Re: [dylan] The Future of Dylan: What do we use it for?

--===============0939778292==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a11c2a3e03c7ff3050297a098

--001a11c2a3e03c7ff3050297a098
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 2:03 AM, Andrew Glynn <[email protected]>
wrote:

> A while ago I did a bit of work on a Dylan game engine, but I ended up
> getting kind of bogged down in various details, many of which were
> unrelated to Dylan. Although I might be getting ahead of things here, I'll
> briefly mention a couple of issues that could make the Dylan side of game
> development easier in the future.
>

No problem with jumping ahead ... this topic didn't seem to result in much
conversation.


> First, Bruce (and others?) already put in a lot of work on improving
> melange, and those improvements certainly made my life quite a bit easier.
> But it's still not as painless as one might hope. Would the LLVM back-end
> help for auto-generating FFI stuff? For example, integrating libclang
> somehow? Being able to integrate with C++ (in addition to C) would be even
> better, considering all the libraries it would make available, but I don't
> know how complicated that would be.
>

C++ would be pretty difficult / a lot of work. The process of wrapping C
APIs could be better though. As you say, we could use libclang to implement
parts of melange. That's a decent amount of work, but doable.

Also, melange could be integrated as a tool in our new build tool, Deft,
which would make it easier to work with in some ways.


> Second: value types. I'm not trying to create fancy AAA blockbuster games,
> but even for a little toy physics engine I've had to replace my <vec2>
> class and its useful library of vector math functions with a bunch of raw
> <single-float>s in order to get acceptable performance. To be fair, I
> didn't profile to see why the class-based version was so much slower, but I
> imagine having unboxed, stack allocated value types (and vectors of them
> allocated contiguously) would be helpful.
>

This sounds like something interesting. Can you provide more detail,
perhaps in a new thread? Things like how you were defining <vec2> would be
useful, as well as what operations you were defining for it and how they
were implemented.

I did a bit of a write up of how this sort of thing can generate good code
in a blog post about the type system:

  http://dylanfoundry.org/2014/08/28/type-system-overview/

Look for the discussion of <float32x4>.

So ... I'd love to see what you were running into as a new thread. :)

 - Bruce

--001a11c2a3e03c7ff3050297a098
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<div dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><div class=3D"gmail_quote">On T=
ue, Sep 9, 2014 at 2:03 AM, Andrew Glynn <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"m=
ailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_blank">[email protected]<=
/a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:=
0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);=
border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr">A while ago I di=
d a bit of work on a Dylan game engine, but I ended up getting kind of bogg=
ed down in various details, many of which were unrelated to Dylan. Although=
 I might be getting ahead of things here, I&#39;ll briefly mention a couple=
 of issues that could make the Dylan side of game development easier in the=
 future.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>No problem with jumping ahea=
d ... this topic didn&#39;t seem to result in much conversation.</div><div>=
=C2=A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0px 0px 0px 0=
.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-s=
tyle:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div></div><div>First, Bruce =
(and others?) already put in a lot of work on improving melange, and those =
improvements certainly made my life quite a bit easier. But it&#39;s still =
not as painless as one might hope. Would the LLVM back-end help for auto-ge=
nerating FFI stuff? For example, integrating libclang somehow? Being able t=
o integrate with C++ (in addition to C) would be even better, considering a=
ll the libraries it would make available, but I don&#39;t know how complica=
ted that would be.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>C++ would be=
 pretty difficult / a lot of work. The process of wrapping C APIs could be =
better though. As you say, we could use libclang to implement parts of mela=
nge. That&#39;s a decent amount of work, but doable.</div><div><br></div><d=
iv>Also, melange could be integrated as a tool in our new build tool, Deft,=
 which would make it easier to work with in some ways.</div><div>=C2=A0</di=
v><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;borde=
r-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid=
;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div>Second: value types. I&#39;m not t=
rying to create fancy AAA blockbuster games, but even for a little toy phys=
ics engine I&#39;ve had to replace my &lt;vec2&gt; class and its useful lib=
rary of vector math functions with a bunch of raw &lt;single-float&gt;s in =
order to get acceptable performance. To be fair, I didn&#39;t profile to se=
e why the class-based version was so much slower, but I imagine having unbo=
xed, stack allocated value types (and vectors of them allocated contiguousl=
y) would be helpful.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This sound=
s like something interesting. Can you provide more detail, perhaps in a new=
 thread? Things like how you were defining &lt;vec2&gt; would be useful, as=
 well as what operations you were defining for it and how they were impleme=
nted.</div><div><br></div><div>I did a bit of a write up of how this sort o=
f thing can generate good code in a blog post about the type system:</div><=
div><br></div><div>=C2=A0 <a href=3D"http://dylanfoundry.org/2014/08/28/typ=
e-system-overview/">http://dylanfoundry.org/2014/08/28/type-system-overview=
/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Look for the discussion of &lt;float32x4&gt;=
.</div><div><br></div><div>So ... I&#39;d love to see what you were running=
 into as a new thread. :)</div><div><br></div><div>=C2=A0- Bruce</div><div>=
<br></div></div></div></div>

--001a11c2a3e03c7ff3050297a098--

--===============0939778292==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

_______________________________________________
hackers mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.opendylan.org/mailman/listinfo/hackers

--===============0939778292==--