andywood

23 ms·

181.
by andywood 15y ago
I'm not sure if you meant the bit about Direct3D to be toungue-in-cheek: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/03/11/carmack-direc...
182.
by andywood 15y ago
I dislike the idea that every single leader in the world must only conduct themselves according to Dale Carnegie, as it were. There is an over-abundance of people doing just that, and judging from this post and many of the comments, a lot o
183.
by andywood 16y ago
This recent slew aren't technically voxel games. At least not in the sense of NovaLogic's tech - see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2447057 . (To add to the confusion, this particular game, Ace of Spades, actually is voxel-rendere
184.
by andywood 16y ago
Calling Minecraft "voxel" is sure to introduce confusion. The representation of the map is simply a regular 3D grid of block IDs. When we use the exact same type of regular grid to represent 2D maps, we do not call the grid cells "pixels"
185.
by andywood 16y ago
Developers at BigCo (Microsoft/Amazon/Google...): http://salaryshare.me/0c844406ed64408ec6ccb6cfa59f83e5
186.
by andywood 16y ago
I think that's a misrepresentation. HN has enjoyed a long run as a forum with a professional vibe. Its owner, and the core constituency, do not intend to let it become the next Slashdot/Fark/Digg/Reddit. You can find more background here:
187.
by andywood 16y ago
FWIW, my immediate gut reaction to the lack of comment scores was extremely positive.
188.
by andywood 16y ago
It's a classic Action RPG, along the lines of Secret of Mana, with heavy emphasis on the Action side. http://tilesandsprites.wordpress.com/
189.
by andywood 16y ago
I like this, but I think it needs one more category between Micro and Macro. There are many games that are polished, and take a few people tons of work, but aren't big-budget blockbusters. E.g. Braid, Cave Story, Minecraft, Super Meat Boy -
190.
by andywood 16y ago
I'm working on a game full-time, solo plus an artist. My knee-jerk reaction upon seeing this was to call BS, and offer my situation as a rebuttal. And then I realized that the simple fact of taking 1 year off paid work to do this is indeed
191.
by andywood 16y ago
It's currently taking in > $200,000 per day. http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp
192.
by andywood 16y ago
This was incredibly inspiring. Thank you.
193.
by andywood 16y ago
I wasn't disagreeing with the importance of pointers at all. And I agree strongly that a firm grasp of C and assembly is extremely valuable. My disbelief was with the notion that self-taught programmers wouldn't understand pointers. I was s
194.
by andywood 16y ago
This category "self-taught programmers" is an insidious over-generalization. Used in this context, it seems intended to conjure the image of an undisciplined hack who learned how to cobble code together from an "In 21 Days" book. This belie
195.
by andywood 16y ago
I'm also saddened to see such a misguided stereotype on the front page here. It's damaging in the same way as the old question, "When did you stop beating your wife?" To my mind, this question, and the answers given, would only begin to mak
196.
by andywood 16y ago
Yes. Simple karma = democracy = power in numbers. That worked when the majority were exemplary. That's no longer the case, therefore democracy now works against the site. The solution is to equalize by giving asymmetric power to the exempla
197.
by andywood 16y ago
First, thank you for acknowledging this as a real problem. The quality of HN is a function of the community. This doesn't just mean who's here - it means who's here, and how they act when they're here. While tweaking the "game variables"
198.
by andywood 16y ago
Speaking as a technical guy, this looks like a conflation of "idea person" with "biz person". I absolutely think biz people are critical, but I'd be looking for someone who can sell, network, and make deals - not someone with a good idea. I
199.
by andywood 16y ago
The enumeration at the top of your comment is the best thing I've read yet today. Douglas Hofstadter expands on similar ideas in I Am a Strange Loop .
200.
by andywood 16y ago
Interestingly, the studio that made Mirror's Edge has apparently been hard at work on their own jaw-dropping graphics tech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi2tae2PmmU&feature=fvwkr...
201.
by andywood 16y ago
I don't know your situation, and I'm only speaking from my own experience, but I've been in a situation where I was absolutely certain that quitting was not an option (because of mortgage/bills/the usual). Once truly burnt out, I had no cho
202.
by andywood 16y ago
For some reason, I don't have an edit link for this post anymore, but I can answer this right now. All of these responses are exactly what I was looking for, and then some. As far as the phrasing, I'm equally interested in direct advice lik
203.
by andywood 16y ago
My intention was not to discount them at all. In fact, I've learned everything I know about web development on the job. I just didn't want the existence of obvious answers to deter anybody from sharing the details of their individual experi
204.
Ask HN: How did you become a hardcore back-end developer?
188 points by andywood 16y ago|30 comments
205.
by andywood 16y ago
This blog post is mainly about the tools developers use day-to-day while they're in coding mode. Tools and development processes do tend to be well thought out and efficient at MS. That's not really related to the organizational dynamics th
206.
by andywood 16y ago
I don't think the part about immortality and the solution to all human problems has anything to do with faith or science. It's about motivation. These are things humans want. The question then is how best to achieve a future in which those
207.
by andywood 16y ago
Sort of. I'm finally getting around to making a bandcamp page for my unreleased music: http://cubit.bandcamp.com/ This is a direct reaction to seeing this excellent chart from the "Knack for Getting Money" thread, and wanting to move as m
208.
by andywood 16y ago
I think it really depends on you. More specifically, it depends on your learning style, how self-motivated you are, and how outgoing you are. There are big pros and big cons on both sides. I have a high school education. I've also been an e
209.
by andywood 16y ago
But for several years, up until, oh ~2005 or so, Wikipedia was on the path to becoming the repository of all human knowledge. Many people, including myself, found that to be extremely valuable, and exciting. Why don't we get to say that t
210.
by andywood 16y ago
As a programmer, sometimes I think "this could be patentable, because the implementation is not immediately obvious to me." Maybe the non-programmers at the USPTO apply the same standard.

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