annekitsune / entity_component Goto Github PK

First off, I'd just like to thank you for the awesome job you've done here.
I just recently learned about the ECS pattern, and having such a simple, straight to the point, zero-bullshit API, means that I can worry about learning the pattern rather than just reading documentation.

And so far it's also been a great foundation to build upon. It's all very transparent, and I've found it easy to extend it with my own abstractions.
My only issue is that the join! macro is super fragile. In fact so much that I ended up just working with the bitsets directly.
It's like the one dirty spot on an otherwise shiny surface, and it also feels a bit out of place with everything else being so transparent and extensible.

Perhaps something nice could be done with a derive macro or something, so instead of doing all your joining business "on the spot", somehow tie filtering to the type system, and make it possible to create reusable groups?
This could potentially be used not just for systems, but also as a convenient way to spawn entities with common sets of components.
I imagine it would be easier to maintain, and that it would feel more like the rest of the API.

I realize you haven't worked on this project for a while, but let me know what you think. Perhaps I'll take a crack at it when I find the time.