playMaker

Author Topic: A Question For Jean  (Read 2198 times)

fromfame

  • Junior Playmaker
  • **
  • Posts: 78
  • Sloppy PM Veteran
A Question For Jean
« on: June 19, 2017, 08:04:40 PM »
Hi Jean,

I'm in the process of developing a social app made mostly from Playmaker - I'd like to ask you if you think that's a good idea on the long long term.

During my 5 year experience with PM, I've mostly gotten a lot of flack from programmers online, in real life, and from teams because I was developing with PM.

For our social app - I intend to use PM as a 'Timeline' or 'Event Manager' that only decides when things should and shouldn't happen. Any custom actions or scripts would operate under the simple yet all mighty PM brain.

The biggest argument I've gotten from fellow programmers is how heavily PM processes events compared to just using C# or other languages.

TL;DR: In complete seriousness, do you think the entirety of facebook could've been held together with Playmaker?

tcmeric

  • Beta Group
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 768
Re: A Question For Jean
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2017, 12:24:43 AM »
I dont think all of facebook could have been held together with unity and c#  ;)

fromfame

  • Junior Playmaker
  • **
  • Posts: 78
  • Sloppy PM Veteran
Re: A Question For Jean
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2017, 06:25:25 PM »
I definitely learnt a lot today

djaydino

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7615
    • jinxtergames
Re: A Question For Jean
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2017, 01:43:56 AM »
Hi,
I have not found any limitations yet on Playmaker, Especially since i learned to make custom actions. (and i also learned C# thanks to playmaker)

Also jean transformed the unity 2d platformer to a playmaker version
and it works smoother that the original.

tcmeric

  • Beta Group
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 768
Re: A Question For Jean
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2017, 03:53:56 AM »
I agree. There is no limitations necessary. However, it does sometimes require a different way of thinking. It is a state machine. This comes with pros and cons. As pointed out djaydino, you can extend playmaker with any kind of c# you can imagine within playmaker, or you can still use c# scripts outside of playmaker at the same time (which can communicate with playmaker).

I think often "programmers" are intimidated by visual scripting, and hide it by saying "its inferior" without really understanding what it is. Human nature. We condemn or fear what we don't understand.

As for performance, I think jean has shown that it is quite effective.

Lastly, i was serious when I said, facebook written in C# would be ... hard, at best, if not impossible. And certainly unity couldnt handle it. There is almost 2 billion active monthly active facebook users since this year. As a site, it looks deceptively simple, but it is not.  :)

jeanfabre

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15500
  • Official Playmaker Support
Re: A Question For Jean
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2017, 04:09:40 AM »
Hi,

 yes, PlayMaker has a massive scope of possibilities, but here we are talking a different kind of context. PlayMaker is not suitable to build the Back End of Facebook, it is suitable to build the Front End.

- Back End means the "brain" on a server or cloud that deals with data, logic, protocoles, and rules for running your social network,

- Front End means the client application on a mobile phone or website pages served via your browser, they act like an interface between the user and the Back End. o we have forms which lets you login, or make a comment, click on a "like" button, show how many followers you have, and their images, etc, but the Front End is merely making requests to the Back End, the Back End responds with data, and content, which the Front End shows to the user.

 Does that make sense? and so in this perspective, PlayMaker is only part of your system, you can make the Front End with it, and it will be perfect for the job, no limitations at all on that regards, but for the Back End, this is another story, and you'll need to know either php/mysql, or asp, or any of the many server side systems available to build such back end.

 Needless to say, that the backend development is likely going to be the hardest part of building a social network, you should definitly look into pre made turn key solutions, because starting from scratch isn't going to get you anywhere without prior experience and expertize in that field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_and_back_ends

Bye,

 Jean

terri

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 386
    • terrivellmann.tumblr.com
Re: A Question For Jean
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2017, 07:08:55 AM »
Since better answers have already been posted, I think I can chip in that the answer to "is it possible?" is yes, the answer to "is it a good idea?" is no.
I don't think there's even a need to bring Playmaker into it, Unity itself is not the right tool for this.