Month: November 2006

While it’s a bit early, I went ahead with Hypernia.net and got a dedicated server for development. Mainly right now it will be for source control. The price is somewhat high, at $150 a month, but this means I no longer have the security and speed problems of using my own home computer. It also means certain kinds of work can be done more easily, such as writing the webpage and database stuff, since it can all be done on the server directly.

I briefly considered using Orcsweb for source control but god what a ripoff. They charge you full-price for a Vault license, when in practice the price goes down the more licenses you buy. Then they charge a per-developer montly ($40) and setup fee, ($20) when in fact there is no per-developer incremental cost to the host, aside from a trival amount of bandwidth. At 4 developers it’s already the same price as my dedicated server and all I’ve saved is the trouble of installing SQL Express and Vault. I’m not sure why anyone would use them.

Now I’m faced with trying to figure out how to setup all the web services, such as email, FTP, security, and web hosting. IIS isn’t that easy to figure out when combined with user security rights and database security rights. Hopefully I run across someone who already knows all this stuff.

Cosmic Strife.

No domain campers on the URL
Nothing else using it that I can see.
Matches my game
Easy on the ears.

Only potential problem is Sony has Cosmic Rift, which is a similar genre of game. But by the same token, Star Wars and Star Trek also differ only by one word, are both Sci-Fi movies, and there seems to be no problem there. Strife and Rift are totally different words as well so one couldn’t take that argument either.

I won’t specify which one, but I have a contract to work on a certain handheld and I have to say that working on it sucks bigtime.

1. Adding files requires editing a makefile.
2. Testing any changes requires running the makefile, then loading up an entirely different IDE, then waiting for the hardware to reset, and lastly running it (in total a 30 second process, as opposed to maybe 2 seconds to do the same thing in Visual Studio)
3. This different IDE is just aweful. First among the problems is that setting breakponits doesn’t work consistently. Sometimes it put the breakpoint on the wrong line, wrong file, and sometimes it doesn’t hit the breakpoint anyway.
4. Watches similarly don’t work right.

So I’m reduced to adding what amounts to printf lines and recompiling to try to guess why things don’t work.

Worse, the library has no documentation other than a few code comments in the headers. The comments themselves aren’t very helpful, with comments like
// Calls the Start routine for TRL
void StartTRL(void);

(Actual 3 letters changed but same scenario). What the hell is TRL? No idea. No where ever does it say what that abbreviation stands for. These kind of short abbreviations are all over the place too. In one case they abbreviated a 6 letter word to the first 3 letters, totally obscuring the meaning until had to ask someone else.

Furthermore, things just don’t work. For example, there is a connection routine which has to go through like 9 internal stages. It goes through 8 of them and then just sits there. Why? Who knows. Their sample works and I copy/pasted the relevant parts. My guess at this point is threading, because in another case if I add a delay it works, and with no delay it doesn’t get past an earlier stage.

I’m sorely tempted to just dump this contract immediately, because it’s wasting my time and taking time away from working on my own game.

I can’t remember the URL but I read an article a while back the work programmers hate the most is work that is random. Random work is work such as fixing other people’s bugs, trying to figure out other people’s code (esp. undocumented and/or difficult to test), and problems with no clear specifications, direction, and/or solution. This is why many programmers reinvent the wheel. Although it’s often a time loss to do so, it’s much preferable to solve a known problem with a known solution and make daily progress than guess at something that may or may not do what you want.

Probably after random work would be busywork, or work with no especial benefit or use. It’s not the work in this case but the lack of importance of what you are doing.

Conversely, programmers like challenges, especially when the challenge is important. This is why lead programmers work hard. They feel important (because they are responsible for important things), they are given challenging tasks, and the work they are given is usually time and mission critical. It’s not really because they make more money. It’s true that money attracts workers and it’s important to pay enough so that workers can live comfortably. However, what retains workers is rewarding work. Programmers enjoy working on interesting, important problems. Creating this enviroment will give you far better retention and enthusiasm than just paying more money.

The same task presented diferently can get different results. Saying to a senior graphics programmer “You have two weeks to write the grass waving system” is guranteed to demotivate and the first week will be spent on Slashdot, especially if it’s something they solved before with no new challenges. Saying to a junior graphics programmer, or a non-graphics programer, “You have 3 days to do the grass waving system. Here are some resources to get you started” will be an exciting challenge with an opportunity to learn, especially with someone more senior available to ask questions of. No deadlines, or deadlines too long, is just as bad as deadlines that are too short. Deadlines present a challenge to get the work done in time, which motivates one to work.

This is why I try, when giving assignments, to remove as much guesswork as possible with clear specifications, descriptions of intermediate steps, and a justification as to why the assignment is important. It’s very important to be able to provide a constant line of communication, help, and answers to people working. Not doing so leads to guesswork, which is random, and hence annoying and demoralizing.

Incidentally, it’s also why I’ve finally figured out why I hate a new contract I took so much. It pays very well. Until today I couldn’t understand why I would feel literally sick to my stomach to work on it. I was assigned to create a facade design pattern to undocumented spaghetti code, on a platform I never used before, with little communication or support, using primitive tools. On top of that, when I do ask questions, I’m ignored half the time, making me feel I am not important. The work is essentially random – spend a lot of time to make a guess, repeat, until I figure out the system, then write the facade. In the end, it may not work anyway. It drains away my enthusiasm to work at all, including on my own game.

This might be premature but I’m getting nervous about the second contractor I hired. Other than an hour or so the first day, he’s been missing in action (about 3 1/2 days now). About a day and a half ago I sent him an email he didn’t reply to either. Normally I would not care if a contractor was offline for as long as two weeks. As long as they get their work done in the end that is fine. But for someone who just started I’m not sure how they will work out yet. To simply disappear makes me wonder if they are working, if they decided they just don’t like the job, if they are having computer problems, or what. I made a mistake in giving him his first task with a duration of two weeks. If I knew his work ethic it would be OK but for all I know he could wait until 2-3 days before the deadline and then start, doing the work at the level of quality that would take 2-3 days to do, rather than 14 days needed.

I might be totally off my rocker here. Perhaps his internet is down, he is only online when I am sleeping, simply has no questions, didn’t think a response was required from my last email, and/or is planning to crunch his time on the weekend. I got the impression he was very professional during the interview so I feel a little more confident because of that.

In any case, I have a lot more appreciation for the difficulty of putting together a good team. It takes time, money, and skill to find the really good people.

On the very last day of hiring I got a job application from someone who claimed to be a lead at nVidia. The interview went well and while he was a little hard to understand, I was really impressed by his motivation and his resume. So I gave it a shot, even though he was 3X more expensive than my other programmers.

It turns out this was the best decision I’ve made so far for the company. He is professional, knowledgeable, and incredibly helpful. I now have a resource to turn to ask about about India and Indian resumes and have a good feeling that even though I am not working, progress is still being made on the game.

I can see now that my previous attempts to save money by hiring juniors may have been a mistake. 3X the cost but 10X the productivity is a good deal as far as I’m concerned. If I could do it again I would have skipped hiring juniors and had gotten 2 people with experience instead.

I may have to restart the hiring process, which will delay the game by a month, but it’s better that than failing entirely. I asked the lead programmer if he knew anyone else as good as him looking for a job but unfortunately he didn’t.