"Adam Ruppe" <destructionator@gmail.com> wrote in message news:j17jkf$2hm0$1@digitalmars.com...
> From what I can tell, it's Google's alternative to Flash; they want to make crappy games on it.
>
> Consider that the first thing they ported to it, again, just like their javascript nonsense, was Quake. (I think Google loves Javascript too much to let it go anyway.)
>
> The API has a lot of graphics and audio stuff too which reinforces this.

Hmm, it does also fit into Google's crusade to get people to pretend Chrome is an OS.

Maybe it's a framework for Farmville on Google Plus. :p

On 02-08-2011 05:20, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> Maybe it's a framework for Farmville on Google Plus. :p

Then we must support it!

- Alex

On 2/08/11 2:24 AM, Adam Ruppe wrote:
>  From what I can tell, it's Google's alternative to Flash; they want
> to make crappy games on it.
>
> Consider that the first thing they ported to it, again, just like
> their javascript nonsense, was Quake. (I think Google loves
> Javascript too much to let it go anyway.)
>
> The API has a lot of graphics and audio stuff too which reinforces
> this.

The games industry has been crying out for something like NaCl for a long time. It is exactly what we want:

- Ability to launch games within browser without a plugin download
- Platform independent ABI
- No f*cking Javascript (performance will never match C++)
- Safe (no need for end users to worry)


JavaScript for high-quality games is a non-starter. It's too slow. You simply cannot do high performance numeric code in Javascript (http://chadaustin.me/2011/01/digging-into-javascript-performance/).

Writing C++ code to run outside of the browser is a pain, and inconvenient for the user. First, you have to write your code to handle all the different platforms, which is a huge burden. Once you've done that, you need to convince users to download and install your game. It would be much more convenient to just have users go a website and be done with it.

If D were usable in NaCl that would be a huge selling point for the language.

Peter Alexander wrote:
> If D were usable in NaCl that would be a huge selling point for the language.

Well, let's set aside my personal things and see how this might be done.

Based on what I've read so far, it actually sounds easy enough, codegen wise.

It might be possible to drop gdc into their hacked up gcc backend and have it work with minimal effort.

Or, changing dmd's backend to emit code for it might not be hard either. It looks like it'd just have to align jumps, which should be as simple as padding labels with some nops.


The bigger difficulty I suspect will be porting the runtime... but, since it builds on C in a lot of places, that might be simple too.



I can't find more details on what's needed to happen to the compilers, but I'm really thinking it won't be very difficult to make it happen.

"Peter Alexander" <peter.alexander.au@gmail.com> wrote in message news:j1asck$81d$1@digitalmars.com...
>
> The games industry has been crying out for something like NaCl for a long time. It is exactly what we want:
>
> - Ability to launch games within browser without a plugin download
> - Platform independent ABI
> - No f*cking Javascript (performance will never match C++)
> - Safe (no need for end users to worry)
>
>
> JavaScript for high-quality games is a non-starter. It's too slow.

Browser for "high-quality" games is a non-starter. What idiot would rather play a game inside a damn browser? You could have all the speed in the world, and the browser would still be completely unsuitable for anything beyond dinky little popcap-style shit. We've had Quake playable in the browser for awhile now: and who the hell actually plays it that way? And who actually wants to? It's nothing but a "Gee whiz, look what we can do in a browser!" dick-measuring contest.

The whole premise of games in a browser is idiotic. What is needed is 0install and an OS-level security model that's actually good, or something along those lines. None of this Google-mentality "pretending the browser is a platform" bullshit.

The browser is a complete strawman here; cramming games into it is solving the wrong issue. It's exactly the old web-app trend all over again: People thought web-based stuff made deployment easier (in a few different ways: not all of which were actually true) and thought that it was safe/secure (which, frankly, has never really been true). So instead of *soving those issues* by putting their focus on improving deployment of *real* apps (via something like 0install) and pushing for improved OS security models (via something like selinux maybe? Seriously how much push is actualyl behind that? Not nearly enough), the morons started cramming apps into the browser (well, that and Valve's Steam abomination) and consequently fucked up computing while *still* not solving half the issues they thought they were solving anyway.

If the games industry is crying out for faster in-browser computing, then what they're asking for is a faster horse. But it figures: I mean this is the stupid motherfuck industry that's spent the last ten years completely ignoring who they're *supposed* to be (***VIDEOGAME*** developers) and instead running around as a bunch of goddamn graphics-whore, "storytime", Pixar/Hollywood wannabe, IP-fellatiatng, fucking posers. Especially the absolutely disgraceful graphics-whore and "Pixar/Hollywood wannabe" parts. Those two in particular can't be over-emphasized.

"Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> wrote in message news:j1cb3a$2qe7$1@digitalmars.com...
>
> I mean this is the stupid motherfuck industry that's spent the last ten years completely ignoring who they're *supposed* to be (***VIDEOGAME*** developers) and instead running around as a bunch of goddamn graphics-whore, "storytime", Pixar/Hollywood wannabe, IP-fellatiatng, fucking posers. Especially the absolutely disgraceful graphics-whore and "Pixar/Hollywood wannabe" parts. Those two in particular can't be over-emphasized.
>

Oh, and how could I forget the other major evidence of the industry's asinine mentality: Seriously, this indistry is holding onto DRM and closed-platforms about 10x harder than the *music* industry, for fuck's sake. And the long-hated music industry has never done region coding - another thing the so-called "videogame" industry (really the "hollywood-wannabe" industry, like I said) is keeping a deathgrip on.

I liked QLive before they forced 30 second commercials on server joins for non-subscribers. :(

It was cool being able to casually browse to other tabs, then going back to qlive and finding a game.

UT for example had an integrated IRC client, but people preferred using mIRC and having a ut://123.123.123.123 protocol they can just click on to join a game. Don't forget having to minimize all the time to chat to someone on MSN while playing a game. So there are some benefits to having a browser based interface for a game, imo.

"Andrej Mitrovic" <andrej.mitrovich@gmail.com> wrote in message news:mailman.2097.1312408853.14074.digitalmars-d-learn@puremagic.com...
>I liked QLive before they forced 30 second commercials on server joins
> for non-subscribers. :(
>
> It was cool being able to casually browse to other tabs, then going back to qlive and finding a game.
>
> UT for example had an integrated IRC client, but people preferred using mIRC and having a ut://123.123.123.123 protocol they can just click on to join a game. Don't forget having to minimize all the time to chat to someone on MSN while playing a game. So there are some benefits to having a browser based interface for a game, imo.

There is nothing you've mentioned that can't be (better) fixed without cramming everything into a browser.

On 8/4/11, Nick Sabalausky <a@a.a> wrote:
> There is nothing you've mentioned that can't be (better) fixed without cramming everything into a browser.

Where would you cram it then? Put MSN inside the game itself?