From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 28534 invoked by alias); 20 Nov 2003 09:45:11 -0000 Mailing-List: contact xconq7-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: xconq7-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 28527 invoked from network); 20 Nov 2003 09:45:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO outbound28-2.lax.untd.com) (64.136.28.160) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 20 Nov 2003 09:45:10 -0000 Received: (qmail 19996 invoked from network); 20 Nov 2003 09:45:09 -0000 Received: from 66-52-241-156.sttl.dial.netzero.com (HELO vangogh) (66.52.241.156) by smtpout03.lax.untd.com with SMTP; 20 Nov 2003 09:45:09 -0000 From: "Brandon J. Van Every" To: "xconq" Subject: RE: Xconq language thoughts Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 09:47:00 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 In-Reply-To: <3FBC2D7D.70104@apple.com> X-SW-Source: 2003/txt/msg00832.txt.bz2 Stan Shebs wrote: > > > >Yes, writing AIs is hard. However, most AI developers > >probably have no > >desire to write AIs in GDL, they probably want to use their > >language of choice. > > Um, the AIs I'm talking about would be in C or C++. Almost nobody is interested in writing AI in C. Some will want to do C++, "for the performance." Others, like myself, find C++ to be a poor fit to the AI tasks they want to implement. People like that pick Python or some other higher level language. > In theory one could build > infrastructure to link in other languages at that point; the > API is the same as the > networking layer, in fact the AI could be a separate program > if one wanted. > (Nobody has tried to write one of those either, despite all > the years I put > into rewriting the code so that it was possible.) One question is how much coding is needed to get an AI going. It's not enough to have a separable layer. It must be a *doable* layer. > I don't actually buy that reasoning. Programmers who are really > interested are > willing to key in machine code using toggle switches if they have to; Good luck attracting AI developers to your project then. Have they been beating down your door? Actually, this would be a worthwhile question for comp.ai.games. "What would attract you to an open source project?" One thing I do know about AI coders, from talking to a crowd of Diplomacy AI writers. Everyone argues over theoretical approaches, and then people make up their minds about the best way to tackle a given AI problem. People always differ about what "the best" way is. Once people have drawn their lines in the sand, they will not do it your way. Only their way. At that point discussion has to cease and people have to start implementing. So, you might expect AI coders to be a non-cooperative sort of crowd. The best thing you could do for them would be to provide tools for them and get out of their way. > I've been tricked before by the "build it and they will come" > theory; see my remark above about the networking layer. You don't want to "build it." You do want an OO migration path that can be implemented incrementally. I'm going to look at how to poison your code base with Python. I'm giving it until Sunday. If I can get Python embedded and make some trivial game design or AI changes by then, I'll consider this viable. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA Taking risk where others will not.