[TnTSCS]

Originally Posted by BAILOPAN Ideally SourceMod would load source files instead of .smx files. This is doable but a large project that would require everyone change their server installs. Unfortunately, anything less than that could be faked or obfuscated (you can obfuscate source anyway - but it's also easy to de-obfuscate).

Couldn't a SM Cvar be implemented to make the transition to load plugins via source files instead of .smx - that way it's not just a huge shot gun blast change... it's an option that server admins could choose to use...

sm_sourceplugins 1/0 (use source code to load plugins = 1)

[1nsane]

Originally Posted by BAILOPAN Ideally SourceMod would load source files instead of .smx files. This is doable but a large project that would require everyone change their server installs. Unfortunately, anything less than that could be faked or obfuscated (you can obfuscate source anyway - but it's also easy to de-obfuscate).

I just hope you won't be completely breaking backwards compatibility by requiring the source to load plugins. This won't stop the license violators. Instead they will move on to something that is much harder to decompile and will break easier (which is a bonus in the case of payed plugins).

If you can use sourcepawn you can easily earn how to edit the sample extension to do what you want and still violate the license.

Also you'll have a lot of complaints from people who lost the source to their plugins or used alternate versions of plugins.

In the end, you'd be doing a favor to someone like me. Because I keep the sources to all of the plugins that I use and could easily adapt to this change. While other people might end up partially or completely disabled .

But still, I can't pretend it's a good thing just because it benefits me.

EDIT:
I know this was posted a long time ago on your blog, but wasn't there a considerable performance (speed) benefit in using precompiled files compared to plain source files that evenscripts uses?

[rhelgeby]

The source would still be compiled by SourceMod internally, so it wouldn't make any difference in performance.

[BAILOPAN]

Originally Posted by 1nsane I just hope you won't be completely breaking backwards compatibility by requiring the source to load plugins. This won't stop the license violators. Instead they will move on to something that is much harder to decompile and will break easier (which is a bonus in the case of payed plugins).

This isn't my decision to make. I don't have any strong opinion, except that it's best not to anger users - and if users want to keep running existing binary plugins, that's important.

It would stop naive license violation. If violators move on to C++ - great. No one wants to maintain or install C++ addons besides, SM extensions don't offer big advantages over MM:S plugins.

Originally Posted by 1nsane Also you'll have a lot of complaints from people who lost the source to their plugins or used alternate versions of plugins.

Yeah, that is a totally legitimate concern. That alone is enough of a reason to nix breaking compatibility.

Originally Posted by 1nsane But still, I can't pretend it's a good thing just because it benefits me.

I like this attitude!

Originally Posted by 1nsane I know this was posted a long time ago on your blog, but wasn't there a considerable performance (speed) benefit in using precompiled files compared to plain source files that evenscripts uses?

Believe it or not, compiling from source would let us eek out - I'm estimating - another 2-3X in general Pawn performance. Loading bits out of a binary is very restrictive, you have to obey exactly what the bits say. If we loaded from source, we'd have the freedom to make all sorts of optimizations that are currently not possible.

(This is not categorically true - we could also introduce a new binary format, but the amount of work required is the same. You need a new compiler.)

[Powerlord]

Originally Posted by BAILOPAN No one wants to maintain or install C++ addons besides, SM extensions don't offer big advantages over MM:S plugins.

It doesn't help that SourceMod's Extension interfaces are missing a lot of what we take for granted in plugins. Heck, HintText didn't even exist until 1.4!

I'm only saying this because APIs are better to write in C++ than SourcePawn, just because you can create type-safe Handles in the C++ API side, while you can't on the SoucePawn side.

Incidentally, the handles thing plus the lack of multi-dimension array passing through natives in SourcePawn is why BuiltinVotes is in C++ and not SourcePawn.

[BAILOPAN]

Originally Posted by Powerlord I'm only saying this because APIs are better to write in C++ than SourcePawn, just because you can create type-safe Handles in the C++ API side

I can't immediately see the motivation for creating Handles from Pawn, since Pawn cannot create its own heap-allocated data structures. Deriving new Handle types from existing ones from Pawn - sure. But, for example, C++ needs to hook into CloseHandle to free memory, and that doesn't make much sense for Pawn.

And you don't need to override Handles to get similar safety properties. You can re-tag, and introduce your own alternative to CloseHandle (for example, VoteThing:, DestroyVoteThing).

Originally Posted by Powerlord plus the lack of multi-dimension array passing through natives in SourcePawn

You mean, local arrays, and not ADT arrays? For Pawn<->Pawn you should use ADT arrays. It's difficult to marshal 2D local arrays in the current VM because they have to be copied between the plugin's memory spaces. This restriction is deeply embedded into the VM, but could be removed with a little effort.

Writing extensions in C++ is a huge burden (on you, your users, and even the SM maintainers) - sometimes it's necessary, when embedding 3rd-party libraries or needing complex datastructures not exposed to Pawn. But ideally, the language and Core functionality could be improved to obviate the need. I didn't realize this when first designing SourceMod, and thus the extension system is fairly powerful. In retrospect, we should have focused on interop and FFI.

[BAILOPAN]

Something like that could work, though there isn't much motivation for people to choose that unless they're installing SourceMod for the first time. Maybe I'm wrong there. Generally people don't like radical changes, so you have to sweeten the pot by offering them something really good at the same time.

[sinblaster]

Originally Posted by BAILOPAN changes, so you have to sweeten the pot by offering them something really good at the same time.

Like Steak Knives?

[necavi]

Yeah...most plugins release their sourcecode right now, and the ones that don't become a lot easier to fix up/replace, thanks to lysis.

[TnTSCS]

I like the idea of running them from source code - and with the compiler being 5x faster, it's that much sweeter