Is Phaser worth learning?

[bennyboy]

FlatAssembler, I linked a video where I personally explained how inheritance and constructors made it super easy for me to customize enemies with complex behaviors. I didn't explain it well, but I'd say that even just understanding that I'm using layered constructors and lists of objects should give some insight into why people like OOP.

The other thing is that programmers and designers are different beasts. It's instantly obvious that if you avoid OOP you're going to be translating, because your conversations are going to be: "Okay, let's have THIS little guy. What can he do? What happens when his health gets to X%? What happens if Y enters the room? How will this or that power-up change his abilities?"

That being said, any decent programmer will consider what techniques he has at his disposal and then impose his own vision of organization. If you want absolute control, you can use assembly language. However, you'll be lucky to finish a game before the technology you're using is obsolete. If you want to pump out a game in a day, you'll use a high-level environment: "RPG Designer™" or whatever, but give away a lot of control over the details of how things work.

So my advice is-- if any technology grabs your attention, it is ALWAYS worth learning. The answer to the OP is a definitive YES-- learn it, and then when the next thing comes along, you'll have another standard by which to judge them both.

[KevinM1]

OOP is civilization. Once you understand that composition is the way to go rather than inheritance, it makes a lot more sense.

[bennyboy]

OOP is civilization.  Once you understand that composition is the way to go rather than inheritance, it makes a lot more sense.

Oh no you di'n't!  

Not to overstate it, I'd say programmers who insist on absolutes (function rather than OOP, or composition rather than inheritance) are either comp sci undergrads or crazy people.

The correct answer is: understand what you want to achieve, and use the tools that will a) allow you to get the job at hand done efficiently; b) not be likely to screw you later when the boss suddenly says, "Okay, we're adding a new superpower, and we need to be able to define how every object we've ever created will interact with it by next Monday's update."

[KevinM1]

OOP is civilization.  Once you understand that composition is the way to go rather than inheritance, it makes a lot more sense.

Oh no you di'n't!  

Not to overstate it, I'd say programmers who insist on absolutes (function rather than OOP, or composition rather than inheritance) are either comp sci undergrads or crazy people.

The correct answer is: understand what you want to achieve, and use the tools that will a) allow you to get the job at hand done efficiently; b) not be likely to screw you later when the boss suddenly says, "Okay, we're adding a new superpower, and we need to be able to define how every object we've ever created will interact with it by next Monday's update."

Well, yeah. Of course only use the right tool for the right job. OOP generally comes with a fair amount of overhead that makes it prohibitive to use in small projects (not necessarily performance overhead, but wasted development time due to setting up dependency injection, factories, front controllers, etc.).

That said, for me personally, I often find it easier to think in OOP terms than procedural terms.

I should also note that my particular background is programming for the web, so I'm essentially limited to the stateless HTTP request/response cycle. I have no idea about the world of persistent memory, or what the differences are between that and what I do.

[FlatAssembler]

I also don't know about your coding experience with OOP

I don't have much coding experience. The longest program I've written is some 900-lines floating point calculator in Assembly, most of that code dealing with exceptions you don't even think of when writing in some other language. I just trust those who actually have the experience with writing long programs (like Linus Torvalds), and those who have actually done the experiments. Nearly all of them agree that OOP doesn't help.

[Aoi Magi]

I also don't know about your coding experience with OOP

I don't have much coding experience. The longest program I've written is some 900-lines floating point calculator in Assembly, most of that code dealing with exceptions you don't even think of when writing in some other language. I just trust those who actually have the experience with writing long programs (like Linus Torvalds), and those who have actually done the experiments. Nearly all of them agree that OOP doesn't help.

can you please link to those experiments? I wanna see why they think it isn't better and what alternative is being proposed.

[bennyboy]

I also don't know about your coding experience with OOP

I don't have much coding experience. The longest program I've written is some 900-lines floating point calculator in Assembly, most of that code dealing with exceptions you don't even think of when writing in some other language. I just trust those who actually have the experience with writing long programs (like Linus Torvalds), and those who have actually done the experiments. Nearly all of them agree that OOP doesn't help.

It depends on who's programming and how they think.  A hypothetical best-case scenario might involve large teams trying to coordinate a huge product where data is shared across not only different people's code, but entire TEAMS of people.  Or it might be just some dude trying to hack together a 2D game for something to do.

To be blunt, I think most of these discussions are basically a geek fight: you might as well fight over whether to use tabs or spaces, or about the "best" D&D rule sets.  In the end, a clever guy can take ANY language or programming model, and with a bit of talent and hard work, create a product that people will be able to use.

To go back to the OP, if someone is interested in a framework, but will decide not to spend any time experimenting with it because it seems to have OOP elements, then this is a person who's depriving himself for pretty abstract reasons of potential enjoyment.  Don't do that-- the geek fight isn't worth making your own pleasure a casualty.

[Aoi Magi]

you might as well fight over whether to use tabs or spaces

That's been settled for a while, smart tab key, press the tab key but get four spaces in your editor... you get consistent alignment of spaces and the ease of use of tabs, so best of both worlds

[Anomalocaris]

Phaser seems to mean something wholly different for me than for you guys.

[bennyboy]

you might as well fight over whether to use tabs or spaces

That's been settled for a while, smart tab key, press the tab key but get four spaces in your editor... you get consistent alignment of spaces and the ease of use of tabs, so best of both worlds

Blasphemy!  That's just a macro for wasted disk space!