Torque - Torsion IDE or Eclipse

I've been trying the Torsion IDE for Torque Game Engine this week. Before I was using TextPad or CodeWright and just managing the projects by hand. It wasn't a big deal before, but I did have to find the error lines by hand.

The biggest difference is that the error output has a clickable interface and keeping the errors red makes it much easier to find the errors in the log. My only gripe so far is that the log window is not searchable which is annoying, but it has really sped up my workflow in so many other ways that I think I'll probably buy it when the 20 day trial is over.

I've seen some mention a that there is an eclipse plugin for Torque. I've been a long time user of NetBeans. I typically find an environment that I like and stick with it until it's either irrelevant or something very compelling gets me to switch. I'm doubting the Eclipse plugin is as closely tied to the Torque engine (it has a built-in debugger I have not yet tried) as the Torsion IDE and wonder if the error logs are hot linked to the source lines?

Has anyone tried the Torque plugin for Eclipse and have any insight? It might save me some time and frustration of learning yet another IDE although that will probably start some sort of flame war with people pitching one IDE against another. My view is that the tool that works for you/me is the best tool and it's just not worth arguing over.

Torque Script - Behind The Scenes

Torque script is the scripting language behind all of the Torque Engines is a simple, but robust scripting language that is very easy to learn. All game engines include a scripting engine and Torque is no different. For non-game developers, the idea of a scripting language may seem like a negative, but there aren't any commercial games that don't use a scripting language.

Most non-game developers may at first think that this means the source to parts of your game are shipped with the game, but this is not the case. Torque script is compiled into a bytecode format and saved to a separate file (.dso extension). Everytime the game engine runs it does a date comparison between the source (.cs) and the compiled files. If the source is newer, it re-creates the bytecode file. If the source file does not exist, it simply uses the bytecode file. You simply ship your final version without the source files.

This is transparent and very fast. When you are developing games using this system you never see the compile taking place. One drawback of this system with Torque is that it isn't blatent when compile errors happen and you have to go back and look in the logs when you've made a bunch of changes. In most cases I've seen it will simply use the older .dso file and you'll be caught wondering why that echo/printf you just put in the code isn't appearing. As with most tools, once you get used to it, it is not really a problem. There is an editor called Torsion that will check/monitor your syntax, but I have not tried it. Everything I've read says it is highly recommended.