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Jonathan Blow on scripting languages

Jonathan Blow on scripting languages on HackerTube: recommended by 1 Hacker News commenter across 2 separate months, 2020–2022.

Jeru Sanders

commentary · intermediate · evergreen

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A 10-minute clip from a Jonathan Blow Twitch stream in which he argues that game engines do not really need separate scripting languages. He questions the value of embedded interpreters when the main language can do the job.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Cited in threads about Lua, embedded scripting, and game engines as a concise argument that scripting languages are redundant.

people recommended it
1
separate months
2
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2020–2022
“Jonathan Blow has a great talk on the redundancy of scripting languages in game engines.”
— pipeline_peak, Dec 2022, in “Scripting-language inspired by JavaScript and GLSL”

What HN commenters said

4 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

pipeline_peakDec 2022Recommends

There’s nothing about this that screams “this language needs to be created”. Call me a pessimist, but I’ve seen So many toy languages on HN. My advice is, if you don’t have any original ideas and want users, your best bet is to implement a subset of JS, that’s the route I’m taking. Jonathan Blow has a great talk on the redundancy of scripting languages in game engines. ▶ this video

in “Scripting-language inspired by JavaScript and GLSL” · View on HN

pipeline_peakOct 2022Recommends

Lua doesn’t really solve anything fundamental. It’s popular because it’s small and easy to embed. But embeddable interpreters, while fun pet projects, they’re redundant and trivial. Jonathan Blow has a great explanation of this ▶ this video Write reusable libraries first, let people embed them into whatever scripting language/GUI app they want. Scripting languages, Linux distros, it’s all Pokémon cards.

in “Lua, a Misunderstood Language (2021)” · View on HN

veidelisMay 2021Cites it

"Gaming engines are scriptable for a reason" - I'm sure I've heard the opposite opinion from respectable sources at least 2 times. Here's Jonathan Blow ▶ this video I agree with the rest wholeheartedly.

in “Modern Javascript: Everything you missed over the last 10 years (2020)” · View on HN

pengaruAug 2020Cites it

> I can guarantee you that a game will need a scripting language. Better get that done already. Is that really so certain? ▶ this video

in “Parsing S-expressions in C (2019)” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Programming language designGame programming & enginesjonathan blowscriptinggame enginesembedded interpreterslanguage design