Software The Art of the Interview I’ve had a surprisingly good run working independently, dabbling in my own projects and paying the bills with consulting and contract development work. There’s always the possibility I’ll have to get a regular job again (I’ve had some long dry
Software Management Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people? — Tom Smykowski Office SpaceKnow Your StuffThe saying goes, those who can’t do, teach. The same could be said of
Software Have Contract, Will Travel It's been almost twenty years, now. Miraculously, I’ve been surviving on contract work for ten years, now (all but one were game projects). I wrote these tips on the contracting lifestyle at the five-year mark, so some details are out of date, e.
Software The Art of the Schedule “A canna’ change the laws of physics. I’ve got to have thirty minutes.” — Scotty, in The Naked TimeWhat is a Schedule?On many projects I’ve been told there is no schedule — either as a complaint (“We don’t have a schedule!”) or
Books To Program Is Human Digging up old book reviews, I discovered for some reason I wrote two reviews of To Engineer is Human. Here is the second one. Or maybe the first. When I worked in Silicon Valley, it seemed everyone wanted the title Software Architect. It’s
Software Minimizing Meetings This essay is a bit dated (replace "intranet" with "cloud"), but even though meetings have turned online with the pandemic work-at-home rules, it's still worth asking, is this meeting necessary? Avoid These MeetingsI’ll take a strong stand on meetings right off the bat
Internet Block Is My Favorite Feature Posted on Medium in 2017. I’m always discovering new App Store submission requirements. Last year, when I submitted the WordsEye app, I ran into the rule that apps featuring user-generated content must allow users to block and report content and had to resubmit
Software Lisp Led Me to Texas, Outer Space, and Game Development Occasionally, I see the question “What led you to gamedev?” (on twitter, for example). I didn’t start out as a game developer, but rather stumbled into it later in my career, so my default answer is that it’s because I worked at
Software I Miss Lisp I wrote this over ten years ago, and I haven't programmed seriously in Lisp in over twenty years. Still, I miss Lisp. My favorite language is Lisp. What happened? What I Miss About LispSimplicityA common complaint against Lisp is the parentheses. Lots of Interspersed
Apps HyperBowl on the Small Screen Published earlier on Gamasutra and the Unity website. Game Data Publisher: Technicat, LLC (Fugu Games)Release Date: July 2009 (App Store) and May 2011 (Google Play)Number of Developers: 1 (not counting all the original HyperBowl developers)Number of Contractors: 0Length of Project: 6
Books How I Met Unity This is the preface I wrote for the first edition of my game programming book Learn Unity 4 for iOS Game Development. My preface was removed in the second edition, so here it is for posterity. Technically, I first started programming on a TRS-80
Books More About Ada A few years ago, I wrote about how a history of computer programming would feature women who haven’t received enough recognition (which in itself is a good reason for everyone to learn about the history of computers), most notably Ada Lovelace. Since then,
Software The History of Programming On my list of things-I-want-to-do-but-I’m-not-serious-just-talking is a history of computers, or at least a history of computer programming, something like Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy or Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization. I got this interest during my one
Software Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers My first somewhat popular essay on software development, written almost twenty years ago, but I don't think anything has changed. As a software engineer, you might want any number of things out of your job - a steady paycheck, the opportunity to work on