Allow RCBasic's programs to load external dll files.!!!!!!!!

For the majority of users, external DLL's, would be a great idea. I cannot speak for our Mac users, but for those of us that use Linux, that idea may not work. I know, Mac and Linux users, are a small section of the community... but still... if DLL's are involved, I personally, will avoid it like the plague... (but that's me... lol)

The "libraries" could be written in RC and "included". This will prevent "isolating" Mac and Linux users but will involve extra work on behalf of the game developer. Depending on the type of library, "including" may not be practical. A library for collision detection is completely "doable". A library for Raycasting or Box2D or, as you mentioned, physics engines, would involve a LOT of coding. In those cases, a DLL, would be a great option.

In my opinion: DLL's are a great idea but has the potential of excluding 'non-windows' users. Writing libraries to "include" has the potential of adding more work. But, both options, have the end result of making the game player's experience a better one. So... The options are basically two-fold... 1. Produce "both" DLL's (for windows users) AND the same "include" library in RC (for non-windows users) or 2. Probably leave RC "as it is".

External libraries are a great idea...

As a side point: Naalaa has a "Lib" directory of libraries in both "text" and "compiled" format which are "included" in the game listing. The "High Score" table in Astrorocks was based on Naalaa's High Score library. The High Score Library is just a collection of subroutines and functions. Because Naalaa is written for different OS's, the libraries, need to be in a format that those OS's can read... In this case... Plain text...

Anyway... that's my opinion (for what it's worth... lol) N00b would be the best person to reply... N00b! No pressure, right?

johnno56 You are a majority of users currently. And you are right, DLLs only work on Windows.



All of these dialects compile to machine code. RCBasic is a intermediate bytecode compiler. Technically its still possible for a bytecode compiler to implement this but I try not to implement anything unless it will run on every supported platform. And like I mentioned above, its very specific to just Windows. I might try to integrate Box2D if I can integrate its objects into RC's state machine structure but to be honest it probably isn't happening for a while.

But RCBasic's core is really just a few C++ files that you could include in any C++ project as a scripting language if you want. I might make a tutorial on how to do that at some point.