QuoteIndirection only solves some problems, and always at the cost of dev ergonomics

I don't really get what Indirection is, but this point can really be lumped in with the last point, to form a "Rust is slow at iterating crazy new stuff" point.

My recent experience with organizational game dev has been that I actually hate trying crazy new stuff? I don't know how else to describe this. I like creating extensible systems and then working within them, extending them in ways that fit with everything else. Rust is sounding more and more like my jam. This raises a small red flag for me:

QuoteWhat would be 3 lines of code in C# suddenly becomes 30 lines of Rust split into two places.

... but it's not tangible enough for me to really understand, and the Rust counter-argument as presented by the author is that maybe you shouldn't be trying to do this thing (see below) if it's making your code all crazy:

QuoteThe most canonical example here is something like: "while I'm iterating over this query I want to check a component on this other thing and touch a bunch of related systems" (spawn particles, play audio, etc.).

I'm tempted to stop reading, because I think this author is coming from a very different place than I am... hmm. I do value making little game prototypes in a rapid engine, and I've done it a lot over a long period of time. But where am I now? Starseed Pilgrim was not a game that involved a lot of rapid prototyping, for instance. I set up a system and worked out its problems. There was not too much prototyping. I designed some behaviours on paper, and I implemented them.

summary of points 1-2. "Rust forces you to refactor a lot if your code is bad." ok.

QuoteRust being great at big refactorings solves a largely self-inflicted issues with the borrow checker

It's very often said that one of Rust's greatest strengths is ease of refactoring. This is most definitely true, and I have had many experiences where I could fearlessly refactor significant parts of the codebase, with everything working afterwards. Everything works as advertised?

A-ha. I see, I finally understand the structure of this article. I say 'finally' -- it didn't take too long, only two headers in out of... however many. But the construction of the article is not very good, which is to say, it could be a lot better; I had to infer a whole structure that could have been described to me instead.

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ACTUALLY, LOOKING AHEAD, NEVERMIND. THE HEADERS JUST SUCK AND ARE CONFUSING. Some of them are the writer speaking, and others are strawman-esque quotes, and it is extremely unclear which is which. No wonder the article is so damn confusing to parse at a glance.

QuoteIn Rust, sometimes just doing a thing is not possible, because the thing you might need to do is not available in the place where you're doing the thing, and you end up being made to refactor by the compiler, even if you know the code is mostly throwaway.

OK: this does sound annoying. Rust: 1, LogLog: 1

It might be fine. I'm not sure. I'm thinking about how annoying it is to crawl through the node tree in Godot, how messy and awful it feels, and how much of a struggle it is to climb through it to the place where I want to be.

Or, actually, it's quite fast, but it feels gross. It's messy. Hmm. I'll still give LL the point.

Quotethe borrow checker forces a refactor at the most inconvenient times [..] I've often found that being unable to just move on for now and solve my problem and fix it later was what was truly hurting my ability to write good code.

This sounds crazy but my brain right now is like, yeah, I actually want this??? Not this specific problem: the borrow checker is actually quite annoying. But I am terrible at coming back to deal with quick fixes. They accumulate and make a project unlivable. Rust: 1, LogLog: 0

Quotetrying to make enough money to fund our development with it. [..] I'm looking at things from the perspective of "I want to make a game in 3-12 months maximum and release it so that people can play it and I can make some money from it.". This is not written from a perspective of "I want to learn Rust and gamedev seems fun", which even though is a valid goal, is not in any way aligned with what we want, which is doing gamedev in a commercially viable and self-sufficient way.

OK, I'm really going to be laser focused on whether this article actually addresses how difficulty developing in Bevy connects with making money. I'm suspicious.

OK, so, this article is a 95 minute read, and I cannot really do a 95 minute read without a system for chewing through it. So here's my system. I'm going to whine about everything that seems wrong.

For context: Suddenly, suddenly, I am seriously considering trying out Bevy gamedev.

(The other options that I'm considering are Love2D + moonscript, TypeScript + HTML5, and FNA+MoonTools.ECS)

Played with Damian. April 30. Tells a loose frame story, but with no talented storyteller to hold its pieces together, does not go beyond that...

Role playing without a strong frame story,  lacking a wonderful conclusion. Hmm. What's to be done about that. 

The system is not masterable, nor compelling as a result... It does not contain enough stories...

The very concept of evil or temptation

Quote from: The Silver Spike, LIVThere wasn't no place in the world you could put it that somebody else couldn't get it back from [...] My best notions were to get a bunch of sorcerers together who could elevate it to the other realm and stick it on a passing comet or to have a bunch break a hole through to another plane, pop the spike through, and plug the hole.

Both ways was just cheaters that put the problem off on somebody else. The people of the future when the comet came back or the people of the other plane.

I recently watched Jailbirds as well as Unlocked, a couple docu-reality shows about inmates, which had me reflecting on the nature of prisons/jails. Places where you put people who you need out of the population. In both shows, it revealed a fractal problem to the approach of imprisonment: within the subset there will always be another subset to isolate, to separate.

Putting the problem off on somebody else.

Deadlines. External pressure. Sometimes these things can feel draconic. (There's a right word I'm looking for and that's not it.)

Doing something every day has been very satisfying. There's a website, "750 Words," which is a writing tool to help you build and maintain the habit of writing 750 words every day. It's nice. I don't keep my streaks long there.

I of course also made 31 unmarked games, and more recently droqever, both 'game-a-day' pursuits. Sometimes I would be proud of a game I made in a day, but I think their primary function was to shake me loose, to act as sketch, to get me doing instead of doubting.

And yet, it's the thinking and reflecting that produces an intentional work, something with real shape, something with a goal, a function. Making it a daily habit removes the questioning and becomes too unconscious.

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There is a missing step which is gathering, living, asking "Why?" and stumbling upon a sharp answer. Sometimes the answers don't come, they aren't there, and while it's possible and useful to create something regardless (make a doodle, a sketch, operate on automatic), it can undermine the habit of searching for answers to questions, it can undermine the habit of conveying something meaningful.

Quote from: The Silver Spike, p 111/365"We thought you were dead with the rest of them, Timmy. Forty thousand people they killed that night. . . ."
"I was out of the city, Mrs. Cisco. I just got back."
"You haven't been home yet?"
[..]
"I said I just got in."
Smeds saw he did not like the woman much.
She went all sad and consoling. Even Smeds, who did not consider himself perceptive, saw she was just busting because she was going to get to be the first to pass along some bad news.
"Your dad and both your brothers . . . I'm sorry. They were trying to help fight the fires. Your mother and sister . . . Well, they were conquerors. They did what conquerors always do. Your sister, they mutilated her so bad she ended up killing herself a couple weeks ago."
Timmy shook like he was about to go into convulsions.
"That's enough, madam," Fish said. "You've buried your blade to the heart."
She sputtered, "Why the nerve . . . "
Tully said, "Piss off, bitch. Before I kick your ass up around your ears."

I remembered reading this the first time. It was striking and memorable then, too. Something that I like about reading books. It illuminates little corners of humanity. The ways that people act and the ways that people are. Yesterday (or I guess this morning) before I wrote playing the rain woggle I wanted to touch on this weird topic... I feel like being an author means thinking about these things in a way that being a single-player videogame designer doesn't. But maybe it is, considering that we have all these ideas about what it is that players, that people, want.

It's very different though. I don't want to cater to all these types of people, and not only people who are playing the games, but I want to spend time reflecting on and noticing things about other people, people far beyond the walls of the cyborg.

The wonder of plant life cycles... the strange feeling of watching things spread across the earth

Why do trees flower, and why do flowers turn into leaves?