5 ms·

On the other hand, getting your team spoiled like that can easily make a product that only works for people who have top-of-the-line conditions. e.g: (2nd hand

by beagle3 11y ago

On the other hand, getting your team spoiled like that can easily make a product that only works for people who have top-of-the-line conditions. e.g: (2nd hand info - might be wrong) There's a recent Batman game that fails to work properly, and in fact, was essentially pulled from the market and re-released almost unchanged once common-enough gamer machines (still not "very common") caught up with the specs needed for the game. another e.g: Facebook now does 2G Tuesdays[0] in which network speed is (optionally) purposely degraded to 2G speeds, to make sure that the technologically spoiled Facebook engineers and designers get an idea of the service their lesser-equipped users get. [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-2g-tuesdays-to-slow-employee-internet-speeds-down-2015-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-2g-tuesdays-to-slow-...

icebraining 11y ago
That shows a need for proper test equipment (and guidelines/practices that require those tests), not for an handicapping of the primary tools. Requiring PC game developers to write a game on a old PC makes no more sense than requiring PSP game developers to write the game on a PSP.
- beagle3 11y ago
  Possibly, but that's a different discussion, and one that -- unlike the "primary tools" discussion, cannot be solved by throwing more money at it. In my opinion and experience, unless you already have proper testing practices, for PC development it is better to make sure your developers have test rigs on their table that are comparable to end user equipment -- and, in most cases, it's better if it is their development machine. > Requiring PC game developers to write a game on a old PC makes no more sense than requiring PSP game developers to write the game on a PSP. "Old" is a spectrum. Most people on this thread say a (e.g. channeling Spolsky) your developer should have the best machine money can buy - with 128GB of ram, 8 cores, 1TB SSD. That's not on the "old" / "new" gamer machine spectrum at all. It's on a completely different scale, given that most gamer machines these days (AFAIK) have 16GB of ram quad cores with 256GB, and casual gamers have 8GB with 128GB SSD or even an HDD I would require PSP developers to test and debug on a real PSP rather than an emulator - but since PC is both the dev and the target environment, it is reasonable in most cases to require the dev PC to be comparable to the deployment PC, and that would essentially guarantee proper function (at some dev cost, compared to the "best machine money can buy", but with significantly reduced "you need to fix this" testing feedback cost, with a likely overall positive effect -- at least from my experience).
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Frankly, I think setting up a standard testing VM with limited resources (2-4 cores, 8GB of RAM, small disk) makes much more sense than purposefully reducing programmer productivity.
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
Back when I worked for Telecom Gold ( a pre internet email provider) they deliberately locked our x.25 PAD's down to 1200 or 2400 Baud for the same reason.
TillE 11y ago
In either example, it would probably be more useful to have a combination of dedicated human performance testers, and automated benchmarks that flag problems. Forcing developers to use crappy hardware, even part-time, is more of a kludge for when you don't have a healthy testing and feedback process.

by beagle3 11y ago

icebraining 11y ago

That shows a need for proper test equipment (and guidelines/practices that require those tests), not for an handicapping of the primary tools. Requiring PC game developers to write a game on a old PC makes no more sense than requiring PSP game developers to write the game on a PSP.

beagle3 11y ago
Possibly, but that's a different discussion, and one that -- unlike the "primary tools" discussion, cannot be solved by throwing more money at it. In my opinion and experience, unless you already have proper testing practices, for PC development it is better to make sure your developers have test rigs on their table that are comparable to end user equipment -- and, in most cases, it's better if it is their development machine. > Requiring PC game developers to write a game on a old PC makes no more sense than requiring PSP game developers to write the game on a PSP. "Old" is a spectrum. Most people on this thread say a (e.g. channeling Spolsky) your developer should have the best machine money can buy - with 128GB of ram, 8 cores, 1TB SSD. That's not on the "old" / "new" gamer machine spectrum at all. It's on a completely different scale, given that most gamer machines these days (AFAIK) have 16GB of ram quad cores with 256GB, and casual gamers have 8GB with 128GB SSD or even an HDD I would require PSP developers to test and debug on a real PSP rather than an emulator - but since PC is both the dev and the target environment, it is reasonable in most cases to require the dev PC to be comparable to the deployment PC, and that would essentially guarantee proper function (at some dev cost, compared to the "best machine money can buy", but with significantly reduced "you need to fix this" testing feedback cost, with a likely overall positive effect -- at least from my experience).
- icebraining 11y ago
  Frankly, I think setting up a standard testing VM with limited resources (2-4 cores, 8GB of RAM, small disk) makes much more sense than purposefully reducing programmer productivity.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago

Back when I worked for Telecom Gold ( a pre internet email provider) they deliberately locked our x.25 PAD's down to 1200 or 2400 Baud for the same reason.

TillE 11y ago

In either example, it would probably be more useful to have a combination of dedicated human performance testers, and automated benchmarks that flag problems. Forcing developers to use crappy hardware, even part-time, is more of a kludge for when you don't have a healthy testing and feedback process.