Blog of Rob Galanakis (@robgalanakis)

Leadership

Internal tools only require the critical path

I always try to remember how easy developing internal tools is. We have a captured audience. We can quickly deploy fixes. We are largely independent of rigid processes in place to support the customer base. Our job, as Tech Artists and tools programmers, is easy. Well, easier, at least....

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80/20 sometimes- Good Enough vs. Perfection

The 80/20 rule is generally a good one to understand. 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. So how does it apply to software, and to product development in general? 80% test coverage. Higher coverage is notoriously difficult to achieve. Fix the top 20% of your...

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“Make it work”

I know a managers that use ‘make it work’ as an implicit demand, knowing they’re asking you to do the impossible with inadequate resources and forcing you to deal with it- as if it isn’t they’re responsibility. I know developers that are all too eager to say they’ll ‘make...

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My GDC 2012 TechArt Bootcamp Session

Recently edited it, I’m sure I’ll fix it up and change it some more: The traditional role of Tech Art has been art support, integration, and tools. As the scope of pipelines have grown and matured, Tech Artists find themselves thrust into roles that require a large amount of...

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The Tech Artist’s Creed

Repost of my most recent from altdevblogaday: http://altdevblogaday.com/2011/08/26/the-tech-artists-creed Last month we started a thread on tech-artists.org about creating a tech artist’s creed.  After several weeks of back and forth, we finally came up with something we could all agree upon.  Here it is: I am a Tech Artist, Every day...

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You will create a brave new world

Ian Cooper, one of the contributing authors at CodeBetter.com, recently wrote an article called ‘Why CRUD might be what they want, but may not be what they need‘.  While this applies mostly to the world of applications, I’ve been saying the same things about tools and pipeline for a...

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The Importance of Vision, 3 of 3

As a small break while I finish my vacation, I’m going to publish my recent post at AltDevBlogADay in three parts.  View it there in its entirety. Not every studio has these problems (I know because I’ve argued with you about this). And I dare say that studios that don’t have...

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The Importance of Vision, 2 of 3

As a small break while I finish my vacation, I’m going to publish my recent post at AltDevBlogADay in three parts.  View it there in its entirety. So how come with Tools and Pipeline we don’t think the same way? There is no Tools Director, so we end up with disparate...

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The Importance of Vision, 1 of 3

As a small break while I finish my vacation, I’m going to publish my recent post at AltDevBlogADay in three parts.  View it there in its entirety. Every ambitious creative endeavor has at its helm a single individual who is responsible for providing the vision for its development. In...

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Cloud Based Pipelines?

Originally posted on AltDevBlogADay: The rest of software is moving into The Cloud, how come we aren’t doing the same with our tools and pipeline? I love the cloud.  Yes, I know it’s a buzz word for not quite revolutionary concepts, but I love it anyway.  I love it...

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