I've been around here for a good 5 1/2 years and haven't much to show for it, save for maybe a contest entry or two, and demos and libraries. Anyways, I haven't much interest in developing on the BYOND platform at the moment, but I still have interest in BYOND itself; thus I decided that I might like to make an alternative IDE to Dream Maker. This isn't a post about the philosophy of game design per sé, but rather a post about the philosophy of what aids in the development of game designs. :)
What kinds of features do you guys think should ideally go into a new BYOND IDE? I think that I'd like to make it more advanced than Dream Maker, but at the same time I don't want it to end up too bloated to be functional, but I'm not entirely sure how this pertains to the developer community's interests here.
I'm not setting any kind of time-frame that one might expect me to complete the project---it really is a low-priority thing---but I do plan on working on it in my spare-time's spare-time, so it should inch along little by little (I wonder if other countries might say "it should centimeter along," heh).
The plan would be to link it to the distributed dm.exe compiler for compilation, though at some time I may write my own compiler. It wouldn't be extremely worthwhile to do so, seeing as it'd be hell to keep up with updates to BYOND when you're from a perspective lacking the BYOND source, but maybe if I made one I could hand it over to Dantom for them to work with (always complaining about Dan's unmanageable code, aren't ya?). That, and I've been wanting some practice writing optimizing compilers for a while now, and BYOND seems like a nice language to do it for.
Hiead
ID:152187
 Oct 23 2007, 8:18 pm
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Elation wrote:
Code completion (!). I like those ideas also with the auto commenting it would be possible to auto comment a chunk of code via the - + fold-away thingy :). | |
With a little reading, I could of course make a Linux version in C++. Just because Tom-and-company don't manage GUIs for alternative operating systems doesn't mean it's impossible. :P
Hiead | |
Hiead wrote:
...I may write my own compiler... ...That, and I've been wanting some practice writing optimizing compilers for a while now... If you wrote a form of DM, as far as the syntax goes, that is compilable to binary format, I (and so many others) would be so happy. Don't you think that'd be a good idea? | |
Well, I don't think I'd want to change the language itself so much...just would want to make it so that the compiler provides for more optimizations and (hopefully) faster code.
What would go into "a form of DM, as far as the syntax goes," anyways? Hiead | |
A programming language that has a syntax of that like DM. Classes are specified like datums would be in DM.
/LOL/Whoa/hey Automatically initializes (if it hasn't already) classes LOL, Whoa (child of LOL), and hey (child of Whoa). It'd also be nice if it had tab-and-linebreak formatting rather than bracket and semicolon. Also, it should compile without requiring the files to be ordered in any specific way. I mean an actual programming language, compiled into binary for use on different platforms natively. Something like C++ that addresses the downfalls and complications for those coming from DM. It'd be like a DM version of C++! | |
Being able to browse by class/object and by proc/function.
Auto-tabbing (so you don't have to type: mob,enter,tab,proc,enter,tab...).
That fold-away thing. With the plusses and minuses, that hides sections of code.
Auto-commenting- some way of quickly commenting out a whole chunk of code, such as an entire proc or entire object definition, and a way of uncommenting it back.
Packaging for map-makers- removing all executable code, procs, verbs. Just leaving the source with object and var defs, with or without icons.