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[Josh @ Dreamland]

Rusky--

You're comparing the size of an OS to the size of a game. How the hell often do you need to update a GM sized game?

There's no doubt DLLs are good in other cases. It's why most people are content to use SDL's ten DLLs instead of statically linking. But, ENIGMA is designed to be all-in-one, like GM. (Although GM does include a DLL in its actual runner, you can't see it, so it looks less messy).

Which reminds me, you say static linking is ugly... Static linking produces one standalone executable. I always liked my games to be standalone; means I can just drag one item over without fear of missing a DLL. Dave used to send me projects of his in all sorts of different libraries. First SDL, then Ogre... There were others I can't remember. Each time, I'd need him to send five different DLLs until it worked. He'd send two he could remember at a time, but it's still not very convenient.

Ideally, yes, it's good to be able to update large projects without having to redownload all the compiled code. A whole damn operating system is a great example of that, as I can scarcely think of one operating without it.

They are also useful in extensibility, such as Pidgin's plug-ins.

How many GM games honestly require DLLs for that purpose? GM would not make it that hard to do, actually, but I've never seen an instance where that was even implemented, much less required. Not to mention, one in every two hundred million people on the GMC knows any DLL-ready language. So having a well-used plugin system is unlikely.

At its prime, in a community full even moderately capable C++ programmers working on things other than games, are DLLs useful? Oh, certainly. In a community full of developers who rival companies like Valve (who externalize everything), are DLLs useful? Yes. On a forum whose immediate intended population has twenty people that know C++ and are willing to contribute code to everyone that does not, are DLLs all that useful? No more than static linking.

Luis--
Those who develop specifically for ENIGMA can bear that in mind for later. For now, all GM DLLs can be assumed to be closed source and of course are not static, which is basically the only reason external_define() exists. A lot of the better GM DLLs are open source anyway, if only poorly so. Like 39Dll. Source is included, no license.

[Rusky]

There's still third party libraries like Ultimate3D or 39DLL that can give updates without needing recompilation, no matter how all-in-one your tool is.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Funny how both you named are no longer under development, last I checked.

[RetroX]

What the crap? Why isn't code supposed to be big? Ever seen the Linux kernel you all love so much?

I think you forgot that you were talking to Josh and not me.

pages hate me

[score_under]

DLL/SO support would be very useful, and not only because on Linux most of a program resides in the SO files it links to.
It would, for example, allow you to use the Scintilla library without having to hack all the code into your project. It also means less compile time.

However, 39DLL is a piece of crap and I've even had people ask me how to load it in a C++ project. I have to explain every time that it's just Winsock API calls wrapped for Game Maker.

[luiscubal]

I really don't think you could use the Scintilla library on Linux since it is based on GTK+.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

;_________; ?

And yes, but that's true for static linking as well. Assuming that's an easy option with Scintilla. Can't really think why a game would want a Scintilla interface...

[Rusky]

For a script console with syntax highlighting.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Mmm, to run with execute_string(), assuming I ever feel like implementing it?
Or maybe they'll include GCC with their game like ENIGMA does, who knows?

[Rusky]

Or maybe they'll embed another scripting language like Lua or Python. Both of which would use DLL's.

[kkg]

Sounds like this'll be a project to keep an eye on. I might wait till R4 comes out before I check it out though, as I've seen some posts already saying that some mainly used functions (eg collision) are not entirely implemented yet.

and I lol at the posts because im a 39dll whoooore. Any recommendations for networking systems (ignore my attempts to be technical ) that are cross platform? I'd like to think that I'm not restricted to Win32/64

Anyway, the hard work looks like it's paying off, I shall check back in a few days! ^.^

btw Josh, i'm Consoft at the GMC if you remember me from all those years ago when you posted that D&D Online LIB that i made some cheap ass platform example for haha

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Yes, I do remember you. You were the one that helped answer questions on that topic I since stopped supervising. Wow, that was a long time ago.
I hope at some point to implement a system for updating variables that comes across as easily as that library did.

And yes, waiting for R4 would be a good idea, I believe.