3 ms·

I’ve commented at length about this book before; really, just don’t bother. It’s not very good at patterns, not comprehensive, not clear on how to use them for

I’ve commented at length about this book before; really, just don’t bother. It’s not very good at patterns, not comprehensive, not clear on how to use them for games or why you might want to use them at all. Google search “design pattern book”. Right, now take any of those books. If you want game related stuff try “game programming gems”. This book is free... that’s literally all it has going for it. Wikipedia has better stuff that you know... actually compiles, etc. If you got any value out of Game Programming Patterns, I cannot strongly enough recommend you go and read an actually good book on design patterns; you’ve probably been mislead by its vague hand waving and incoherent discussion of the various topics.

isaachier 9y ago
I completely disagree. I felt it was a modern followup to the classic Design Patterns (Gang of Four) book. The author is not trying to teach game programming as much as he is demonstrating how they are practical in his line of work.
- isaachier 9y ago
  After seeing the original debate I'm sure I won't add anything you haven't heard already: Game Programming Patterns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14475489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14475489.
  - shadowmint 9y ago
    nope. ...but once again I recommend anyone who reads this post go browse wikipedia’s design patterns section. Its pretty neat: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern
- shadowmint 9y ago
  > I felt it was a modern followup to the classic Design Patterns... If you’re going to recommend a book, then why not just recommend Design Patterns? That’s actually a good book; and, if you read it, you will extract exactly zero value from this one, which gives only the most trivial coverage of a handful of the patterns from the former. /shrug I feel like people who 5 star review this on amazon didn’t read Design Patterns becuase it looked to scary, and liked it because this was cute and simple and easy. ...unfortunately, the reality is that cute simple explanations are usually trivialising the content (as this book does; seriously go read a few game programming gems if you think game programming is as trivial as a singleton...), so given a choice of a universally acclaimed coverage of the topic, and some hand drawn pictures, why the heck would you recommend the latter to anyone other than a student? I don’t get it, and I see no value in the content of this book ...but, I guess different things for different people.

isaachier 9y ago

I completely disagree. I felt it was a modern followup to the classic Design Patterns (Gang of Four) book. The author is not trying to teach game programming as much as he is demonstrating how they are practical in his line of work.

isaachier 9y ago
After seeing the original debate I'm sure I won't add anything you haven't heard already: Game Programming Patterns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14475489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14475489.
- shadowmint 9y ago
  nope. ...but once again I recommend anyone who reads this post go browse wikipedia’s design patterns section. Its pretty neat: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern
shadowmint 9y ago
> I felt it was a modern followup to the classic Design Patterns... If you’re going to recommend a book, then why not just recommend Design Patterns? That’s actually a good book; and, if you read it, you will extract exactly zero value from this one, which gives only the most trivial coverage of a handful of the patterns from the former. /shrug I feel like people who 5 star review this on amazon didn’t read Design Patterns becuase it looked to scary, and liked it because this was cute and simple and easy. ...unfortunately, the reality is that cute simple explanations are usually trivialising the content (as this book does; seriously go read a few game programming gems if you think game programming is as trivial as a singleton...), so given a choice of a universally acclaimed coverage of the topic, and some hand drawn pictures, why the heck would you recommend the latter to anyone other than a student? I don’t get it, and I see no value in the content of this book ...but, I guess different things for different people.