project management
Branching strategy is not a remedy for instability
4 years, 5 branching strategies. First we worked all in one branch. Then we became hyper-branched. Then we consolidated into a couple branches. Switched companies. First we were all in one branch. Now we’re splitting into branches. This has all been in Perforce since it is the de-facto SCM...
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Tabs vs. Spaces
A friend asked on G+ recently about tabs vs. spaces. A lot of people agreed with what I said so I thought I’d turn it into a proper post. There’s a good summary here: http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html. This is also a link Jeff Atwood has in his post on the subject. So...
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Whining, and Tech Art
A recent Facebook discussion prompted some discussion about how many programmers (especially in games) have awful development environments. So many studios don’t how to properly use (and the benefits of) source control. We work with proprietary or handicapped tools because we work with some frankensteined engine where standard tools...
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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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Be a deployment Boy Scout
The Boy Scouts have a rule: Leave your campsite cleaner than you found it. We know how to apply this rule when writing code but we often overlook this rule when it comes to installing or deploying that software. I’ve seen, and committed, some pretty heinous accounts of changing...
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Bored People Quit (I did!)
If you read one long blog article this year, make it this one: Rands in Repose’s Bored People Quit. It is one of the most important blog posts I’ve read in a long time, and right on the money. If you’ve ever worked a shitty professional job (especially programming),...
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The Open Source community can be mean
I’ve talked a bit about my problems with OSS as an outsider. Martijn Faassen wrote a great post about his problems with it from the inside: How to Handle Ideas. It’s an informative, lucid post about improving the ways the open source community receives ideas and criticisms, written by...
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Classic Pipeline Case Study Part III
In Part I and II, we analyzed the pipeline design for Dark Angel. Now let’s see what results, if any, that may have had in the final product. Dark Angel got pretty abysmal reviews. In particular, it was criticized for the following: Repetitive, button mashing combat. Repetitive, boring, linear...
