I work in the game industry so I'm familiar with this type of
mindset. Not everyone in my industry is like this, but
unfortunately many are(I avoid working with them).
He doesn't understand metaprogramming and so dismisses it. He
also assumes C++ is all about Java style OOP, when modern style
is wildly different from Java.
And yes the game industry will likely *never* produce its own
language or tools. Why? Because it is very short-term goal
oriented, focusing almost entirely on the current project with
little thought for long term growth. Most companies are
relatively small, and even large ones like EA are very
fragmented(although EA did produce its own version of the STL).
Basically, this guy is a *rendering engineer*, likely good at
math and algorithms, but not so hot with design.
For years I avoided C++ templates (even though I implemented
them in DMC++) because they were just so dang hard to read. D
originally was not going to have templates for that reason.
But I eventually discovered that hiding behind the complexity
of C++ templates was a very simple idea - templates are just
functions with compile time rather than run time arguments.
(Isn't it amazing that I could implement C++ without figuring
this out? I still don't understand that.) That was the enabling
breakthrough for D templates.
In fact, templates engender such an "OMG! Templates! I don't
get Templates!" aura about them that I convinced Andrei to not
even use the word "template" in his book about D!
