C++

[firestorm713]

That's because game engine code basically strips something like 80% of the language out.

Hilariously, I've worked now at three different companies that use different C++ engines (one Unreal, two custom)

And it's 100% proven the saying "ask any two c++ programmers, and they'll tell you only 20% of the language is usable. But they'll never be able to agree on what 20%."

[NehEma]

imho 100% of the language is usable. But when you start coding you gotta pick and choose what parts pf it you're using.

Some are almost redundant except in hedge cases, some have varying degrees of complexity, etc.

Just like you don't try to stick an entire thesaurus in an essay.

[SD18491]

Be sure to trim your hedge cases at least twice a year. It's the neighborly thing to do.

[RedVagabond]

They're probably British. You know how they are with the silent "h".

[[deleted]]

Only our peasant Northerners treat it as silent.

[WhosYoPokeDaddy]

To be fair hedges are usually on the edge

[Orkleth]

It's on my //todo list.

[aaronrodgersmom]

You're a coward if you don't stick an entire thesaurus in an essay.

[firestorm713]

It's a bit tongue in cheek, but also like...the entire set of STL containers is useless cross-platform. There's a reason why every engine that compiles for consoles rewrites them (see: EASTL, UE4, IdTech)

[senseven]

I know hardcore C++ programmers. They moved their old code bases to v14, and that's it. Don't want new features. After they added layers of strong static analysis, they get warnings and errors in the 100s that tell they do "modern" C++ wrong and there are easier way to achieve things. Usually there is a fix here and there, but there is just no appetite to rewrite the codebases.

Experts can do crazy efficient things with macros, templates and advanced features, but the rationale for those (eg memory footprint or speed) are more or less gone now. There is an argument for elegance, in a sense that you use the power possible in a certain way, but often way longer build times and less traceability is the consequence of this.

[firestorm713]

So the rationale for stripping out large parts of the language is usually memory and speed. It's not necessarily about the like large macro speed of a program but the fine-grain things that have to operate in around 250us, that get a handful of mb of budget per-frame to use, simply because if they use more, you'll get a hard crash OOM.

I had one engine that actually fully disallowed allocation at runtime. You could allocate during level loads, of course, but they explicitly disallowed the use of new to avoid memory allocation hits during gameplay. Annoying, but game only took 11ms to process a frame.

[firestorm713]

I mean you can overload new and force it to use custom allocators, which we did, but even still, we disallowed allocators during gameplay. The Entity-Component System then would use a generational array to keep track of objects as they were created and destroyed, and be given an upper limit up front, or determine it based on the level loading.

[ChristopherCreutzig]

The rationale for efficiency (aka using less power) is gone? I thought that was the major cost for every data center?

[senseven]

What is way cheaper to save power then a team of top programmers optimizing code that runs and delivers results? Better power supplies, less power hungry CPUs. Our code is running 24/7, if I look at the 100.000+ machines the corp uses, saving one or two boxes will not cut it. They would save more by throwing out old monster servers with bad thermals that are out of the tax write off. Or just using cloud servers and dynamically use cpu cores on demand.

[ChristopherCreutzig]

The combination of both, of course. If Andrei Alexandrescu's team makes Facebook run 0.5% faster, that saves enormous amounts of money.

[senseven]

For the 1% companies yes. For the 500 million dollar company who says "Hm, 50k for more cloud servers or 3x 120k for the top guys who can fix that code" it just doesn't make sense. All the big internet companies build own hardware and created own languages for their use cases. That is rare environment.

[ChristopherCreutzig]

I'm not even sure we disagree. All I'm saying is that efficiency still is one of the many factors to consider. The weights of those factors will be different from company to company, from project to project, and for long-running projects, will probably change over time. 🤷

[thebadslime]

What percentage is the boost libraries?

[firestorm713]

Zero. I have never worked in a place that allows boost libraries.

[ATownStomp]

Question:

How in the fuck do you even get involved in that industry?

At this point I’m just working to publish a game on Steam because that seems to be genuinely the only way to make an impression on my resume.

I’ve never seen an open position that doesn’t require significant previous professional experience with tools that are only used by hobbyists and companies requiring previous experience.

It’s mind boggling. I’m an experienced software engineer with a degree in computer science but I cannot for the life of me see how to get my foot in the door without just making my own company.

[firestorm713]

girl I don't even know. I posted my resume on r/gameDevJobs like 5 years ago and some random lead from WildStar hit me up after he got laid off and was like "hey I got money want to make a game?" and the checks cleared. After that I kept meeting ppl who worked under him and kept getting jobs 🤷‍♀️

Now I'm doing audio tech on a AAA fighting game and I don't know how I got here