3 ms·

Sid Meier is one of my programming heroes. I'd love to see a "Coders At Work" with only game programmers (instead of mostly language designers).

by mdemare 17y ago

jvipond 17y ago
You should take a look here at Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/index.html http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/index.html
- Luc 17y ago
  Oh dear, that will induce a nostalgia overload. Though I wish there was a hardcopy of this I could buy at the second-hand bookstore (it was released on a diskette in 1997).
gjm11 17y ago
There are a lot of language designers in Coders at Work, but it's not "mostly". Language designers: Brendan Eich, Joe Armstrong, Simon Peyton Jones, Guy Steele, Dan Ingalls, Ken Thompson Not language designers: Jamie Zawinski, Brad Fitzpatrick, Douglas Crockford, Peter Norvig, Bernie Cosell Marginal cases: Joshua Bloch, L Peter Deutsch, Fran Allen, Donald Knuth which comes to 6/5/4. (Justifications for the marginal cases: Bloch does lots of Java library work, but not AFAIK a lot of language design, and the language itself certainly isn't his; Deutsch did some very important language implementation but that's not all the same thing as language design; Allen, likewise; Knuth's TeX and METAFONT are both, in their way, languages, but that's not primarily what they are.) I wouldn't call that "mostly language designers". (For the avoidance of doubt: I think a "Game Programmers at Work" volume could be extremely interesting.)
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  mdemare was maybe thinking of Masterminds of Programming, which was like Coders at Work but with only language designers.
allenp 17y ago
In case you missed it yesterday here is the journal of the designer of Prince of Persia: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956077 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956077 If you only read one entry, this should be it: http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/1988/11/november-12-1988/ http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/1988/11/november-12-19...

Sid Meier is one of my programming heroes. I'd love to see a "Coders At Work" with only game programmers (instead of mostly language designers).

by mdemare 17y ago

Sid Meier is one of my programming heroes. I'd love to see a "Coders At Work" with only game programmers (instead of mostly language designers).

jvipond 17y ago

You should take a look here at Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/index.html http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/index.html

Luc 17y ago
Oh dear, that will induce a nostalgia overload. Though I wish there was a hardcopy of this I could buy at the second-hand bookstore (it was released on a diskette in 1997).

gjm11 17y ago

There are a lot of language designers in Coders at Work, but it's not "mostly". Language designers: Brendan Eich, Joe Armstrong, Simon Peyton Jones, Guy Steele, Dan Ingalls, Ken Thompson Not language designers: Jamie Zawinski, Brad Fitzpatrick, Douglas Crockford, Peter Norvig, Bernie Cosell Marginal cases: Joshua Bloch, L Peter Deutsch, Fran Allen, Donald Knuth which comes to 6/5/4. (Justifications for the marginal cases: Bloch does lots of Java library work, but not AFAIK a lot of language design, and the language itself certainly isn't his; Deutsch did some very important language implementation but that's not all the same thing as language design; Allen, likewise; Knuth's TeX and METAFONT are both, in their way, languages, but that's not primarily what they are.) I wouldn't call that "mostly language designers". (For the avoidance of doubt: I think a "Game Programmers at Work" volume could be extremely interesting.)

mbrubeck 17y ago
mdemare was maybe thinking of Masterminds of Programming, which was like Coders at Work but with only language designers.

allenp 17y ago

In case you missed it yesterday here is the journal of the designer of Prince of Persia: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956077 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956077 If you only read one entry, this should be it: http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/1988/11/november-12-1988/ http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/1988/11/november-12-19...