If you wanted a new/updated programming language wrapper....

[LizardGamer]

If you wanted a new/updated programming language wrapper/binding for the Irrlicht engine what language wrapper would you like to see?

-Lua (Most likely the easy one)
-Ruby (Easy to understand, does have some old wrapper for OpenAl etc.)
-Java (The fastest, harder than the other two, has wrappers for OpenAl, Bullet, ODE etc.)
-?

Give your opinion if your a person who wants a certain language library? Or thinks that one of these would be good for the community?

[Radikalizm]

I'm gonna say that the Java wrapper could use an update, seeing the popularity of Java these days
But as I already told you, don't jump into writing wrappers yet, you'll need to dig deep into irrlicht's internals and you have to understand what all the internal functions do
Don't write a wrapper until you're really really comfortable with irrlicht, the target language and 3D graphics in generals

[LizardGamer]

Yes, I am going to learn Java definetly because I'm haven't tried it and it looks interesting, but I'm just seeing if the commmunity wants another binding since I have actually tried Ruby and (a small amount of) Lua and both are quite easy to understand.

And you have got your message already across to me Radikalizm, yes I do understand, I'm just curious what people think/want.

[shadowslair]

I`d second what Radikalizm said. Updating the Java wrapper would be nice, but it may turn quite a journey...

[LizardGamer]

I`d second what Radikalizm said. Updating the Java wrapper would be nice, but it may turn quite a journey...

Well first I would try to understand the Jirr wrapper and then rewrite my own because I don't think the GPL license would be fair for people using it.

[devsh]

writing a wrapper == like rewriting the entire code of irrlicht

just to implement the base classes (vectors,dimensions,rects,structs,enums) it took me a couple of days and only 20% are implemented and only 50% of their functions are

[REDDemon]

there's no need for a wapper. Just use it in C++ and if you want to add some scripting for help in develope use lua or java..

[ent1ty]

Agreed. Do rendering in C++ and game logic in Lua or whatever you prefer.

[Radikalizm]

Sadly enough lots of people shiver when they have to think of leaving their humble little Java or C# environment for a C++ environment, so wrappers will always be needed for them
Although I do agree that people should try to use C++ instead of wrappers, wrappers only eat performance, and performance is a rather crucial element in graphics development

[ent1ty]

Worthless bastards to a man

[LizardGamer]

writing a wrapper == like rewriting the entire code of irrlicht

Isn't that a port and not a wrapper? (If that is what a wrapper is then I should probably just mod the Jirr one)

But changing subject again, I'm wanting to do this so anyone could learn this language (which every one the wrapper is) so then they can find it easy to move onto C++. Because I tried learn C++ a couple of months ago and I started to go nice in some tutorials until I got to a certain one, then I was just running into a brick wall.

Lua could be very nice for beginners but I'm not sure it could be easy to move onto C++ since it is mainly better as a scripting language, Java could show what programming languages are really like but not so sure if people find it nice with the debuging etc.

[Radikalizm]

It's true that wrappers require you to rewrite a lot of functionality (you should take a look at greenya's .NET wrapper for example) because you have to provide your end-users with managed versions of irrlicht's non-managed structures
Sure, you can have an irrlicht app up and running rather fast in managed code if you want (not recommending it), but a wrapper assumes you provide complete functionality of the library in the targeted language, which requires you to wrap every single class/struct/whatever irrlicht provides in a managed form

[JRowe47]

Why reinvent the wheel? Brush up on your favorite language's Foreign Function Interface, then use Frank Dodd's wrapper, written for imperative style languages (but trivially easy to adapt to any language with a full FFI implementation.)

Learning to use FFI effectively gives you a great weapon in your code-fu arsenal.

LuaJIT, for example, has an absolutely wonderful FFI extension, and achieves performance on par with c/c++, all with the flexibility and sexiness of scripting. The wrapper itself has a trivial impact on performance, with virtually no difference between using it and raw Irrlicht.

Of course, using c++ and raw Irrlicht is probably desirable if you need features beyond what the wrapper provides... but for the most part, it will suffice.

[tmyke]

There are also N3xtD, a portage of Irrlicht intended primarily for languages ​​such as Basic -> http://www.n3xt-d.org
(use by Innesoft for create DeepMesh)