4 ms·

> "A lot of the features in Unreal arose from fallacies of what I misperceived other people did." In both the programming and business world, I've observed thi

by lbenes 9y ago

> "A lot of the features in Unreal arose from fallacies of what I misperceived other people did." In both the programming and business world, I've observed this trait in successful people. I know I've had ideas that were ahead of their time, but was held back by that damn voice saying it can't be done or I don't have the resources. I wish there was some way I could "fix" that wiring in my own brain. On the one hand, my skepticism has saved me more times that I could count from being conned or from bad deals. But it also has held me back by focusing on the problems instead of just blazing forward.

ericmcer 9y ago
Most people suffer from the same problem, it is very hard not to see all the faults with an idea in its infancy. Whether these are perceived problems or real ones, and whether these problems are products of our own self-doubt or legitimate concerns is difficult to discern. I can't decide if it is a form of stupidity or intelligence that allows people to confidently throw themselves behind their own ideas.
- hacker_9 9y ago
  This is why you write plans; you find the pain points that will occur and figure those out before committing yourself to an idea. Often I find any wild ideas I have are mostly killed off in the planning stage, but this generally also leads to new more solid ideas too.
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  A "bias for action", according to "In Search of Excellence". Which didn't let a lack of experimental evidence stop them reporting experimental evidence. And was very successful. Which, I guess, validates it.
hacker_9 9y ago
Correct, hindsight is 20/20.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
> I know I've had ideas that were ahead of their time, but was held back by that damn voice saying it can't be done or I don't have the resources. I think a good method would be to share that idea with others, and work on it with help. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find other interested people.
doomlaser 9y ago
Bill Atkinson did the same thing with some of QuickDraw's overlapping region code on the original Macintosh. He perceived that the Xerox Alto was doing things that were more advanced than it actually was, and ended up shipping a more advanced and efficient overlapping window implementation because of it.
taneq 9y ago
And then of course there's this great anecdote about VGA video card optimisations from Ramblings in Realtime: https://www.gamedev.net/articles/programming/graphics/ramblings-in-realtime-chapter-1-inside-quake-r981 https://www.gamedev.net/articles/programming/graphics/rambli...
kristiandupont 9y ago
I suppose George Dantzig is the ultimate example of such an episode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig
z3t4 9y ago
If other people say it can't be done, it means you are on the right track. If you think it can't be done it means you are side tracking.
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  NP in P here i come.
skocznymroczny 9y ago
Same story happened to Starcraft 1, in which Blizzard revamped their Warcraft-2 lookalike game to a more isometric view to match something the competition seemingly did. https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-down-in-flames https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-... "At some point I talked with Mark and Patrick about how Dominion Storm knocked us on our heels, and they let us in on Ion Storm’s dirty little secret: the entire demo was a pre-rendered movie, and the people who showed the “demo” were just pretending to play the game! It would be an understatement to say that we were gobsmacked; we had been duped into a rebooting StarCraft, which ultimately led it to be considered “the defining game of its genre. It is the standard by which all real-time strategy games are judged”
WillReplyfFood 9y ago
The ilusion of competen competitors without budget oversight - what drives a industry forwards, i can allready see the powerpoint presentation and the bookline.
1wd 9y ago
I remember reading a story years ago about one early VGA card company. They had somehow heard about a competitor using a flip-flop(?) to make their VGA card twice as fast. They puzzled over this idea for a long time, wondering how that competitor could have done that. It seemed impossible but because the competitor had apparently managed to do it, they kept experimenting, and ended up shipping a product inspired by this idea, but not quite achieving that factor two. Later they found out the competitor had actually done something much less impressive. (Using only a latch instead of a full flip-flop? I don't quite remember the exact details. I thought this story was in the Graphics Programming Black Book by Michael Abrash of Quake-fame, or maybe one of Jim Blinn's Corner columns, or something like that, but I can't find it.)
- kayamon 9y ago
  I think you're referring to this one: http://www.phatcode.net/res/224/files/html/ch64/64-01.html http://www.phatcode.net/res/224/files/html/ch64/64-01.html
  - 1wd 9y ago
    Yes, thank you! (So I indeed remembered a few things wrong: It was about a read- and write-FIFO, not about a flip-flop and latch. And the speed improvement factors were not mentioned.)

by lbenes 9y ago

ericmcer 9y ago

Most people suffer from the same problem, it is very hard not to see all the faults with an idea in its infancy. Whether these are perceived problems or real ones, and whether these problems are products of our own self-doubt or legitimate concerns is difficult to discern. I can't decide if it is a form of stupidity or intelligence that allows people to confidently throw themselves behind their own ideas.

hacker_9 9y ago
This is why you write plans; you find the pain points that will occur and figure those out before committing yourself to an idea. Often I find any wild ideas I have are mostly killed off in the planning stage, but this generally also leads to new more solid ideas too.
hyperpallium 9y ago
A "bias for action", according to "In Search of Excellence". Which didn't let a lack of experimental evidence stop them reporting experimental evidence. And was very successful. Which, I guess, validates it.

hacker_9 9y ago

Correct, hindsight is 20/20.

thomastjeffery 9y ago

> I know I've had ideas that were ahead of their time, but was held back by that damn voice saying it can't be done or I don't have the resources. I think a good method would be to share that idea with others, and work on it with help. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find other interested people.

doomlaser 9y ago

Bill Atkinson did the same thing with some of QuickDraw's overlapping region code on the original Macintosh. He perceived that the Xerox Alto was doing things that were more advanced than it actually was, and ended up shipping a more advanced and efficient overlapping window implementation because of it.

taneq 9y ago

And then of course there's this great anecdote about VGA video card optimisations from Ramblings in Realtime: https://www.gamedev.net/articles/programming/graphics/ramblings-in-realtime-chapter-1-inside-quake-r981 https://www.gamedev.net/articles/programming/graphics/rambli...

kristiandupont 9y ago

I suppose George Dantzig is the ultimate example of such an episode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig

z3t4 9y ago

If other people say it can't be done, it means you are on the right track. If you think it can't be done it means you are side tracking.

WillReplyfFood 9y ago
NP in P here i come.

skocznymroczny 9y ago

Same story happened to Starcraft 1, in which Blizzard revamped their Warcraft-2 lookalike game to a more isometric view to match something the competition seemingly did. https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-down-in-flames https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-... "At some point I talked with Mark and Patrick about how Dominion Storm knocked us on our heels, and they let us in on Ion Storm’s dirty little secret: the entire demo was a pre-rendered movie, and the people who showed the “demo” were just pretending to play the game! It would be an understatement to say that we were gobsmacked; we had been duped into a rebooting StarCraft, which ultimately led it to be considered “the defining game of its genre. It is the standard by which all real-time strategy games are judged”

WillReplyfFood 9y ago

The ilusion of competen competitors without budget oversight - what drives a industry forwards, i can allready see the powerpoint presentation and the bookline.

1wd 9y ago

I remember reading a story years ago about one early VGA card company. They had somehow heard about a competitor using a flip-flop(?) to make their VGA card twice as fast. They puzzled over this idea for a long time, wondering how that competitor could have done that. It seemed impossible but because the competitor had apparently managed to do it, they kept experimenting, and ended up shipping a product inspired by this idea, but not quite achieving that factor two. Later they found out the competitor had actually done something much less impressive. (Using only a latch instead of a full flip-flop? I don't quite remember the exact details. I thought this story was in the Graphics Programming Black Book by Michael Abrash of Quake-fame, or maybe one of Jim Blinn's Corner columns, or something like that, but I can't find it.)

kayamon 9y ago
I think you're referring to this one: http://www.phatcode.net/res/224/files/html/ch64/64-01.html http://www.phatcode.net/res/224/files/html/ch64/64-01.html
- 1wd 9y ago
  Yes, thank you! (So I indeed remembered a few things wrong: It was about a read- and write-FIFO, not about a flip-flop and latch. And the speed improvement factors were not mentioned.)