RE: doing vs. talking

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at indiegamedesign dot com>]

From: Jakob Ilves [mailto:illvilja@yahoo.com]
> >
> > Of course, those FAQs presuppose a desire
> > to Have A Career [TM] and Get Things Done [TM].
>
> Ok, so a desire to Get Things Done is enough?  Then I'm
> qualified!  The only issue is that I just
> can't get the time needed for accomplish any of those things I want.

I suppose I could have said "serious desire."  If you are not willing to
make time, you are not serious.  Of course, you said you don't take
Xconq very seriously, you're here to relax and unwind.  That's fine, but
it means you're not really interested in Getting Things Done [TM].

> Ideas dime a dozen, true and attempts to realize ideas are
> also dime a dozen.

I'd say they're worth a dollar.  You know the expression, "If I had a
dollar for every time X happened, I'd be rich!"

> Actually, I think in general it is more productive to try to
> look up existing projects and enhance
> them so they suits ones own needs than to create own projects
> doomed to die.

Except that, when you finally do abandon Not Invented Here, and really
look for partnerships with others to reach common agendas, you discover
wide variances in quality.  For instance, the number of people in a
given group that are Doers rather than Talkers.  Or the current state of
the code base.  Or the game designer sensibilities.  Or the political
and strategic objectives of the group.  Or maybe their driving problems
simply aren't your driving problems.

I've been on an "other project hunt" for probably 3 months now.  Xconq
is the last port of call.  I've run a lot of equations about what saves
work vs. what creates it, and working with others is a definitely a Loss
in a lot of cases.  And, you find out that there aren't that many good
projects to pick from.  At some point you either settle for less, or
sigh and realize that "to do it right" you'll have to do it yourself
after all.  Then you either do it, give up, or reassess what exactly it
is you think you need to do.

> > But I'm not gunning for XML / SVG because nobody's going to get that
> > done.  I'm plenty happy if you do it, but you said you
> > ain't gonna do it.  Maybe I can goad you into doing it....
>
> Oh my God, don't tempt me :-)!  It would be fun trying and I
> might get an attack of bad discipline
> and start hacking Xconq/SVG/XML stuff instead of "all those
> things I need to do" (TM).

Give in, give in.  You know you want to!

> I mean, I
> say that I'm not likely to develop stuff to Xconq because I'm
> not amused by it.

Meaning, you are not amused by Xconq itself, or not amused by developing
stuff for Xconq?

If the latter, that's a situation I hope to address with Python.
Everyone tells me it's far less painful to program in than all the other
languages, that's pretty much its raison d'etre.  And I'm sure it'll be
more pleasant than either C or C++.  Really, what most needs to happen
for volunteer projects like Xconq, is that the sheer drudgery has to be
taken out of the projects.  Nobody cares to spend their free time on
unpleasant programming tasks when they've already been doing unpleasant
tasks at work for 8 hours or more.

> I avoid
> committing to contributing to Xconq simply because I'm too
> dissillusioned by my own availability
> (or rather lack thereof) of time for things like this.

Well, when I'm working on my own codebases that I understand, it takes
me 4 hours to implement a new feature.  That's to implement, test,
debug, and check it into source control.  That's the average, typically.
If I really really screw up it takes 2 days, i.e. 16 hours, but that
happens infrequently because I'm such a micro-incrementalist testing
fanatic.

If it takes me longer than 4 hours to implement a feature in someone
else's codebase, then that codebase is a Loss.  It is not assisting my
productivity.  The codebase would have to have a lot of stuff in it
already that I definitely need for me to bother with it.  Anyways, the
point is to bring down the overhead of working on Xconq to the 4 hour
range.  That's what I think Python and "hodgepodge OO" can do for Xconq.

Can you allocate 4 hours out of your week or month to add something of
interest to Xconq?

> Seriously, give'm a week or two more to respond before
> assuming they don't have a plan for the development.

I don't need to "give" them anything.  My schedule is independent of
their schedule.  I wouldn't offer to embed Python into Xconq if it
didn't suit my purposes.  In the worst case, it's a resume skill I can
hawk to someone else.  In the best case, you all become happy little
Python programmers and achieve Xconq productivity nirvana.  I write a
big fat puff piece about it, post it on Gamasutra, and start charging
commercial game developers a lot of money for my Python conversion
skills.

> Yes, that the scary part.  I cannot really stay away from it
> even if I should.

"Should" is a pile of illusions.  You are in charge of your "should."

One of the most painful things I had to go through over the past 6
months, was deciding who I was really coding for.  The perceived needs
of game developers and Microsoft, so that I could get a decent paycheck
and pay off my crushing debts?  That leads me to lotsa industry
bullshit.  The list of things I despise about computers and the computer
industry is rather long.  It took me awhile to figure out that I do not
in fact hate programming, there's a short list of things about it I
actually like.  So, I resolved that in my own work, I will only do those
things.  To hell with anyone else's perceived needs or any I might
impose upon myself.  If it doesn't make me happy, I ain't doin' it.

So consequently, I'm still teetering on the edge of eviction.  I'm
supposed to have been hunting jobs the past 2 weeks.  Instead I've
mostly worried about kicking Xconq into shape, getting up to speed with
C# .NET Managed DirectX, and what Python's long-term marketing agenda is
going to be.

Now of course, because you have a family the stakes are different for
you.  You aren't free to play with the fire of losing the roof over your
head.  But, you are probably a lot more free than you've self-edited
yourself to be.  At some point there are legitimate constraints, and
then there are excuses and comfort zones.

If you want to code something, code something.  Commit a level of energy
to it that is sane for your current life.

And by that same token, don't code anything you don't actually want to
code.  For instance, you'd have to pay me to write Xconq-specific GUIs
right now.  It's too much of a chore.  A lot of OO stuff needs to happen
first.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.