RE: [GD-General] DLLs for game objects

[Jeff L. <je...@SP...>]

> From:     Brian Hook <bri...@py...>
> Subject: [GD-General] DLLs for game objects

One thing that bears consideration is what you allow those external DLL's to
do.

Its gotta be cool to be able to wire in an external (3rd party) AI engine,
that would not be available from your scripting language.

And it certainly lends itself to user developed MODs.

The downside, from my opinion, tends to be at the mechanical level inside
the cross-DLL boundary.

You need to work *hard* to get C++ inheritance to work across DLL
boundaries.  (Consider your vorpal_sword : sword example)

You need to work *hard* to get C++ exceptions to work across DLL boundaries.

At least, in all previous attempts that we've made (in a non-game
environment), we had so much woe that we fell back on insisting that you
only have C interfaces, that return status values, rather than throw
exceptions.

Oh, and watch out for malloc'ing in one DLL, and free'ing in another - you
need a lot of discipline to ensure that all your DLL's - remember those
customer MODs - use a single, consistent, dynamic memory manager.

That'll be 2 cents please.

Jeff Laing <je...@sp...>
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"When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb."
   - Steven Haflich, Franz, Inc.