Python in game development?

[Greg Ewing]

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> 
> Even 10 iterations would be only 5 minutes.  A bug that took that many
> iterations to kill would require much more than 5 minutes thought.

You're completely missing the point. It's not the number
of iterations required to *fix* the bug, it's the number
of iterations required to *find* the bug.

The ability to watch your program execute is an extremely
powerful way to track down the causes of bugs. You know
what the program is supposed to do; the program is actually
doing something different. If you can watch the program
execute step by step, it becomes instantly obvious where
they diverge. Usually it's also instantly obvious what
has to be done to fix it, since often it's just some simple
oversight.

So, with most bugs, the actual amount of thought required
to diagnose and fix it is very small, provided you have
access to all the required information. In a system which
has a 30 second turnaround, getting hold of that information
can be a very drawn-out and frustrating experience.

Some bugs, of course, are much more subtle, and require
a lot more thought. But even then, the more information
you have about what is going on inside your program, and
the easier it is to get that information, the better.

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, University of Canterbury,	  
Christchurch, New Zealand
To get my email address, please visit my web page:	  
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg