Tick module for the game

Question

I tried to look up and suck in most of the information about optimizing this operation and this is what I came up with. As it's pretty much core of the game, I really would like to have it performant as much as I can. I would appreciate if someone can take a look at this and possibly find weak spots.

Note: I am using Browserify, hence that module.exports. Don't get confused, it is supposed to run in the browser.

module.exports = (tickModule, app) ->

    # Function to retrieve current timestamp, hopefully using window.performance object
    getTime = if (perf = window.performance)? then -> perf.now() else Date.now

    # Store the reference so there is no need for scope lookup in every tick
    raf = window.requestAnimationFrame

    # Indicates if module is running
    running = false

    # Holds identifier for cancelAnimationFrame call
    requestId = null

    # Timestamp of the last run of the tick
    previous = 0

    # Run the tick loop
    tick = ->
        return unless running

        # Request frame and store identifier
        requestId = raf tick

        # Retrieve current timestamp
        timestamp = getTime()

        # Calculate number of seconds from last tick
        delta = (timestamp - previous) * 0.001

        # Store the timestamp for the next round
        previous = timestamp

        # Emit event with delta
        app.land.emit 'tick', delta, timestamp

    # Start ticking when module start
    tickModule.addInitializer ->
        previous = getTime()
        running = true
        tick()

    # Stop ticking when module stops
    tickModule.addFinalizer ->
        running = false
        window.cancelAnimationFrame requestId

I am thinking about removing that requestId and running, since I am not really planning to stop the ticking once it starts. It was made merely like nice gesture, but it's not that useful for the game I suppose.

Answer 1

Do you really need a comment above every line? There are a few good comments like # Function to retrieve current timestamp, hopefully using window.performance object, but comments like # Indicates if module is running are really not useful. They add no value to the code itself, and can be removed. Preferably, you should only be using comments when parts of the code are unclear.

Secondly, your function alias raf is fairly unclear. I'd recommend renaming it to something like requestFrame. Also, if you're creating aliases for functions like this, I'd also recommend creating one for window.cancelAnimationFrame, and other functions like this.

Finally, I'd recommend renaming tick to something like tickLoop, like how it's described in the comment above it.