A reflection API is a very basic, powerful tool that every game studio should have at their disposal. It normally contains some or all of the following features: ..."
This doesn't actually tell me what reflection is. Telling me what it normally contains or that its something that every game studio should have does not explain the concept. Could someone someone please explain what exactly reflection is as it relates to a language feature?
Reflection is the concept of having a program have knowledge about it's own structure. Kinda like having your code look into a mirror.
A really basic example of this is having you code get a list of all the names of fields of a class. This would be very useful if you want to create a generic object serializer.
In the past I used this to create a framework that would generate a UI for you based on class definitions.
Reflection can also include being able to modify your own code structure during run time.
"What is Reflection?
A reflection API is a very basic, powerful tool that every game studio should have at their disposal. It normally contains some or all of the following features: ..."
This doesn't actually tell me what reflection is. Telling me what it normally contains or that its something that every game studio should have does not explain the concept. Could someone someone please explain what exactly reflection is as it relates to a language feature?