A bunch of not-really solicited advice #1
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added 4 commits
July 20, 2020 12:47
Every frame, the code first moved the snake, then registered input, then updated the screen. And for some reason, updating the screen waits until it's time to draw the next frame. An unfortunate consequence of this is that the game feels laggy – you have to wait until next frame to get your input processed, which takes 100ms (because the timer is set to 10fps) – more than enough for the player to notice. There's a simple fix, though – process input at the start of every frame, so that the snake responds immediately. Also, a small suggestion: run the clock in the main loop, and not in some function – it'll be easier to see that the whole game runs at 10fps, not just the screen update. Or extract the waiting to a separate function – regardless, it's not really related to updating the screen.
Up to now, this game was just a bunch of files. This is fine for very
small apps, but quickly becomes problematic, if not for other reasons,
because it makes the app uninstallable.
A python module is basically a directory with an __init__.py file.
It allows you to use relative imports, i.e.
from .settings import Settings
Thanks to this, if there's ever a module named "settings" outside of
your application, your file won't shadow it. If you want to see what I
mean by yourself, create a `pygame.py` before applying these changes and
see what happens. Proper structure is important, and using modules is a
part of it.
Now, in order for python to recognize it as a module, you have to
execute it as such. There are multiple ways of doing that, but the
simplest one is:
python3 -m snake_clone
This executes the __main__.py file, so I've had to move the startup code
to it.
Oh, and it has to be in a subdirectory because of the way python's
setuptools work. But more on that later.
When making a git repository, it's always a good idea to add a .gitignore file to ignore all the files you didn't write, and were created by something automatically. I generate these files using gitignore.io, I don't even really know what's inside, because I didn't look.
Now, for another method of running a module – installing it.
pip install --user -e .
Running the above will install the game in a way that it will be always
up to date with your code.
The `setup.py` file is something that one usually copies from the
internet or another project, an changes the intereting bits.
I have included a really minimal example here, there's a *lot* of fields
you'd want to fill if you were publishing it.
There's a convention for specyfing libraries your project depends on in
python: the `requirements.txt` file. It can be used to just install the
dependencies using:
pip install -r requirements.txt
But the `setup.py` I've included also reads it. It makes others' lives
easier if you specify your dependencies like that. And yours, if you
don't want to remember and manually install whatever you depend on.
Finally, on the matter of entry points – it's a somewhat complex, and
rarely useful concept in general, but there's one often used aspect:
console_scripts. This is what allows you to create an executable to run
for your package.
The way it works is rather simple, you tell it the name of the script,
and the function to call. In this case the name is `snake-clone`, and
the function is `run` in the `snake_clone.__main__` module (I forgot to
mention – files are also python modules).
Once installed, you should be able to just run `snake-clone` from your
commandline. If not, runnign this, then restarting the console will probably help:
echo 'export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH` >> .bashrc
This is not related to python at all, it just configures your system to
recognize packages installed for your user (instead of globally).
|
Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to head in that direction. |
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Some changes to make your code a more proper python package. Read the full commit messages, they explain the changes extensively.
Important thing: I didn't read most of the code. Don't interpret these as "there's nothing more wrong with it". I just wanted to fix the project's structure for you, so I didn't conduct a thorough review.