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The Exceptional Beauty of Doom 3's Source Code

62 points by gjenkin 14y ago

zhazam 14y ago
It's also worth checking out Sanglard's code review at http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php
gebe 14y ago
And don't forget the check the discussion about Carmack's comment from yesterday http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 .
edu 14y ago
More or less dupe http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 edit: spelling
jacques_chester 14y ago
How 'bout that. I thought this would have been submitted days ago.
gbraad 14y ago
I wouldn't call it exceptional beauty. Code can be beautiful, but most projects in gaming (or actually any other branch), just as the author of this article says, gets released under pressure. And yes, this pressure is more common and results in bad, smelly or messy code. However, quake and doom's source code were released/open sourced after the game was released. Maybe they cleaned it beforehand... This does not take away they have a strict procedure and quality control during the development. I have seen/read the code and it is well written!
akkartik 14y ago
The most tantalizing idea here was that "Local code should explain, or at least hint at the overall system design." I was disappointed that there was no further reference to it after the introduction. In the end, much of the article was yet another articulation of syntactic preferences.
- larsmak 14y ago
  I had to stop and think about that one myself. But it makes sence, at least if you emphasize on "hint at". When you wander though the source code, cascading the layers of abstraction, and jumping from place to place, it's nice that the code is somewhat bound to the same context.. in a way. It could be naming conventions, and using the same names for the same things consistently throughout the code. Another way to hint at the overall design is strict structure, e.g. layers: DAO-layer handles persistence, Business-layer handles business, Service-layer handles the interfaces to other parts of the application / other applications, etc. Naming the code-artifacts accordingly hints strongly at what it's doing. Also code that is not directly dependant on the context (business domain) should be put in a special place, in Java that would be in util-methods "hidden" away in some common-package. This way it does not clutter the rest of the code, and allows for easier reuse.
stonemetal 14y ago
Could some one explain the preference for printf over streams? I find streams much easier to maintain since there is only one list instead of printf's two. I find Niether is really good at large string interpolation jobs, but streams seem to scale better to me.
- jonsterling 14y ago
  Only one of many examples of confusion on the part of the author of this gushing post. Whether or not you prefer the appearance of using printf to streams, streams are objectively better even ignoring scale, because they are typesafe, where printf is the exact opposite of typesafe.
hackingwombat 14y ago
The section on Minimal Templates is wrong on many points. There's usually no need to sacrifice genericness for readability; that's what typedefs are for. Also, C++11 now has foreach loops.

62 points by gjenkin 14y ago

It's also worth checking out Sanglard's code review at http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php

gebe 14y ago

And don't forget the check the discussion about Carmack's comment from yesterday http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 .

edu 14y ago

More or less dupe http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055808 edit: spelling

jacques_chester 14y ago

How 'bout that. I thought this would have been submitted days ago.

gbraad 14y ago

I wouldn't call it exceptional beauty. Code can be beautiful, but most projects in gaming (or actually any other branch), just as the author of this article says, gets released under pressure. And yes, this pressure is more common and results in bad, smelly or messy code. However, quake and doom's source code were released/open sourced after the game was released. Maybe they cleaned it beforehand... This does not take away they have a strict procedure and quality control during the development. I have seen/read the code and it is well written!

akkartik 14y ago

The most tantalizing idea here was that "Local code should explain, or at least hint at the overall system design." I was disappointed that there was no further reference to it after the introduction. In the end, much of the article was yet another articulation of syntactic preferences.

larsmak 14y ago
I had to stop and think about that one myself. But it makes sence, at least if you emphasize on "hint at". When you wander though the source code, cascading the layers of abstraction, and jumping from place to place, it's nice that the code is somewhat bound to the same context.. in a way. It could be naming conventions, and using the same names for the same things consistently throughout the code. Another way to hint at the overall design is strict structure, e.g. layers: DAO-layer handles persistence, Business-layer handles business, Service-layer handles the interfaces to other parts of the application / other applications, etc. Naming the code-artifacts accordingly hints strongly at what it's doing. Also code that is not directly dependant on the context (business domain) should be put in a special place, in Java that would be in util-methods "hidden" away in some common-package. This way it does not clutter the rest of the code, and allows for easier reuse.

stonemetal 14y ago

Could some one explain the preference for printf over streams? I find streams much easier to maintain since there is only one list instead of printf's two. I find Niether is really good at large string interpolation jobs, but streams seem to scale better to me.

jonsterling 14y ago
Only one of many examples of confusion on the part of the author of this gushing post. Whether or not you prefer the appearance of using printf to streams, streams are objectively better even ignoring scale, because they are typesafe, where printf is the exact opposite of typesafe.

hackingwombat 14y ago

The section on Minimal Templates is wrong on many points. There's usually no need to sacrifice genericness for readability; that's what typedefs are for. Also, C++11 now has foreach loops.