[Scummvm-devel] Dreamweb code (+ general ScummVM focus/vision)

[Johannes Schickel]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 5:40 AM, Vladimir Menshakov <whoozle at yandex.ru> wrote:
>> Albeit I think it's some nice demo of the asm->c conversion I do not think
>> that is what we want in ScummVM. ScummVM is about reimplementing the game
>> engines or at least supporting them with the help of original source code.
>> This means to me the code should be at least somewhat proper reimplementation
>> of the original logic in C++.
> Who do you want to reimplement this engines?

Seeing that we have most of our other engines reimplemented I am not
sure whether this is a real argument. If nobody cares about
implementing it, when we don't have it supported. I don't see anything
bad about it.

> What's wrong with robot reimplementing the engine?
> What if I replace gotos with while/do and register names with locals. Will it be "proper" reimplementation?

If you furthermore strip all the code from runtime.h then I would
think of considering it proper.

>>
>> Dreamweb definitly is not like that. What we have with dreamweb is what I would
> And like that, then?

Like a proper reimplementation of the game and not just an asm -> C
conversion utilizing a "runtime" which is basically a register set +
memory + glue code used to display graphics etc.

>> Also like Max, I have the feeling that people are discouraging that we
>> reimplement it properly due to it being a "waste of time" and having a big
>> chance of causing "regressions". That is IMHO bad too, we want a proper C++
>> reimplementation IMHO.
> Again, define "proper" please.

Proper in this context is a reimplementation in C++ which makes the
logic clear to someone not knowing assembly. If you look at the
dreamweb code in dreamgen.cpp it is not really much different than to
look at the assembly code.

>> I do not say we should remove it from master right now! We should rather talk
>> about what we really want with ScummVM (or in ScummVM). IMHO the merging shows
>> that we really do not live up to our standards anymore when it comes to
>> supporting new games.
> Please tell what's wrong the dreamweb, beside "you don't like it". Dreamweb is not emulated, but translated from original source.

That's right Dreamweb is not emulated strictly speaking. But just
looking at the code in runtime.h clearly shows it is using some kind
of "virtual machine" to execute the translated assembly. This is what
I would not consider a proper reimplementation of the engine anymore.

>>
>> So is this the new way to go? Should we really accept code like this in the
>> future?
> Why not?

Because it is not reimplemented.

>> And also what are we going to do about the dreamweb code? Personally I think
>> we should not support it officially till we have reimplemented it properly.
> Again, no real arguments, just emotions. You think. We should not. Why not? It's playable, completable. People who uses scummvm really don't care about how this game got supported

That's right people do not care about how it's done. But SucmmVM is
(or at least was) a project aimed at reimplementations of the game,
not like some pseudo emulated translation.

// Johannes