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A week-long programming retreat

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Re: A week-long programming retreat

#41

Post by gremy0 »

psyc wrote: post #34
pjmlp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude is quite prevalent on the games industry, hence anyone that would spend some time among AAA devs would learn that they don't care one second about stuff like portable 3D APIs and OSes, as people in forums like HN think they do. What matters is making a cool game with whatever tech is available and ship.

Game engine programmer here. I came up on DOS and Windows, and for a long time that's what I was comfortable with, and everything else I presumed to be alien. Once I'd worked on things that were both cross-platform and low-level, the idea that different hardware platforms and OSes were different went out the window somewhat. It was literally enlightening. In the old days, we had to be mercenaries. SNES is popular now…

* ES6

makes note: not normal programming material

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#42

Post by swang »

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack.

During the Zenimax/Oculus case:

He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit.

He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he had taken form his Zenimax laptop on his last day there did contain source code. He denies that the source code in the emails benefitted him and that he "rewrote" all the code anyways. But this runs counter to the testimony of Oculus programmers who admitted they copied Zenimax code straight into the Oculus SDK.

He also has not outright denied the copy claims from the testimony of David Dobkin's in which Dobkin testified about the similarity between the source code in Zenimax and the source code in Oculus's SDK. Carmack instead accuses him of doing it for money and argued that the methodology wasn't very robust. But no denial, just ad hominem attacks.

So why do people still fawn over him when it seems like his ethics are dubious?

(Granted it could be possible that the technical aspects of the case went over the heads of jurors. And I will admit to being wrong if the Oculus appeal ends up revealing more information.

But his HD was discovered to be wiped, and even Oculus programmers admitted to copying code. Why does he get a free pass on this?)

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#43

Post by unixhero »

swang wrote: post #42

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack. During the Zenimax/Oculus case: He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit. He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he h…

>Why does he get a free pass on this?)

Why should I care? The guy is an absolute legend.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#44

Post by usrusr »

swang wrote: post #42

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack. During the Zenimax/Oculus case: He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit. He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he h…

Why is that surprising? The idea of not owning the code you wrote isn't exactly cherished in hacker culture. People may half-heartedly accept that what he did was wrong, but they will be far from feeling outraged about it.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#45

Post by Cthulhu_ »

r00k wrote: post #2

I do trips like this every few years. I can hardly recommend them enough. I wrote about my specific recommendations here: https://robots.thoughtbot.com/you-should-take-a-codecation .

I should do that sometime. I'm afraid I've lost my ability to focus, something like that might help. I'd need a solid mission though, instead of a "look into tech X" without a goal.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#46

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cheschire wrote: post #35
deepaksurti wrote: post #8

>> I’m not a Unix geek. I get around ok, but I am most comfortable developing in Visual Studio on Windows. This is a lesson for me and probably many others. Don't get hung up on tools, ship!!!

Yeah that was the point that stuck out for me the most as well. He took a week off to focus on a problem set, and ended up spending a number of hours working around the limitations of his setup instead. I mean, I don't want to sound judgmental. Perhaps that was part of his plan. It just stuck out to me as seeming orthogonal to his expressed goals.

I'd say it's part of the plan - don't pass judgment over a system until you've tried it for an X amount of time. Same with Windows and Visual Studio. It's sorta related to cargo cult I guess.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#47

Post by purple-again »

swang wrote: post #42

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack. During the Zenimax/Oculus case: He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit. He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he h…

He doesn't. He is in the wrong. I just don't care. I'm in the wrong every time I pack a bowl of weed. Still don't care.

I understand why John doesn't own the fruit of his labor. I understand why John is willing to lie, cheat, and steal the people benefiting from the system that takes the fruit of his labor from him.

If you don't like it, build a better system that prevents it.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#48

Post by thaumasiotes »

swang wrote: post #42

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack. During the Zenimax/Oculus case: He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit. He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he h…

> So why do people still fawn over him when it seems like his ethics are dubious?

> Why does he get a free pass on this?

Because many people draw a distinction between something being "unethical" vs being "illegal". What exactly do you think is the problem with his ethics? How serious do you think it is?

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#49

Post by edanm »

swang wrote: post #42

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack. During the Zenimax/Oculus case: He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit. He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he h…

I don't know anything, at all, about this case or much about him except the standard.

But is there any point in bringing it up now? I mean, whether or not he did something illegal/unethical, does this now mean that literally every single time he writes something, someone feels the need to chime in with "but remember that bad thing he did once?".

I'm not saying this isn't a legit conversation or that you're unethical or something for bringing it up... I just really think this isn't the time or place for this.

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