from Hacker News

Age of Empires 2 Scenario Editor Is Turing Complete

by sunaden on 2/15/18, 10:22 AM with 33 comments

• by stanlarroque on 2/15/18, 11:13 AM

  I can only think of one of the greatest videos[0] on Youtube when I read about unusual Turing complete systems.

  [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8

• by golergka on 2/15/18, 11:57 AM

  After writing a lot of tools for game designers, I've found a simple rule: if a system you're creating is Turing complete, throw it out and just give them a normal scripting language.

  Rationale is simple: game designers will ALWAYS find ways to use the system in the most insanely complicated way, and it's far easier to debug and fix things in a normal programming language rather than another system full of ad-hoc conditions, weird triggers, global variables and other complexity that starts small but always snowballs throughout development.

• by robertelder on 2/15/18, 3:52 PM

  This was literally how I learned the basics of programming, before I ever encountered a real programming language (I was probably ~13 at the time). I used to spend hours creating elaborate scenarios with tons of complicated triggers and effects, and then never play them.

• by edf13 on 2/15/18, 11:25 AM

  Cool - but... some people do have too much time on their hands :)

• by candleofhope on 2/15/18, 11:50 AM

  Would be great to see a vid where someone used this.