Just managed to finish editor version v0.11.0-alpha. It has bugs, some of which might be engine regressions, will try to fix them ASAP. It has Windows, x64 Linux, and aarch64 Linux (#raspberrypi) versions.
The migration from executable-embedded text to custom formattable text files enabling localization support have begun. One window now fully contains texts from a language file.
Remember that a few days ago I released a new version of my game engine?
It turns out it still has bugs, and I just fixed a pretty critical one (ListView's insertAndEdit function didn't work due to an issue functional bros would yell me "we told you so")
The bug that caused the engine's text parser to miss the last line if a <br /> tag wasn't followed it has been fixed, and will be in the newest version, alongside with text-justify implemented.
After that, I'll also publish the PixelPerfectEngine map format (XMF) as a separate thing, maybe other engines would also benefit from implementing at least partial support for it, or other people writing their own editors. Same with my own MIDI 2.0 format.
A few more features are working in my game engine. Labels and message dialogs now use the (currently a bit buggy) multiline text drawing system instead of the previous workaround.
Now I'm moving onto the ability of adding ListView items by editing them.
Fixed the arrangement and the instrument (lowered the levels to 25% -> no longer overloads when multiple sounds are played together), now it sounds well.
Time to fix some other UI issues (file dialog, etc.), then it's 0.11.0 alpha time! Might also put the M2 specs to its own repository.
NOTE: Due to various reasons (lack of debugging and leveling, etc.) audio is clipping at times. I could withstand it, but YMMW.
Preliminary functions of the M2 (format I've invented for sequencing adaptive soundtracks, using MIDI 2.0) sequencer are mostly working, although I still don't know how well I nailed the transcribing on my own part. I'll be soon finalizing the first version of the format, as well as trying to look for musicians (especially of those that can do programming) to help with the process.
So Valve is making some adjustments to their anti-AI policies, which will end up allowing more AI generated content.
My engine will continue to not use such assets (and code) even in testing material, disallows the use of branding material for projects that use AI generated content, and gloating about or celebrating the job loss created by AI generative technologies implicitly violate the Code of Conduct (especially if you also call those artists and translators "woke", "SJWs", etc.).
Maybe I'll write an anti-AI clause in the coming days.
I'm having a lot of trouble with the lack of documentation (I had to dig and poke around for days to get it working not from the files directly, only for it to stop working again in the same way, all while still having the fix for it), and the lack of an incentive from some of its other users in the D community to make anything...
I think I'll soon release a new version, even though the newly revealed feature (Lua scripts) aren't working as intended for now. Once I use my LuaVar structure, which supposed to wrap all possible variables in Lua as well as handle Lua hash tables, all kinds of hell gets loose. Does not get the correct type of variable, everything resets to nil, etc.
However, I really need the new version, as I messed up a feature in the GUI library as I also fixed an old and undiscovered bug.
Various thoughts on too many programming languages, for no discernible reason.
I have been interested in Go since it's very initial release, but their dependence on Google is uncharming to say the least. I still haven't made up my mind on its GC, but its definitely better than most.
I used to do some ML work in .NET and if it wasn't dependent on Microsoft it would be a heavy contender for a great language, but it has far too many Microsoft-isms to ever really go much farther.
Rust is great, I enjoy beating my head against a brick wall battling with the compiler, and their safety is great, but overly complicated and feature-creep is a real problem on that entire project. I do a lot of work these days in Rust, for better (mostly) or worse (mostly-ish).
C is my bread-and-butter, as is Javascript for quick prototyping.
Elixir is great, but Erlang is unwieldy, the community is growing, but not fast enough - and I just can't get my mind to enjoy the syntax no matter how nice it is.
D is a lot of fun, but their GC can be slow at times, and the community is very small and packages are often broken and unmaintained.
Python was my first true love, but I really can't stand the whitespace, again love the language, hate the syntax.
Zig is fun, but just that. Fast, nimble, but early days, a bit confusing, could replace my insistence on C for core projects, but again, early days. I love to use them as a compiler for C, much faster than the defaults on any of the others.
Odin is one I love to keep an eye on, I wish I could get behind using it for more things. When I first took notice ~4 years ago the documentation was a bit scattered, but it looks much better now. The developer behind it is incredibly cool, could be seen as the next Dennis Ritchie imo. Runes are dope. The syntax is by far my favourite.
Julia, I love Julia, but performance last I tested was a bit of a miss, and by miss, it required a decent chunk of compute for basics, but when you gave it the system to throttle, it would be insanely productive to write in. Javascript is something that I prototype even syscalls in, but Julia is just the same but much better and more productive (and less strange) in many regards. I am really hoping this takes over in the ML/Data world and just eats Python alive. I've heard there has been major work in the perf department, but I haven't had reason to try it out lately.
Ada, memory safety before Rust! Great language, especially for critical applications, decades of baggage (or wisdom), slow moving language, insanely stable, compilers are all mostly proprietary, job market is small, but well paid, great for robotics, defense, and space industry types, but the syntax is... rough. Someone should make a meta-language on top of Ada like Zig/Nim/Odin do for C, or Elixir does for Erlang.
The others: Carbon, haven't tried; Nim, prefer when they were "Nimrod" (cue Green Day), decent but not my style; Crystal, seems cool, but not for me; Scala, great FP language, but JVM; Haskell, I'm not a mathematician, but my mathematician friends love it. I see why, but not my thing as much as I love functional languages. I'll try it again, eventually. I did not learn Haskell a great good.
I tend to jump from language to language, trying everything out, it's fun and a total timesuck.
Since writing this I've started looking more into Lisp, and I am starting to understand why everyone things its "gods chosen language". it's great, and you can turn/embed any language into a lisp. That's cool.
I like both Ada and C, but I work in the robotics industry, so we have to constantly switch between the two for anything hardware based. They both have their benefits, C is my preferred because of how simple (it can be, if you try...), but Ada (Primarily SPARK is what I've done work in) is great, but dated in many regards. I don't know if I've ever looked into Austral, but I'll take a look!
Haskell, tried it many times, never a good time. Ocaml isn't bad, but again, not my thing or style but definitely something I inherently understand more.
Scala, JVM, my sworn enemy. Never again. They can't get me suckered into reading Java docs again.
Elixir, great language, but I am going to agree with you - I am starting to prefer working with Erlang directly, but its early days on that. I've started looking into @lfe which looks incredible.
Nim, I dislike whitespace reqs in languages, I tend to value customization of my styles to make it all make sense to me, so Nim is too controlling for me in that regard. I read code a lot more than write it.
No real opinion on C2-3, love D, V looks interesting but not sure yet, Jai - if it ever comes out, haven't heard of Scopes, and I already mentioned Carbon.
If someone could find a way to package Rusts memory management in a tenable way to be cross-language, we would have a massive explosion of greatness. I know it's possible, but nearly impossible without some wicked genius' at the helm.
Some alternative to Lua, or at least the mainline Lua release?
I'm having a lot of trouble with the lack of documentation (I had to dig and poke around for days to get it working not from the files directly, only for it to stop working again in the same way, all while still having the fix for it), and the lack of an incentive from some of its other users in the D community to make anything...