[haXe] APE port.

[Hugh Sanderson]

You can see the source and exes in:

http://gamehaxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/blinkdemo.zip

Hugh.

> Excellent, Hugh. Well done! I'd love to see those demos when your done.
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> Lee
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> Quoting Hugh Sanderson <haxelist at gamehaxe.com>:
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>> Hi,
>> I have ported the haXe/swf port of the APE engine to neko/nme on  
>> windows.
>> I ported the code by defining a compatability layer, I called "blink",
>> where you basically replace the classes "flash." with "blink.".
>> I only did enough to get the demos going, but I think this shows
>> the viabliity of this method.  More about this on
>> http://gamehaxe.com/2007/12/01/cross-platform-again/
>>
>> The neko code took about twice as long for the numeric stuff, but
>> this may have to do with the "cast" operator.  I will try
>> to get a more game-like example going and see what the performance
>> is like with a bunch of image draws.
>>
>> Hugh
>>
>>
>>> Hi all.
>>> I have ported the Actionscript Physics Engine (APE,   
>>> http://www.cove.org/ape) to haxe.
>>> The performace is comparable, except for the "cast" operator, which  I  
>>> replaced in one case for extra speed.
>>> See: http://gamehaxe.com/ for more details.
>>> It is basically a line-for-line conversion done with a bunch of   
>>> reg-exes, which worked surprisingly well.
>>> Also perhaps of interest is the fact the by writing a program to do  
>>>  the conversion you get a list of things different between as3 and   
>>> haxe.
>>>
>>> For one case, there was practically no change in speed. For  another,  
>>> there was a 20% slowdown (I suspect it may have to do with  casts too).
>>> In both cases, the hx->swf was faster than hx->as3->swf.
>>> The haxe compile was considerably faster than the as3 compile.
>>>
>>> The change list included:
>>>
>>>  - Convert ?int?, ?void?, ?Number? etc.
>>>  - Convert ?package xxx {? to ?package xxx;?.
>>>  - Expand out ?import xxx.*? imports.
>>>  - Remove ?private?, ?final?, ?internal? etc.
>>>  - Scan the class for ?get? and ?set? functions and insert ?var   
>>> prop(get,set):type? where appropriate. This was complicated by the   
>>> fact that some of these were ?override?
>>> properties and should not have this extra insertion. (I should have  
>>>  looked for the ?override? keyword to make this easier).
>>>  - Add return statements to set functions.
>>>  - Fix POSITIVE_INFINITY.
>>>  - Make sure arrays are strongly typed - need this for properties.
>>>  - Change in-line array declarations when array is not of type Dynamic.
>>>  - Convert ?indexOf? function in array.
>>>  - Convert ?for(a ;b ;c )? to ?a; while(b) { ? c }?.
>>>  - Fix scoping of variables resulting from variables declared  inside  
>>> for statements.
>>>  - Add semi-columns to lines that needed them.
>>>  - Change constructors to ?new?.
>>>  - Add static main function to main class, and ?addChild? it.
>>>  - Call ?super()? where required.
>>>  - Convert default-arguments to optional-arguments.
>>>  - Remove ?break? from switch statements.
>>>  - Change ?is? and ?as? operators.
>>>
>>> Generally, I prefer haxe's way of doing things.  However, there is   
>>> some syntactic sugar that would be nice too.
>>> 1. The alternate form of the "for" statement. It would be nice to have  
>>> both.
>>> 2. "indexOf" - I think there may be room for 1 extra function in  the  
>>> base class.
>>> 3. The "get" and "set" function specifiers.  I think the as3 way is  
>>>  slightly better, since it is more localised and I'm not a big fan  of  
>>> the haxe syntax.
>>>
>>> Calling your constructor "new" and requiring an explict call to   
>>> super() I'm undecided which it better.  I guess its hard to detect   
>>> when super is called if it is in, say, a conditional.
>>>
>>> Another little option to save some typing might be to have a   
>>> "-main-class ClassName" as an alternative to "-main ClassName",  where  
>>> the former just automatically creates a static main function  that  
>>> simply "new"s the class.
>>>
>>> Hugh
>>>
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>> --haXe - an open source web programming language
>> http://haxe.org
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> --
> haXe - an open source web programming language
> http://haxe.org