Scripting and Performance

Scripting is SLOW in compared to compiled code, obviously. You don''t want to control the drawing of on-screen objects in a script, for instance. It should be fast enough for logic, though. Also remember that languages like Lua have built-in (though controllable) garbage-collection so if you are creating objects in a script that runs every loop then you might have issues with that...a scripting language, though can add a whole lot of functionality and is worth the trouble, I think.

There are some libraries to write machine code on flipcode. You could make your own scripting language compile directly to machine code and it would probably be a lot faster than Lua or Python =-)

Yeah, Extrarius is right ... although I must say that this is WAYS too much work to do ;-) ... I have developed several script compilers/interpreters on my own, and a virtual machine as implementation turned out to be efficient enough to handle even some time-critical parts with scripts, but still it is not as fast as it could be ... I thought that over a while ago, and I came to the conclusion that it was practically not worth the effort, because my code would have executed only 2-3 times faster ( estimated value! ;-) )
Anyways, using scripts is IMHO a good way to make your program more "open-hearted", as thehurricane suggested ... it is DEFINITELY worth the effort !!!


Indeterminatus

--si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses--