<4770972.9DtAtPAQWM@linux1.krischik.com>...
> Jeff Houck wrote:
>  * the ability to defined you own float types (speed vs. precision).
>  * abritatry sized integer (12 bit integer - no prob).

You can't specify arbitrary integer sizes greater than the underlying
machine word size though can you? ie. 1024 bit integers are not
natively supported. x86 would be limited to 32 bits for instance (64
bits with gnat).

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeffrey Carter]

Sandro Magi wrote:

> You can't specify arbitrary integer sizes greater than the underlying
> machine word size though can you? ie. 1024 bit integers are not
> natively supported. x86 would be limited to 32 bits for instance (64
> bits with gnat).

You're limited to what the compiler writer is willing to support. That's 
how GNAT supports 64-bit integers on 32-bit machines. You could expand 
the idea to support 96-, 128-, or whatever-bit integers on any platform. 
There's no intrinsic reason why 1024-bit integers could not be supported 
on an 8-bit platform.

If you were interested, you could modify GNAT to support larger integers 
and report on it here. I'm sure we'd all be interested in hearing what 
was involved. Perhaps your efforts could be incorporated into the 
supported compiler.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"I'm particularly glad that these lovely children were
here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic
frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen
in this day and age."
Blazing Saddles
88

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Martin Krischik]

Sandro Magi wrote:

> Martin Krischik <martin@krischik.com> wrote in message
> news:<4770972.9DtAtPAQWM@linux1.krischik.com>...
>> Jeff Houck wrote:
>>  * the ability to defined you own float types (speed vs. precision).
>>  * abritatry sized integer (12 bit integer - no prob).
> 
> You can't specify arbitrary integer sizes greater than the underlying
> machine word size though can you? ie. 1024 bit integers are not
> natively supported. x86 would be limited to 32 bits for instance (64
> bits with gnat).

No, GNAT allows up to 64 bit in all platforms supported. Unlike floating
point integer can easily expanded. Most CPU's have a so called "Carry" flag
for integer expasion. This comes from way back 8bit times where integer
expansion was esential.

Of corse a 12 bit type on a 32 bit CPU will only be 12 bit in a packed array
or a packes record. Otherwise the compiler will expand the type to render
better performace.

With Regards

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 22 Nov 2004 03:45:22 +0100, Jeff Houck wrote:

> Greetings Ada NG,
> I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
> assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual 
> scripting languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...
> 
> I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)

You are not alone... (:-))

> Anyway, I'm really intrigued by Ada and I'd like to "go out on a
> limb" and see how Ada measures up to C/C++ for game development. I'm
> thinking about both the 2D and 3D regimes, such as an isometric style
> game in 2D and a FPS for 3D.
> 
> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game 
> development circles. Is there a specific reason why?

The same reason why it isn't mentioned anywhere else. So it is not
specific.

> I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the 
> subject. Thx!

I believe that Ada might be very promising for game development. What comes
in mind first is:

1. Ada has much more carefully designed numeric model than C++. 3D graphics
requires a lot of non-trivial computations.

2. Ada is highly portable. Games are usually developed for many platforms.

3. Ada has integrated tasking. Real-time strategy, simulation games etc.

4. Ada requires much less debugging. Games are large and complex software
products with a very short testing phase.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Dale Stanbrough]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> I believe that Ada might be very promising for game development. What comes
> in mind first is:
> 
> 1. Ada has much more carefully designed numeric model than C++. 3D graphics
> requires a lot of non-trivial computations.
> 
> 2. Ada is highly portable. Games are usually developed for many platforms.

The major platforms would be (in no particular order)...

   Windows
   XBox (windows again)
   Playstation
 
There is no Ada compiler for the Playstation, so your argument has
less force than you think.


Dale

-- 
dstanbro@spam.o.matic.bigpond.net.au

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:31:54 GMT, Dale Stanbrough wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> I believe that Ada might be very promising for game development. What comes
>> in mind first is:
>> 
>> 1. Ada has much more carefully designed numeric model than C++. 3D graphics
>> requires a lot of non-trivial computations.
>> 
>> 2. Ada is highly portable. Games are usually developed for many platforms.
> 
> The major platforms would be (in no particular order)...
> 
>    Windows
>    XBox (windows again)
>    Playstation
>  
> There is no Ada compiler for the Playstation, so your argument has
> less force than you think.

Probably you mean commercial games, for you do not mention Linux and Apple.
But in that case, I believe it would be no problem for a big software
player to persuade ACT, Aonix or RR software to target Playstation. Or
other platforms of even greater interest like mobile phones, for instance.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Dale Stanbrough]

Dmitry A. Kazakovwrote:

> >> 2. Ada is highly portable. Games are usually developed for many platforms.
> > 
> > The major platforms would be (in no particular order)...
> > 
> >    Windows
> >    XBox (windows again)
> >    Playstation
> >  
> > There is no Ada compiler for the Playstation, so your argument has
> > less force than you think.
> 
> Probably you mean commercial games, for you do not mention Linux and Apple.

i think the number of Ada games on Linux or Mac OS X would be less than 
10. I did say "the major platforms" after all.

> But in that case, I believe it would be no problem for a big software
> player to persuade ACT, Aonix or RR software to target Playstation. Or
> other platforms of even greater interest like mobile phones, for instance.

If you pay them enough. And implement the tools for doing all the other 
stuff. This isn't going to happen if you are talking about non commercial
games. 

The return on investment would be negligible if you are doing it for
profit. The PS2 has a whacky architecture that would be trick to port
to. I suspect you'ld need serious tools (other than the language) to
write cross platform software for these platforms.

Dale

-- 
dstanbro@spam.o.matic.bigpond.net.au

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:44:49 GMT, Dale Stanbrough wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>>>> 2. Ada is highly portable. Games are usually developed for many platforms.
>>> 
>>> The major platforms would be (in no particular order)...
>>> 
>>>    Windows
>>>    XBox (windows again)
>>>    Playstation
>>>  
>>> There is no Ada compiler for the Playstation, so your argument has
>>> less force than you think.
>> 
>> Probably you mean commercial games, for you do not mention Linux and Apple.
> 
> i think the number of Ada games on Linux or Mac OS X would be less than 
> 10. I did say "the major platforms" after all.

You never know what will be a major platform in next 5 years. How old is
X-Box?

>> But in that case, I believe it would be no problem for a big software
>> player to persuade ACT, Aonix or RR software to target Playstation. Or
>> other platforms of even greater interest like mobile phones, for instance.
> 
> If you pay them enough. And implement the tools for doing all the other 
> stuff. This isn't going to happen if you are talking about non commercial
> games. 

Right, but it is unlikely that for a non-commercial game one would consider
Playstation as an interesting platform.

> The return on investment would be negligible if you are doing it for
> profit. The PS2 has a whacky architecture that would be trick to port
> to. I suspect you'ld need serious tools (other than the language) to
> write cross platform software for these platforms.

Yes, but why to aggravate the problem by using C++? It would just mount
problems. Clearly, at first glance a 3D-engine will outweigh any language,
when it comes to choice. But in a long term perspective it might turn
otherwise. The tools you are talking about are extremely short living. Who
would need a 10 years old engine or AI? So even a minor improvement of code
reusability could have a great return in cost reduction.

[ Once upon a time we made such choice and used Win32/C++ for one of our
products. Now, almost 10 years after, we deeply regret that choice, which
was so obvious that time. No, that wasn't a computer game! (:-)) ]

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[David Botton]

>  There is no Ada compiler for the Playstation, so your argument has
> less force than you think.

Is there any GCC compiler for Playstation? If so, than a port would not 
be that problematic.

David Botton

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Luke A. Guest]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:12:12 -0500, David Botton wrote:

>>  There is no Ada compiler for the Playstation, so your argument has
>> less force than you think.
> 
> Is there any GCC compiler for Playstation? If so, than a port would not 
> be that problematic.

Yes, Sony provide it on their PS2 Pro site with source.

SN Systems' compiler is based on GCC and from what I can tell, so is
Metrowerk's PS2 compiler. These don't come with source, but SN did provide
the home-brew people with their version of the GCC compiler.

Luke.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Alex R. Mosteo]

Jeff Houck wrote:
> Greetings Ada NG,
> I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
> assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual 
> scripting languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...
> 
> I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)

Apart from the enthusiastic posts you have received, I'd be concerned 
with bindings avalaibility...

In windows you may get away with GNATCOM, but that's just for windows. I 
don't know the completeness of the openGL binding. There was a SDL 
binding but that was for an old version last time I checked...[*]

In short: If you have the tools you need (or you don't need anything 
foreign) for your particular project, the advantages of Ada will pay, 
but if you don't you could be facing a hard start.

Alex.

[*] I don't want to imply these aren't appropriate tools, only that 
these are the first things I'd check.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[David Botton]

I have an example of doing direct X programming using Ada with GNAVI at:

 http://www.gnavi.org/index.php?Command=Class&ClassID=GWindowsWin32


David Botton


On 2004-11-22 05:19:32 -0500, "Alex R. Mosteo" <devnull@mailinator.com> said:
> 
> In windows you may get away with GNATCOM, but that's just for windows. 

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Luke A. Guest]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 03:45:22 +0100, Jeff Houck wrote:

> Greetings Ada NG,
> I'm new to Ada but have 15+ years background in C/C++ and x86
> assembly. I skipped Pascal and Java(yuk)and have used the usual 
> scripting languages, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc...
> 
> I'm bored with coding C/C++ and would like to try something new... 8^)

Tell me about it.

> Anyway, I'm really intrigued by Ada and I'd like to "go out on a
> limb" and see how Ada measures up to C/C++ for game development. I'm
> thinking about both the 2D and 3D regimes, such as an isometric style
> game in 2D and a FPS for 3D.

Well, like the others have said, Ada is a multipurpose programming
language, much like C and C++ are. Anything that can be done in C or C++
can also be done in Ada.

The problems you'll find are bindings. These you *can* do yourself with a
little bit of work, it's not that difficult to do, just a bit confusing in
certain areas, like data types and getting something more Ada like (a
thick binding compared to a thin binding), i.e. there is the Interfaces.C
package which gives you basic C types like int, etc. You would then later
prefer thick bindings which use the native Ada types, or your own
(preferable) this can produce a lot of code due to all of the conversions
necessary to get the data into the correct data types.

Now concerning types, In C/C++ you normally define your own types which
are platform independent, e.g. a 32-bit signed int, a 16-bit unsigned int.
Now a question that was raised in another thread concerned me about this,
a lot of people suggested that you should let the compiler decide what
type to use for a value, which is not what you want in games, you really
need to have something that is portable, especially for data formats, i.e.
I have a field which specifies how many vertices I have in a model, I've
decided that that needs to be a 32-bit type, therefore over all platforms
it needs to be a 32-bit type. Now you can use representation clauses to
specify the size, but surely you need to specify the type also?

Anyway, any C libs can be imported no problems into Ada, C++ is not
defined and probably won't be.

As for platforms, GCC exists for practically all platforms, yes even PS2,
Sony provide the source to it if you're a registered developer. According
to Robert Dewar, the GCC-3.4.x MIPS code generation needs work, so porting
it to PS2 could be tricky. Also, as Sony have had the brilliant idea of
combining all of the GNU source (binutils, gcc, gdb, newlib, etc.) all
into one directory, and they've modified the build scripts, it's not
possible to extract diffs for different packages (easily). It's also not
possible to drop in GNAT-3.3 (I think that's the latest version they
support) into the gcc/gcc/ directory and expect an Ada compiler to pop
out, it won't, I've tried it.

Another problem will be porting the runtime, there's practically no
documentation on it, so that'll be difficult.

For a game, you really need to conserve space, so another thing you'll
want to do is to stop the compiler from generating elaboration code for a
lot of stuff (if not all of it). GNAT can be told not to produce any and
everything seems to work ok, yes I've even tried array's with strange
boundaries. You'll also need to do this if you decide to use a very basic
Ada comiler without a runtime, also doable - especially on a console. But
it'd be better with one.

Another problem that games programmers hear is "don't use exceptions,
it'll slow down the game!!" Well, this might have been true a long time
ago, but GNAT does provide a new exception mechanism "zero-cost" which
provides tables rather than setjmp()/longjmp() calls. I haven't tried it.

But for desktop platforms, it's a piece of piss really. OpenGL bindings do
exist, I've been modifying them - haven't touched them for a while, but
they do work. They're a combination of two sets of bindings, although a
generator really needs to be written to take the opengl.spec files and
convert them to packages:
http://www.abyss2.demon.co.uk/projects/ada/index.html

Believe me, there's nothing I'd rather do than do develop in Ada, but for
games, it's just not viable...yet. Until other companies start to realise
that programming massive games in C/C++ is really a waste of time (and a
lot of time at that, because they have such stupid schedules) it's just
not going to happen.

My latest project (a game engine) is being written in C++ basically,
because I will be able to sell it if it's written in a language that other
developers can use straight away. If it's written in Ada, I won't be able
to sell it.

> You don't see Ada mentioned anywhere (that I know of) in game
> development circles. Is there a specific reason why?

And you won't, a lot of games programmers haven't been to uni, and if they
have, they didn't do computer science, or they did but it's before Ada was
being hyped (~1990's), so they wouldn't have heard of it. They still have
the mentality of "everyone else uses C/C++, so it must be great."

I thought about writing an article for Gamasutra, but it ended up being a
bit of a rant (like this ;-)), so I didn't finish it. Maybe I will when
I leave this company ;-D

> I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the
> subject. Thx!

Nay problems,
Luke.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Alex R. Mosteo]

Luke A. Guest wrote:

> My latest project (a game engine) is being written in C++ basically,
> because I will be able to sell it if it's written in a language that other
> developers can use straight away. If it's written in Ada, I won't be able
> to sell it.

What about writing it in Your Favorite Language ;) and exporting the 
necessary C names for linking and providing the necessary .h files? Is C 
hard to sell too?

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Luke A. Guest]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:49:17 +0100, Alex R. Mosteo wrote:

> Luke A. Guest wrote:
> 
>> My latest project (a game engine) is being written in C++ basically,
>> because I will be able to sell it if it's written in a language that other
>> developers can use straight away. If it's written in Ada, I won't be able
>> to sell it.
> 
> What about writing it in Your Favorite Language ;) and exporting the 
> necessary C names for linking and providing the necessary .h files? Is C 
> hard to sell too?

No C would be the easiest to sell. C++ makes things easier because it's
OO(ish), but like I said, you can't import C++ into Ada (nicely or
portably, it isn't defined by the standard).

And yes, you *could* write it in Ada and export them as C functions, but
you would still require a compiler that can target your particular
platform. Now, as I need my code to be portable, it's C++, unfortunately.

Luke.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Dani]

Hi! My primary intent when I learn Ada was
making games. I'm not create a game yet but
it is my "heart's dream game" working in progress,
in my spare time.

The Key points (initially) in my choice was: (my game
is a massive on-line rpg; server part is in linux and the client
part is in linux and windows, but can be "easyly" portable
to others platforms if the tools used exist on these other
platforms(normally "true"))

* "tasks" (concurrency directly in the language) the compiler
takes care for us of OS dependency part. the source code is
very very more portable. pthreads, native threads,
 win tasks,etc ? no... just ada tasks.
 the program takes advantage automagically if exists
 more that one processor/cpu, e.g. a server side game ( to support
the load carge and the responsivitness necessary). switch
from time-slicing only to true real-time and time-slicing without
more ado.

* speedy: because the Ada compiler known much more aspects
of the program ( see *.ali parts for one example ) it can easyly make a
program in Ada  2,5 more rapid that the same program write in C. ( this
is controlled with compiler switches)

  Other caracteristics that made me more very very happy was

* Making a program, thinking 'in Ada' is much more pleasure e
much less fatiguing.

* Reading a program writted in Ada (e.g. to maintain a program or
to understanding what other programmer writted) is more understandable
e much less stressing. the Ada privileged the reader.

* the compiler caught much more mistakes in the code, making the final
program much more bugs free.

the libs and bindings I intent use are:

*adasockets for the network part of the engine.
*adaopengl combined with gtkada-gl-area for the part of opengl. (note: 
gtkada-gl-area
in MS-Windows environment is more or less trick to compile (the lib). 
but just for
now this is not a problem.)
*GtkAda for the gui and other administrative parts.

The tools that I recomend is

*Glade-2 for the initial GtkAda design and looking the source code
generated is a good teaching for the guys that are
 not genius guru in gtk (my case :-)  ) (please not confuse glade-2(gui 
generation)
 with the glade (gnat part of annexe E distributed Systems))
*Gnat-GPS to deal with source code.
and
* Gnat compiler (or gcc 3.4.x with Ada support)

Well..., I hope it was helped you.

</flame on> please no flames :-)   <\flame off>

[]'s of seven roughs, Dani.

p.s.: Thanks for understanding my English.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[David Botton]

Take a look at video 8. The folks at SGI talk about why Ada was superb 
for use in exactly the sort of task you are talking about.

http://www.adapower.com/index.php?Command=Class&ClassID=AdvocacyVideos

David Botton



On 2004-11-21 21:45:22 -0500, Jeff Houck <jhouck@northrim.net> said:
> 
> I'd like to hear from any in this NG with an opinion or insight on the 
> subject. Thx!

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeff Houck]

Wow! Thanks for all the insight, information and useful URLs regarding 
this post! I can see that interacting with this newsgroup is going to be 
very interesting... 8^)

I'm going to give this some serious thought. In reading through 
everyones comments and looking at the examples, I'm convinced that Ada 
can, and perhaps more importantly should, make a showing in the game dev 
realm. Ada has simply got so much going for it, how can it continue to 
be "left out"?

But, before I get myself in too deep, I'm going to work out a general 
specifications list for the development of a simple Ada/OpenGL/GLFW 
based engine. Initially I expect it will do "2D in 3D" (textured polys 
as sprites) and if that is successful, a full 3D enviroment.
The OpenGL/GLFW part is entirely based on David Holms AdaOpenGL work. I 
recently contacted David inquiring about his project and while he hasn't 
worked on it for a little over a year, it's quite complete. He would 
like to receive any bug reports and screenshots showing the library in 
action. Thanks David!

Please keep in mind that I'm looking to produce a "proof of concept" at 
this stage. This will be my first attempt at coding a game engine so I'm 
sure it'll be a learning experience. 8^)

I'll post again later with some ideas to bounce off anyone who cares to 
reply or possibly participate. THX!

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Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Luke A. Guest]

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 02:05:17 +0100, Jeff Houck wrote:

> The OpenGL/GLFW part is entirely based on David Holms AdaOpenGL work. I 

Don't use Davids bindings, they have some problems. Use the ones at the
bottom of my page (see my previous post), these are the updated and
combined source from David and another, I just haven't put them into CVS
on the AdaOpenGL site yet.

Luke.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeff Houck]

Luke A. Guest wrote:
> 
> Don't use Davids bindings, they have some problems. Use the ones at the
> bottom of my page (see my previous post), these are the updated and
> combined source from David and another, I just haven't put them into CVS
> on the AdaOpenGL site yet.
> 

Thanks Luke. I'll give them a go! 8^)

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Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Ludovic Brenta]

Jeff Houck writes:
> Wow! Thanks for all the insight, information and useful URLs
> regarding this post! I can see that interacting with this newsgroup
> is going to be very interesting... 8^)

I didn't have a chance to reply earlier but there is a project on
SourceForge called the Generic GNU Game Core:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g3c/

"G3C provides the main features for 3D-game developers: 3D rendering
engine based on openGL, collision detection, physical rules, p2p
network... A game-sample will be avaible, binding a wargame, a flight
simulator, a first person shooter, a MMOG..."

> I'm going to give this some serious thought. [...] But, before I get
> myself in too deep, [...]  Please keep in mind that I'm looking to
> produce a "proof of concept" at this stage. [...]

I think that this is the crux of the problem:

- what is your definition of "getting too deep"?

- is this a commercial endeavour? i.e. does the investment need to be
  recouped by sales?

> This will be my first attempt at coding a game engine so I'm sure
> it'll be a learning experience. 8^)
>
> I'll post again later with some ideas to bounce off anyone who cares
> to reply or possibly participate. THX!

You will probably find that Ada, as a language, has everything you
need for game development.  Now, you need to evaluate the surroundings
of the language and see if they meet your requirements:

- availability of an Ada compiler for your target platforms

- availability of libraries or bindings

- ease of distribution of your work.  Ada programs require an Ada
  runtime library, plus any other libraries you used.

If you are a hobbyist using and targetting free software, you are in
luck.  The Ada compiler is available (GNAT) and included in most
GNU/Linux distributions and in FreeBSD.  There are several free
libraries available (AdaSDL, AdaOpenGL, Generic GNU Game Core,
GtkAda).  The distribution maintainers will package any libraries you
require, making distribution easy.

If you plan to write free software, you may also want to look for
other developers to join you.  This might be difficult because few
game developers are willing to learn Ada.  OTOH, with Ada you would
need less time and fewer people to develop a game than you would in C.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Ada suitablity as a game dev language

[Jeff Houck]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> 
> I didn't have a chance to reply earlier but there is a project on
> SourceForge called the Generic GNU Game Core:
> 
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/g3c/

Thanks for the info! I'll check it out.


> I think that this is the crux of the problem:
> 
> - what is your definition of "getting too deep"?
> 

I'm a professional Freelance programmer and I make my living off of 
coding projects. Before I commit myself to a project of this potential 
magnatude, I want to be sure I can follow through. I've seen many good 
C/C++ game engines get started and then not completed. I don't want to 
join those ranks... 8^)

> - is this a commercial endeavour? i.e. does the investment need to be
>   recouped by sales?
>

Not initially. My interest is to learn Ada and as I've always wanted to 
code up a game engine, I believe I can accomplish both goals 
simulteneously. If, at a later time, the engine looks commercial grade, 
perhaps. There are a number of licensing issues and such to get through 
first.

> You will probably find that Ada, as a language, has everything you
> need for game development.  Now, you need to evaluate the surroundings
> of the language and see if they meet your requirements:
> 
> - availability of an Ada compiler for your target platforms
> 
> - availability of libraries or bindings
> 
> - ease of distribution of your work.  Ada programs require an Ada
>   runtime library, plus any other libraries you used.
> 
> If you are a hobbyist using and targetting free software, you are in
> luck.  The Ada compiler is available (GNAT) and included in most
> GNU/Linux distributions and in FreeBSD.  There are several free
> libraries available (AdaSDL, AdaOpenGL, Generic GNU Game Core,
> GtkAda).  The distribution maintainers will package any libraries you
> require, making distribution easy.

Ada is indeed an awesome language from what I've seen and read so far. 
That's what prompted me to look into it as a game dev language. With so 
many great features, I couldn't understand why it's not more accepted 
for game dev.

> 
> If you plan to write free software, you may also want to look for
> other developers to join you.  This might be difficult because few
> game developers are willing to learn Ada.  OTOH, with Ada you would
> need less time and fewer people to develop a game than you would in C.
> 

Thanks again for the insights. I would certainly like to enlist the aid 
of others who have a like interest. However, I wouldn't want to ask 
anyone to join in unless I was sure of my own committment first. 8^)

j

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