Good Advice

First, this advice didn’t come from me;  I just like it so much that I want everyone to know about it.

I recently began reading the Object Mentor Blog and I came across this post, and it has really stuck a chord with me.  So often I find myself trying to hurry up and get it done, and that usually produces less than good code, which means I have to go back and fix it later or someone else will have to clean up my mess, which is no fun and embarrassing to say the least.  If, however, I take the time to carefully plan out what it is I am creating, use Test Driven Development, and slow down, etc, then the code I have just made will be less likely to break.

We delude ourselves that speed is better.  Not always.

Here are a few things “Uncle Bob” mentions in his blog post to be a professional craftsman:

1) Adopt an attitude of calm

2) Focus on the problem to be solved.

3) Solve the problem step by step without rushing

4) “When you feel the temptation to rush, resist it. Leave the keyboard and walk around. Distract yourself with something else. Do not give in to the call of your addiction.”

I am going to start remembering and implementing these suggestions;  I think I’ll be a better software engineer for it.  Thanks Uncle Bob.

As an update to the above about speed killing, I just read a post by Martin Fowler about Technical Debt.  Sometimes it may be good to deliver fast, poorly designed code that will cause you problems later in order to make an investment in the project, hit deadlines, etc knowing you will have to go back and refactor.

TicTacToe the Game

I finally finished a game!  This may seem like no big deal to most programmers, but for me it is, because I finally finished a game.  I have often started to write one but have always quickly become bogged down by the details.

So here it is in all of its glory!!  You can download it here.  Later, because now I have to get to work, I will go into the details of how I made it, and then everyone can give me tips on how to make it better.

Game Dev Focus

It’s been a very long time since I said I wanted to develop a game.  And I have been very busy since then.  Work, home, etc.  But I have been tinkering in the meantime.  I have experimented with Python using PyGame and Panda3D.  The trick to that is I don’t know Python (yet).  I have played around with java using  LWJGL, Slick, and a little bit of  jME.  I’ve even just did some accelrated graphics using Java2D thanks to the great tutorials on Coke And Code.

I am going to make a game; game development is fast becoming my software engineering passion.  I have decided to start with a simple Tic Tac Toe game using Java2D and accelerated graphics, which I have already begun to develop in the spare time I can spare.  If you are reading and are interested, keep coming back and see the results.

Thanks again for everyone in the world who creates game libraries, tutorials, etc.