Re: [Chicken-users] Question about embedding Chicken scheme

[Julian Day]

On 20/01/2013 3:38 AM, Christian Kellermann wrote:
> This is an excellent question! Yes, you can use chicken as an
> embedded scripting language for your game. The manual has a section
> dedicated to that topic (embedding not games unfortunately):
> http://api.call-cc.org/doc/foreign/embedding
Thanks - I've looked at that, and was glad to see that embedding was 
well-supported.  It also looks like Visual Studio isn't a problem? I've 
looked at some other Schemes for embedding, and I've seen Windows 
(cygwin) at least once, which isn't an option.  I'm using Visual Studio 
in Windows and g++ in FreeBSD for my development, so I want to ensure 
that both are supported without too much trouble.
> See for an introduction into embedding. From a gut feeling I'd say
> that providing callable accessors for your scheme script to modify
> your game state is easier than passing around a lot of state all
> the time since all this state would have to be transformed into a
> scheme object and back to C/C++...

I was thinking so too, basically providing an API layer to Scheme to 
allow some common game- and state-related tasks (adding messages to the 
UI, loading items/NPCs on the map, and so on).  If it's easy enough to 
expose C/C++ functions that can modify the game state, that's perfect.

> So far people that use embedding have not spoken out loudly on this
> list, but I am sure there are people using this feature. That would
> be your clue guys! What are your experiences?
>
> You will most probably have lots of questions, feel free to come
> back and ask again. We value your feedback (and maybe that will
> lead to better documentation in the first place).

Will do.  I've still got some tasks on my to-do list before I look at 
getting Scheme support added, but it's coming up soon.  My plan is to 
document my experiences as I go.  Hopefully this will provide some help 
for anyone else thinking of using Scheme as an embedded game language.

Thanks,
Julian