tjeerdnet · HackerTrans

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

Now and then I wonder why Doom was such a perfect game, mostly I think it is nostalgia besides revolutionary technique at that time. I've also read the book "Masters of Doom" and would recommend anyone who wants to get inspired on creating something from almost nothing by some sort of following your heart and using your (smart) brains. It makes me happy to read the book.

The main ingredients which imho make Doom classic:

- creepy/spacey/metal Adlib music, thanks to Bobby Prince (Adlib was good for that)

- simple, but effective spooky samples playing at random locations

- for the time good textures (need some good graphics artists) to give it a dark feeling

- kiss play experience (see how it probably would be done nowadays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yIxUOWrtw )

- VGA-graphics, I keep saying this to people: VGA is pixely, but somehow I don't see that when playing Doom, I compare it with cartoon drawings, you don't focus on the details, but how it looks globally and use a bit of fantasy to bring it to life - nowadays graphics are so detailed that I somehow get distracted by too much detail, it's becoming too realistic almost and doesn't look like a 'game' anymore

- deathmatch or coop via modem, calling your friend to play a match via the telephone line, warning your parents that they are not allowed to pick up the phone, playing not too long because you had to pay per minute (in The Netherlands at least)

- everything packed in a few diskettes (3 or 4?) was at that time almost magic that you could have such a 3d world fitting on it

There are many more reasons why for me Doom will always have a good reputation for me, mostly because of a combination of properties which came together at that time.

tjeerdnet

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

I would really like to know a good alternative for iGoogle too. My dad has been using it for years as his default homepage and he asks me now and then if I know an alternative because he knew it was ending. He likes it because of the widgets (weather, traffic, notepad, task lists et cetera) and the fact that the Google search is integrated on the same page.

People suggested Symbaloo, but that's only a nice iconic representation of hyperlinks. I don't think there is a site with the same concept as iGoogle. If anyone knows a good altenative then I'd really like to know to make my dad happy again ;)

I somehow understand the move of Google to stop doing iGoogle, because similar widgets are now by default integrated in Windows/Android itself.

tjeerdnet

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

In the previous tests Grails was also tested, I don't see it back in this round anymore?

tjeerdnet

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

Funny to see the 'greenhouse effect' mentioned in the beginning and later on the advice to take longer showers.

tjeerdnet

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

This is an ever ongoing discussion between two kinds of programmers (documenting and non-documenting). Just decide for yourself or your team what works best. I myself like to even document other people's code after I see what the method does if the method isn't speaking for itself. If I am developing I want to see in my IDE when adding an existing method, a popup which tells me quickly about what the method does and the arguments it has and what it returns. Instead of (everytime) having to jump to the code to see what it does.

Just one simple (real life) example:

  public String convertText(String text) {
   return text.toUpperCase();
  }

This method is already named wrong in my opinion and should be refactored to something like convertTextToUpperCase to understand what it does without having to document. But if your methods get more complex I think a little comment on top of the method describing what's going on really cannot harm. Especially if the code is difficult to read for new people.

The point is in the end to keep the documentation in sync with the code and that takes indeed some effort. I myself always make documentation for a method in Java-doc style, so only above the method, if it's more complex than a simple getter/setter-method. I always tend to think in terms of the official Sun Java API-documentation, which I use(d) so often to know how all the classes/methods work, that it might also make my own code more readable/understandable when I or someone else has to work on my code if I have documented it. Inside the method code I try to comment little to not.

@snowwolf: I agree, but it's just an example to show that a method name should speak for itself

tjeerdnet

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

I am using Google Alerts for a few months now. I set up a few alerts for physiotherapy jobs with some keywords like 'job' 'physiotherapy', 'vacancy' et cetera (in Dutch). But I only get once a month an alert and even then it only found some sort of news article about the profession, not anything about jobs. I cannot imagine that so little jobs are put online for this profession. Twitter search or plain Google search gives me more relevant information.

Not sure about the Google Alert if it is useful at all this way. I can manually search every day of course, but these are things I thought could be perfectly automated and done by Google Alert.

tjeerdnet

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

What about Youtube? Never in history could people so easily share their lives with the whole planet and it being archived very well (and searchable). Think about the impact it (already) has on the future, when people somewhere hundred years from now can look back at so much of human history in full color and sound etc. We as humans are currently recording so much for future generations. Half of it may be crap, but on the other side there's also a lot of good stuff.

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