Sprite Kit, Box2D, Performance and LiveCode's Approach to Game Coding

[Ender Nafi Elekçioğlu]

Yes, I'm aware of Box2D integration and I'm very excited about it.
I can't wait to see the possibilities.

But, I'm not sure how much performance boost it will give us.

I've stumbled on an article tonight about algorithm optimizations.
It's kind of a case study.
*Spots* finds the wifi hotspots nearby showing on a map and should react user's pinch&zoom act with a 60fps speed.
{ http://www.savoysoftware.com/blog/my-iphone-is-not-a-mac-pro/ }
Nikolai managed to achieve a whopping 200x performance increase by optimization.

I tried the unoptimized code in LiveCode.
After seeing the results, I didn't bother to code the binary-search.
Here it is:
----------------- Cocoa & C++ --- LiveCode
iPod Touch---  194ms ----------- ~2600ms
Mac Pro-------- 4ms ------------- ~ 210ms

These are both unoptimized algorithms  
but even if I'd use the binary-search in LiveCode,  
I wonder that I could achieve 0.883ms on my iPod Touch or 0.016ms on my brand-new desktop.
So, an app like *Spots* can never be realized in LiveCode. Achieving a speed like 60fps seems impossible.
Isn't this kinda frustrating?


I can hear some of you saying:
"Well, get over it pal, LiveCode is a RAD tool.
this is the price you have to pay in exchange of ease-of-use."

Are these features really contradicting?
Can't a coding platform be blazing-fast yet having an excellent IDE, built on an event-driven foundation and supporting multiple platforms?

I'm not ungrateful, here. Just questioning…
After all, LiveCode's paying my rent for nearly 2 years now.


Best,

~ Ender Nafi
~… together, we're smarter …~