crunch mode

Phlip wrote:
> Android Cat wrote:
>
>> Strange you should mention Seibel. Do I know you from somewhere?
>
> Just my rampant seething anti-Seibel zealotry on the 'net...

I've heard some stories from people who stayed to the end.

>> (Never
>> worked for them, but they "bought with extreme prejudice" a company
>> I was at.)
>
> Ah, one of those "we get all your customers, and we put all your
> assets out for a yard sale" deals. ;-)

Yeah, but the biggest customer was Worldcom. (Just _before_ the fecal
impacted the impeller.) Oops!

--
Ron Sharp.

Phlip wrote:
> Paul Sinnett wrote:
> > There's a good description here:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_pr...ng#Crunch_time
>
> Insofar as Wikipedia is turning out to be a very reliable and
> accurate encyclopedia, it's amazing they list "crunch time" under
> game programming, not programming in general. Microsoft crunched
> to produce WinNT, for example.

Probably because the authors (myself being one) only really had
experience under game programming. However, if you're happy that
this description fits general programming (I've always suspected
as much myself) then jump in and write it up.

Paul Sinnett wrote:

> Probably because the authors (myself being one) only really had
> experience under game programming. However, if you're happy that
> this description fits general programming (I've always suspected
> as much myself) then jump in and write it up.

Oh, I don't, er, personally ... have any experience with death marches or
all-nighters..

--
Phlip
http://industrialxp.org/community/bi...UserInterfaces

Phlip wrote:
> My post "Agile Game Development" referred to "crunch mode"
> obliquely. I intend never to experience it in games.
Are you intending to get into game development?

Paul Sinnett wrote:

> Phlip wrote:

> > My post "Agile Game Development" referred to "crunch mode"
> > obliquely. I intend never to experience it in games.

> Are you intending to get into game development?

Unfortunately yes. I know I know - the crunch time will happen anyway.

I'm also researching the various project retrospectives (such as at
Gamasutra) that purported to use XP.

--
Phlip
http://industrialxp.org/community/bi...UserInterfaces

Paul Sinnett wrote:
> There's a good description here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_pr...ng#Crunch_time

Does anyone else find it interesting that that page lists Python both
as a "fringe language that nobody except hobbyists use" and as a
language that developers have chosen "to avoid the difficulties of
creating a language," in the next paragraph?

FWIW, I developed a game in Python to learn the language in the first
place. I have been employed in the industry for some time. When
writing a game in Python, I found it amazing that I could actually get
the functionality done an order of magnitude faster in Python than I
could in C++. I've been programming in C++ for something like 12
years, and as I said above, learned Python from scratch through this
project.

I now code as much as possible in Python. As the game that pays my
bills runs on PS2, however, the only code ending up in the game is in
C++, C, or Lua. Python is amazing, however.

Tom Plunket wrote:

> Does anyone else find it interesting that that page lists Python both
> as a "fringe language that nobody except hobbyists use" and as a
> language that developers have chosen "to avoid the difficulties of
> creating a language," in the next paragraph?

Yeah. It's pretty obvious the author had a personal agenda to push
forward that really had nothing to do with defining "crunch time." But
then, what do you expect from Wikipedia?

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
One rainy day / Chivalry walked up to me
-- Des'ree

Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Tom Plunket wrote:
>> Does anyone else find it interesting that that page lists Python
>> both as a "fringe language that nobody except hobbyists use" and
>> as a language that developers have chosen "to avoid the
>> difficulties of creating a language," in the next paragraph?

Well, that's because in the first case it's talking about engine
programming, and in the second, a scripting language. Python and
Lua are the rising stars of scripting languages (or so I've
heard.)

I think I read somewhere that Jak and Daxter was written mostly
in lisp. But that's the only time I've heard of a console game
using anything but C/C++ and a scripting language.

> Yeah. It's pretty obvious the author had a personal agenda to
> push forward that really had nothing to do with defining "crunch
> time." But then, what do you expect from Wikipedia?

The article is not about crunch time, it's about game programming.
So the definition of crunch time is how crunch time is used within
game programming and (as a game programmer myself) I think the
description is about as accurate as any I've read. It also
references the IGDA white paper on quality of life which surveyed
1000's of game developers.

However, if you've got a problem with it why not write it up.
That's what Wikipedia expects from you.

Paul Sinnett wrote:
> I think I read somewhere that Jak and Daxter was written mostly
> in lisp. But that's the only time I've heard of a console game
> using anything but C/C++ and a scripting language.

Yeah, all of Naughty Dog's games to date have used an in-house Lisp
variant that they call GOOL (Game object oriented Lisp?). Pretty cool
stuff from what I hear with inline assembler and support for the LIW
processors on the PS2.

Personally, I think it's getting on to the time when most of the staff
shouldn't be screwing around in a low-level language most of the time.
C++ is a terrible language for game development for many reasons;
unfortunately everyone knows enough to get by so they continue to use
it and suffer from all of the gotchas that come with it.

I wonder how much our productivity would be increased if we used
something that "compiled" faster. I'd even trade execution speed for
being able to load a bunch of code up on the target and have it
interpreted, for some development anyway.

Ahh well, a research project for another day...

-tom!

In article <7d209056.0411171935.22ff37f6@posting.google.com >,
Tom Plunket <plunket@gmail.com> wrote:
>I wonder how much our productivity would be increased if we used
>something that "compiled" faster. I'd even trade execution speed for
>being able to load a bunch of code up on the target and have it
>interpreted, for some development anyway.

Scripting languages like Lua come to mind. Or things like proper
use of precompiled headers or IncrediBuild for PC/XBox that make
builds go pretty fast. On the PS2, things like batching up .cpp files
speeds things up a lot, as the excess of headers bloats things up a
lot. [Anyone know of a tool to identify which .h files are not needed
by a .cpp? That'd help all platforms by cutting out some deadweight.]

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates - personal webpage http://www.visi.com/~nathan/
# Programmer at Pandemic Studios -- http://www.pandemicstudios.com/
# NOT speaking for Pandemic Studios. "Care not what the neighbors
# think. What are the facts, and to how many decimal places?" -R.A. Heinlein