Posts in the Software Development category

So for a while now I’ve been talking about designing my own variant of C++ for videogames (in particular), but also for software development in general that targets heavy SIMD instruction use, is highly cache aware, and can be used to target specific processor architectures at compile time. The idea is to throw away some of the cruft from C++, and bring in some new features.

I started thinking about this in 2009 (the elements had all been there as far back as 2006, as I’d have long discussions with John Cuyle when we worked at Surreal about language design, and how C++ was basically hitting a wall unless it evolved – some of the features I wanted were really language features). I had a few discussions with Rebecca Heinemann, Adam Schaeffer, Kev Gee and David Tuft when we worked together in ATG about it, and Jason Weiler as well. And for a while I just let it simmer. About 5 years.

Some of this was spurred on by Jonathan Blow’s recent talk where he discussed some ideas that cross its path, and more still by Mike Acton’s recent CppCon talk. So I think it’s an idea whose time has come.

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If you’re at all interested in the hardcore gubbins of how to build a game, you could do a lot worse than visiting Michel Gagne’s blog, which has an amazing video on how to implement an intelligent camera system. (more...)

So this is the start of my first ever Windows 8 Metro project, using the default project templates from Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate, populating all of its data live from Digg.

That was deceptively easy. Hmmm… I can easily see spending several weeks polishing it up (and I still have issues with a horizontally scrolling page instead of a vertical one; it goes against every UI instinct I have). But all in all… not bad at all :)

An amazing lecture by John Cleese on Creativity, how to foster it, and how to kill it. Make the time - 30 minutes - and watch it, learn it, live it. (more...)

(this is a local copy of the blog post It’s Not Rocket Surgery – Managing Teams Across Disciplines and Under Pressure – which you can find on #AltDevBlogADay)

Howdy folks;

First an apology – I’ve been meaning to write an entire series of follow up posts to my previous one on #AltDevBlogADay ($10,000 is the Magic Number), but I’ve not had the time – yet. I intend to fix that, so stay tuned.

In the mean time, I recently had the pleasure of presenting a talk at GDC 2012 in the Producer Boot Camp tutorials track on how to be a producer in the games industry. Well, that and the kinds of issues you’ll see as teams grow and evolve over time.

I’ve got the slides up online now, so even though you can’t hear my dulcet tones, you should be able to imagine Morgan Freeman narrating for you as you read the accompanying speaker notes. Except this should be a weird English/American Morgan Freeman, who isn’t half as sexy. (more...)