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This is probably not a popular opinion here in HN but why does it matter what language you use to make your game in? You can use virtually any language to make a game. From my point of view the best language for a game is that which makes you the most productive for cranking out that code. And we all have our own personal preferences about which language is best, which I think is fine, you should code with the one that you feel most productive with. At the end of the day users will not be able to tell the difference. All that matters is whether your game is fun or not.



You can use any language, but it's not like they are all equal and have the same tooling available. Rust has some distinct features and there is a natural lack of resources as the language is still new, so it's interesting from a developers perspective that someone went through the work of doing all that from scratch and made it to the end.

Also it's an alternative to C++ which is heavily used in gamedev. I personally believe Rust can shine in gamedev and every experiment is interesting.


> This is probably not a popular opinion here in HN but why does it matter what language you use to make your game in?

To the end user? It doesn't matter one bit.

To your peers? It's interesting and educational to talk shop.


What matters is not "what language you use to make your game", it's "which kind of software you can make with language X". That is, the focus of this article is not the "making a game" part, it's the "in Rust" part. It talks about where Rust helped, and which were the pain points. These are things of interest for Rust developers, in both senses: people using the Rust language, and the ones who develop the Rust language.


The language he chose doesn't matter except to him, but writing about his experience using it does matter to anyone interested in choosing a similar path.


It doesn't. But this article is interesting (rare/novel) because it is about Rust, not because it is about making a game.


100% agree with you. However - posts like these might give encouragement to people who know a language that they can actually accomplish Project XYZ in said language, especially if there's accepted norms about what types of work a language is "good for".


Although I did not point it out, I'm talking about experienced software/game developers. A novice can definitely make the mistakes you are mentioning, which makes your comment a valid point.


Replace "game" with "software", and your post is equally valid.


As long as it is not flash! Some serious flash hating here.


Eh, AFAIK Flash's big problem is the implementation - it's horribly inefficient and insecure etc, but in theory someone could make their own clone of Flash and make a much better version that works well for all that stuff.


Just have to say Flash and its an automatic down vote. As some background, I used to program 3D engines in C++ for 20 years. So I know a little about the subject, and I hated flash back then too, but just out of ignorance.

first point - insecure

Would you rather have a safe that thousands of thieves try to break on a daily basis, or would you prefer that only casual thieves try to break it every once in a while?

I would trust my money to the safe that has been thoroughly tested. Checking for safety is pretty much all the flash team does these days.

inefficient

Its actually as or more efficient than JavaScript. Where there lots of crap flash ads and programs? Sure, but that is because Adobe made it easy to create flash apps.

I am writing a 3D engine in Flash that displays and updates millions of polygons at 60 frames per second. I can't do that in JavaScript yet.




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