[MUD-Dev2] [TECH] Server Side Scripting

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On 5/29/07, Roger D Vargas <luo_hei at yahoo.es> wrote:
> I have designed my server oriented to heavy scripting. C++ code does low
> level stuff, but knows nothing about entity attributes (stats, skills,
> items). All that stuff is handled by lua scripts. A friend told me that
> approach is very bad. His solution is to define a server/client specific
> language that gets checked at compilation time, opposite to my approach
> (code is checked at runtime). REally is that bad to make server
> dependant of scripts?

it depends.

Scripting languages are great for small discrete jobs.  they are very
bad for the organization of large, complex code bases.  This is why both
exist. Scripting languages often are (but don't have to be) slower then
full programming languages.

There are modern languages that combine many of the best features of
both, Java is a good example of language that is as fast ( or in some
cases faster) then C++ but contains many of the higher level programming
features of scripting languages.

One thing that no full programming language does, however, is limit how
much damage bad code can do.  if your point it to isolate "logic coder"
from the "dangerous bits" then scripting is the right choice for that.

In the end its a question of 'the right tool for the right job' as  in
any other coding project.

JK