This is one of those pieces of writing which I always tend to re-read every time it pops up on one of my feeds. What I like about learning from Carmak's approa

This is one of those pieces of writing which I always tend to re-read every time it pops up on one of my feeds. What I like about learning from Carmak's approach to programming is that he's always seemed to work in domains where he had to squeeze every ounce of performance out of what he's doing. I think that kind of programming forces you to focus on what's actually true about computers, and about programming concepts. As programmers, when we talk about design patterns and best practices, a lot of what we talk about actually comes down to opinion, philosophy and aesthetics. When you are really forced to get the right bits to the right place as quickly as possible, it focuses the problem of software design in a very specific way. It's interesting to observe that for Carmak, that appears to be in the direction of removing as much abstraction as possible.