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diff --git a/manuals/sly/Introduction.html b/manuals/sly/Introduction.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4eabcc --- /dev/null +++ b/manuals/sly/Introduction.html @@ -0,0 +1,120 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> +<html> +<!-- Copyright (C) 2013, 2014 David Thompson davet@gnu.org + +Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document +under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 +or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; +with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. +A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU +Free Documentation License". + +A copy of the license is also available from the Free Software +Foundation Web site at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html. + + +The document was typeset with +http://www.texinfo.org/ (GNU Texinfo). + --> +<!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.0, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> +<head> +<title>Sly: Introduction</title> + +<meta name="description" content="Sly: Introduction"> +<meta name="keywords" content="Sly: Introduction"> +<meta name="resource-type" content="document"> +<meta name="distribution" content="global"> +<meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo"> +<meta charset="UTF-8"> +<link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top"> +<link href="Index.html#Index" rel="index" title="Index"> +<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> +<link href="index.html#Top" rel="up" title="Top"> +<link href="Installation.html#Installation" rel="next" title="Installation"> +<link href="index.html#Top" rel="prev" title="Top"> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} +blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em} +blockquote.smallindentedblock {margin-right: 0em; font-size: smaller} +blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller} +div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} +div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} +div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em} +div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em} +div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em} +div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em} +kbd {font-style: oblique} +pre.display {font-family: inherit} +pre.format {font-family: inherit} +pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} +pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} +pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} +pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller} +pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} +pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller} +span.nocodebreak {white-space: nowrap} +span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap} +span.roman {font-family: serif; font-weight: normal} +span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal} +ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} +--> +</style> + + +</head> + +<body lang="en"> +<a name="Introduction"></a> +<div class="header"> +<p> +Next: <a href="Installation.html#Installation" accesskey="n" rel="next">Installation</a>, Previous: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Top</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Index.html#Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> +</div> +<hr> +<a name="Introduction-1"></a> +<h2 class="chapter">1 Introduction</h2> + +<p>Sly is a 2D/3D game engine written in the GNU Guile dialect of the +Scheme programming language. With the help of Guile, Sly provides all +of the essential building blocks for making video games, such as: +window management, input even handling, rendering, linear algebra, and +powerful scripting capabilities. Sly differentiates itself from +traditional game engines by providing a dynamic live codinng +environment and a functional API. +</p> +<p>For those unfamiliar with the term, “live coding” is the practice of +improvised interactive programming. Sly provides a suitable +environment for live coding by leveraging Guile’s cooperative REPL +server. When used with a powerful editing tool such as Emacs (with +the fantastic Geiser extension), programmers may evaluate arbitrary +code and see the effects of their modifications in real time. This +tight feedback loop allows for faster prototyping, greater +productivity, and most importantly, more fun. +</p> +<p>Functional reactive programming (FRP) is a technique used to model +time-varying values with pure functions. A pure function is a +function whose return value depends solely upon its arguments. They +also produce no side-effects, such as calling ’set!’ on a variable or +writing to a file on disk. Sly encapsulates time-varying values in +“signals”, a high-level data structure for controlling the flow of +events. Unlike imperative event callbacks, signals can easily be +composed to form new signals. By modeling game state with pure +functions and immutable data, a game can be seen as a function of +time. To play the game is to “fold” (accumulate a result) over +time. Constructing a game this way allows for deterministic behavior +that is easier to reason about and test than the accumulation of +side-effects seen in traditional game engines. The signal interface +is also declarative, meaning that the programmer describes <em>what</em> +the state of the world should be like at any given time, rather than +<em>how</em> to get there. +</p> +<hr> +<div class="header"> +<p> +Next: <a href="Installation.html#Installation" accesskey="n" rel="next">Installation</a>, Previous: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Top</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Index.html#Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> +</div> + + + +</body> +</html> |