davidsiems

5 ms·

1.
by davidsiems 14y ago
While this article makes a good point (don't say no just because you're lazy) I think it misses a more important one. Time is incredibly important for projects operating with a schedule, especially if there's a fixed amount of development t
2.
by davidsiems 15y ago
I think the 'best' trick I've seen is using pointer tagging on an object's virtual function table pointer to squeeze in an extra flag during garbage collection. Adding another variable was thrashing the cache, so instead the GC would tag th
3.
by davidsiems 15y ago
If you're looking for a cutting edge whitepaper on this stuff check this out: http://maverick.inria.fr/Publications/2011/Cra11/CCrassinThe...
4.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Cool article, it left out my favorite function though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoothstep This is the magic sauce you need. (more visual demo here: http://sol.gfxile.net/interpolation/index.html )
5.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Higher than the Xbox360 indie market, maybe. Definitely not the main XBLA store though. From what I've read it's pretty easy to get up on Steam. Terraria and Magicka are good examples of games from unknown teams making it big. I think Terra
6.
by davidsiems 15y ago
I've worked for a few video game 'startups' that tanked or are in the process of tanking. Here are some pitfalls to avoid: * Make sure you focus on the company aspect of things. Why are you making games? If the answer isn't 'to make money'
7.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Yeah consoles are rough, high cost of development, and high chance to get overlooked.
8.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Agreed, a good lead would be doing everything within their power to _prevent_ this from happening to themselves and the rest of the team.
9.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Get off your high horse. You could say the exact same thing about books, TV, movies, paintings, etc. Games are just like any other form media. Yes, many of them are superficial, but a lot of them tell incredible stories, teach life lessons,
10.
by davidsiems 15y ago
As a reference point: I have an nontraditional CS degree (DigiPen). I learned a lot of math in school, and programmed a ton. There was emphasis on data structures / algorithms, but not as much as you'd find in a traditional CS degree. Part
11.
by davidsiems 15y ago
There's a pretty big difference between making something playable and making something scale-able. When you've got 48 hours to make something playable scaling gets thrown out the window.
12.
by davidsiems 15y ago
I'm a fan of 'Plan together, implement independently.' I don't need someone looking over my shoulder hunting for bugs while I program. What I need is someone to bounce high-level ideas off of so that I don't get paralyzed by indecision, or
13.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Just as a reference point, in this article [ http://whatgamesare.com/2011/02/you-need-four-coders-product... ] the argument is made that you need four coders to make a game. I think formula being followed for these articles lends them to be
14.
by davidsiems 15y ago
You don't need variable names to understand what the code is doing, it's just harder without them. Try going to google.com with chrome, opening the developer console, going to scripts right clicking and selecting 'de-obfuscate source'.
15.
by davidsiems 15y ago
Crunch is the unavoidable result of poor project management. Project management in software development is notoriously bad, and in game development we're even behind that curve. Schedules are built on hopes and dreams instead of historical
16.
by davidsiems 15y ago
The first company I worked for had mandatory code reviews, I was on a team of about 20 other programmers and I thought it was a great system. Then I went and worked for a startup video game company, the programming team was myself and one o
17.
by davidsiems 15y ago
I've actually done a fair amount of thinking (and even a little implementation) on this topic so I'll share my thoughts. I've come to the conclusion that my ideal 'game programming' language would actually be 3 different languages that are
18.
by davidsiems 16y ago
If you're really trying to write efficient code (which is what this article claims to care about) you don't 'forget' to do things like assert that the data is correct. You _guarantee_ that the data is correct and then you process it as fast
19.
by davidsiems 16y ago
You would put an assert inside of the divide function like so: int divide (int x, int y) { defend (y != 0); return x / y; } Now divide is guaranteed to produce a correct result if it's called with correct data. It's up to
20.
by davidsiems 16y ago
You can accomplish this by using asserts in your code. You don't need exceptions to get a callstack and you can assert that values are valid and force a crash / callstack dump when they're not. On top of that, you can compile the asserts ou
21.
by davidsiems 16y ago
You're absolutely right. It is exclusionary. Participation should be exclusive to those who can vote. This means, no corporations, no organizations, no churches, etc. Individuals _only_. Not letting Canadians vote in our elections is exclus
22.
by davidsiems 16y ago
This is exactly why we need campaign reform. If you're business X, who's product is something that is provably not in the people's best interest you can ram through its legality with enough money thrown at the policy makers who are supposed
23.
by davidsiems 16y ago
If you've never read it before this book is a very intuitive introduction (and refresher): http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/d...
24.
by davidsiems 16y ago
While I agree that attendance should be voluntary this solution doesn't address the whole problem. Part of the problem is that education is not valued - neither by the kids, nor their parents. As a culture we need to make sure education is
25.
by davidsiems 16y ago
It's actually industry standard for the publishing platform to take ~30% as the article says. XBLA, Steam, and PSN all do this as well. It may seem like a lot, but those users wouldn't be available to you without the platform supporting yo
26.
by davidsiems 16y ago
For C/C++ the debugger is an invaluable tool. For large projects (especially large projects that don't have the files structured well) you can end up with very high compile and link times (> 2 minutes). Using a debugger in this case is
27.
by davidsiems 16y ago
Here's what Crockford has to say on the subject: "One of the mistakes in the language is semicolon insertion. This is a technique for making semicolons optional as statement terminators. It is reasonable for IDEs and shell programs to do se
28.
by davidsiems 16y ago
If you're interested in running a successful company you'll prefer whoever is most competent (technically, socially, etc.), regardless of where they're coming from. If someone you think is a 'know nothing' gets hired instead of someone you
29.
by davidsiems 16y ago
http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions
30.
by davidsiems 16y ago
I think of it as more of a predictor of future behavior. Pirating software doesn't necessarily mean you'll lie to your customers (or to me) but from my standpoint - If I see you being dishonest in one fashion, it makes it more likely you'll

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