Is DECORATE being replaced by ZScript?

[crazyflyingdonut]

I've noticed some several hints that DECORATE is being (slowly) replaced by ZScript in terms of actors. Particularly in GZDoom. I'm not sure how to react to this since a lot of the Doom mods I like to play use DECORATE to code actors such as enemies, weapons, and powerups.

[Graf Zahl]

It would be supremely stupid to break those mods.

 

What HAS been replaced was all internal actor definitions in the engine itself, but that won't affect mods.

[crazyflyingdonut]

2 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

It would be supremely stupid to break those mods.

 

What HAS been replaced was all internal actor definitions in the engine itself, but that won't affect mods.

Thank you very much for the information, this calms me down ^^

[unpleasantmarine]

im gonna guess decorate will not be deprecated until we all in flying cars playing half life 5

 

since a lot of things that people make only really need decorate.

[Bauul]

ZScript is indeed a replacement for Decorate (it's supremely more powerful), but Decorate support isn't going away any time soon.

 

It's actually quite easy to convert a Decorate file into ZScript, aside from some syntax differences they're very similar for basic Things. But then there's a whole world of additional features ZScript has that Decorate doesn't. 

[Gaia74]

the decorate will not be deprecated! <3

 

I want to learn zscript but I still see it confusing, when it understands perfectly decorate i will use zscript :P

[TheMightyHeracross]

Think of it like this: back when DECORATE (in its more modern form, not the actual decoration form) was added it could do infinitely more than DEHACKED. But dropping DEHACKED support would be incredibly silly since tons of vanilla and Boom mapsets and TCs rely on it. Same with ZSCRIPT and DECORATE.

[Graf Zahl]

It should also be noted that while DECORATE and ZSCRIPT use different parser front ends, they both use the same backend code to convert the parsed data into in-game data structures. So for a lot of things, if they get added for ZSCRIPT, they will automatically be accessible to DECORATE as well - this applies to actor properties or action functions, for example.

 

The one thing that won't happen is adding new features to DECORATE that can already be done with ZSCRIPT. In that way DECORATE may be considered deprecated. The same applies to a few other features like SBARINFO. It also has been superseded by ZSCRIPT and won't see any extensions anymore.

 

On 6/15/2019 at 2:45 PM, TheMightyHeracross said:

But dropping DEHACKED support would be incredibly silly since tons of vanilla and Boom mapsets and TCs rely on it. Same with ZSCRIPT and DECORATE.

 

Not if you call yourselves "Apple", unfortunately... :?