Don't be afraid to invent:

Thursday, 19. July 2007, 21:59:12

practices, develop, Programming, invent, designing

Have you lately had a project on the shelf. Maybe it never passed the design stages? Or you started, but quit before anything was useful enough to even share with anyone. Well let me tell you a story that puts fun back in inventing.

Everything comes with a cost they say. But little did I know that learning itself could build such a prison. I remember the first game I started writing. It must be 11-12 years ago now. I was so impressed by Dune back then, and I wanted to be just as good. "Best practices is meant to make it easier for designers and programmers. But if you use all your time thinking about them, you are not going to get anything else done than think about them"

I can look back at it now and laugh. I wasn't even close. Look away from the ugly drawings I didn't know anything about data structures, or how to take advantage og graphics processors. But still, I started, and got pretty far. You could kill your enemies, and it was all random play and fun.

I have made many games since back then, and demos, web pages, and what ever. Every time it has thought me something. University thought me a whole lot, and spare time studies heaps more. Not only how to speed up a function in C++, but the whole process from designing, to programming paradigms, to debugging a nearly finished product. You keep reading, and listening about best practices, and you know them by heart, but little you think about them actually hindering you in getting the task done!

I have seen it with class mates, I have seen it on colleagues, but never felt it on my self while being at work. But it was not before reading about it in the .NET magazine, and article by Aral Balkan a light went off in my head. The article didn't have a line of code in it, so I usually skip those articles. The article was also aimed at Flash designers/programmers, so an other reason for me not to read it. But my flight was 5 hours delayed, no stores was open at the airport at that hour, and I had read all the other articles in the magazine, so I went on with it anyway.

At first I was totally against his view, he reinvented the wheel it seemed, and everything I had learned told me he was wrong. But his message got to me, and I realized the article was made for people like me. Lately I have had a lot of projects on the shelf that stayed on paper or just as a thought in my mind. And I know how to tackle all the problems. I know I can do this, but there is just too many things to watch out for. I am fully aware of all the problems and they need to be taken care of.

Finding the right tool.
Making the full design (UML/CSS what ever).
Making it cross platform/or standard compliant.
Adding necessary security.
Adding extension/widgets more more...

And the list could go on and on but looking at it this way, I would design my self to death, and still not have a perfect design, and worst of all, not a single code written. At work I have schedules, we have to limit ourself, and get the project finished in time. At home, I have limited resources, much more limited time, but I am still trying to make it perfect. I found my self stuck in a loop, and I didn't even know about it before Aral Balkan showed me. As he wrote him self best practices is meant to make it easier for designers and programmers. But if you use all your time thinking about them, you are not going to get anything else done than think about them. Don't be afraid to invent. There is nothing "wrong" in development, no one asked for perfect first time. Why should you demand it from yourself.

It all opened my eyes, and here I am, back with Emacs, my faithful friend. The pen is settled for now. It's time to invent. I hope Aral Balkan doesn't feel I stole his words, but they need to be heard. So I would like to end this post with a direct quote: "Don't let the fear of writing 'bad code' or creating an 'imperfect architecture' ever stop you from doing things[...]You have to be prepared (even look forward to) building things, throwing them away and starting over again."

Live from CERN:The "Notification area syndrome" in todays browsers:

Comments

If only all could be done inside one's head, that would speed up the iterations considerably :-)

I think a big problem is the programming languages. In a perfect world, writing a Dune clone would take just the time to describe the concept. Which is in your head, and we're back to square one.

RAD is just another joke.

Inventing should be seamless for computer arts, too. OK, maybe just the first six of them.

By dantesoft, # 20. July 2007, 03:59:50

Interesting way you are looking at it. It would be nice to "program" something that understood everything at first try, and did not have to be tweaked for performance over and over again. And you would never have to say, "I already told you".

Not sure if I share your view on RAD. It has simplified my life many times, and will do it again. In my view on developing it is all about finding the right tool for the job. But the problem with making it easier to make programs, is that you reach out to a wider audience, a lot of whom will never have the time nor effort to get the skills required to make the same quality applications as an experienced lower level programmer.

PS: About the art: You have no idea how many times I wish I could get a photo copy of what I have in my head down on the paper or on the screen. I think something is broke between my drawing hand

- ØØ -

By NoteMe, # 2. August 2007, 22:43:26

does that article still exist? somewhere online? i would like to read it too. Because i find myself trying to solve this equation too manny times, and most of the time it just raises an exception and i just die(); and move on.


try{
   $limted_resources + $need_for_perfection =  $finished_project
}catch(OutofResources $e){
   die("Do NOT have enough time, do it latter");
}finally(NotPerfect $p){
   die("Not perfect enough, trash it.");
}

By shadowk, # 14. February 2008, 20:33:08

I think that is the normal way of doing programing, at least outside work...I tried to have look on the web for the article, but it doesn't look like they upload any of the articles, just some of the tutorials ++. And I could not find it on the author's page either. Although I found an image of it

. It was this issue I read. I bought it in Switzerland or Italy I think, but I might have brought it with me. I'll have a look for it.

- ØØ -

By NoteMe, # 14. February 2008, 21:33:34

thanks alot. If it's too much work, then just break; out of the search loop.

By shadowk, # 14. February 2008, 22:06:27