5 ms·

game devs like notch have made a conscious and canny decision to value actually making something over code quality. also, notch didn't build minecraft expectin

game devs like notch have made a conscious and canny decision to value actually making something over code quality. also, notch didn't build minecraft expecting it to be a runaway success. see, you are a programmer - you make code. notch is a game developer. he USES code to make THINGS. the things matter, not the code. the game developer ethic is "nothing matters but getting the game running." it's not that notch is a shoddy programmer at all, it's that he has different priorities than you.

reedlaw 12y ago
I think we all use code to make things. However, not caring about the code can spell disaster for the thing we're making. In the case of Minecraft it appears the code is good enough but I wonder how many more features would exist if it wasn't for the poor design.
- tlarkworthy 12y ago
  worth noting that games have a fairly short half-life normally, so dev's are writing a new game rather than adding features to an existing legacy game (unlike mainstream software development). You also get to vary the scope of the game as the time budget runs out.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  So far, it hasn't lead to disaster in case of Minecraft...
  - mjevans 12y ago
    Minecraft is fun. However I'd clearly state that Minecraft, especially the early multi-player stuff that Notch worked on, /was/ a disaster. Only now, three numbering schemes later (alpha, beta, release), in release version 1.8, does the core game actually have features such as abstracting implementation IDs from object types (EG: now there is minecraft:glass to resolve instead of remembering decimal value 20. Though mods for r1.8 are only just beginning, so that scoping might not yet exist.)
nemothekid 12y ago
game devs like notch have made a conscious and canny decision to value actually making something over code quality. These aren't mutually exclusive. When Carmack, Sweeney et al. built Quake/Unreal, they made something that was both fun and had incredible code quality. Derivatives of the Quake & Unreal engines run today and have been for the last 20 years. I'm doubtful that any code written by Notch for Minecraft will be running anywhere 20 years from now. Likewise, don't NASA engineers "actually make something" while adhering to strict code quality? Doesn't Google "actually make something" while adhering to strict code quality? The choice between "code quality" and "actually delivering" is a false dichotomy invented by people who needed an excuse. Next, I never implied Notch was a shoddy programmer. Notch is a great programmer by his own merits and I don't think anyone can doubt that - however great programmers can produce shitty code. What I was responding to was OPs assertion that 10x programmers exist. Notch produced some pretty great stuff, and iterated quickly, but that speed didn't come free and surely theres a lot of technical debt that others now have to deal with. Lastly, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Sometimes its more important that you can ship first, and fix later. Sometimes being first to market is better than being the best. What I want to point out however this is a normal tradeoff and this doesn't make Notch a "10x engineer" (when I say 10x here I mean a mythical man who has achieved enlightenment that none of us can achieve even if we worked for 1000 years). He's a great developer, but we shouldn't pretend that there weren't tradeoffs to his approach and that his style is anyway mythical (like a unicorn).
- amagumori 12y ago
  uhh...when you mention NASA engineers and Google "actually making something" while adhering to strict code quality you seem to overlook the fact that NASA and Google are organizations with thousands of developers and notch is ONE GUY. the point is that game development is inherently a big job and you have to make massive tradeoffs if you want to get something working in a reasonable amount of time by yourself. of course if you have thousands of people to throw at the problem you can go nuts and adhere to the highest of quality standards. but i agree that notch isn't a mythical programmer or "10x engineer".
  - nemothekid 12y ago
nihonjon 12y ago
Programmers I've worked with who valued refactoring code instead of building features have also been some of the most negative people I've met.

reedlaw 12y ago

I think we all use code to make things. However, not caring about the code can spell disaster for the thing we're making. In the case of Minecraft it appears the code is good enough but I wonder how many more features would exist if it wasn't for the poor design.

tlarkworthy 12y ago
worth noting that games have a fairly short half-life normally, so dev's are writing a new game rather than adding features to an existing legacy game (unlike mainstream software development). You also get to vary the scope of the game as the time budget runs out.
bayesianhorse 12y ago
So far, it hasn't lead to disaster in case of Minecraft...
- mjevans 12y ago
  Minecraft is fun. However I'd clearly state that Minecraft, especially the early multi-player stuff that Notch worked on, /was/ a disaster. Only now, three numbering schemes later (alpha, beta, release), in release version 1.8, does the core game actually have features such as abstracting implementation IDs from object types (EG: now there is minecraft:glass to resolve instead of remembering decimal value 20. Though mods for r1.8 are only just beginning, so that scoping might not yet exist.)

nemothekid 12y ago

game devs like notch have made a conscious and canny decision to value actually making something over code quality. These aren't mutually exclusive. When Carmack, Sweeney et al. built Quake/Unreal, they made something that was both fun and had incredible code quality. Derivatives of the Quake & Unreal engines run today and have been for the last 20 years. I'm doubtful that any code written by Notch for Minecraft will be running anywhere 20 years from now. Likewise, don't NASA engineers "actually make something" while adhering to strict code quality? Doesn't Google "actually make something" while adhering to strict code quality? The choice between "code quality" and "actually delivering" is a false dichotomy invented by people who needed an excuse. Next, I never implied Notch was a shoddy programmer. Notch is a great programmer by his own merits and I don't think anyone can doubt that - however great programmers can produce shitty code. What I was responding to was OPs assertion that 10x programmers exist. Notch produced some pretty great stuff, and iterated quickly, but that speed didn't come free and surely theres a lot of technical debt that others now have to deal with. Lastly, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Sometimes its more important that you can ship first, and fix later. Sometimes being first to market is better than being the best. What I want to point out however this is a normal tradeoff and this doesn't make Notch a "10x engineer" (when I say 10x here I mean a mythical man who has achieved enlightenment that none of us can achieve even if we worked for 1000 years). He's a great developer, but we shouldn't pretend that there weren't tradeoffs to his approach and that his style is anyway mythical (like a unicorn).

amagumori 12y ago
uhh...when you mention NASA engineers and Google "actually making something" while adhering to strict code quality you seem to overlook the fact that NASA and Google are organizations with thousands of developers and notch is ONE GUY. the point is that game development is inherently a big job and you have to make massive tradeoffs if you want to get something working in a reasonable amount of time by yourself. of course if you have thousands of people to throw at the problem you can go nuts and adhere to the highest of quality standards. but i agree that notch isn't a mythical programmer or "10x engineer".
- nemothekid 12y ago

nihonjon 12y ago

Programmers I've worked with who valued refactoring code instead of building features have also been some of the most negative people I've met.