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How Dwarf Fortress is built

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Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#111

Post by reader_mode »

dangoor wrote: post #42
reader_mode wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean using SCM became the norm in maybe last 10-15 years ? When this was started I don't think using SCM was as ubiquitous as it is today, not to mention on a solo project. If you've been hammering away since then I can see how you might have missed it.

Pretty sure all of my professional work used SCM starting in the mid-90s (CVS). May not have been the norm for solo devs at that point, though.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...

I've seen this post brought up as relevant regularly up till 2010.

You may have been lucky to avoid the dredges but SW industry in the 2000s was a copy-paste fest (not in the "copy from stack overflow" sense but as in "copy paste instead of creating a function"), PHP with SQL in templates and string concat queries all over the place, MVC was a revolution. I'm not saying this was everywhere just that it was very common.

I'm sure some wise guy will come up with retort that MVC was used in the 70s and what not, but my point is a lot of the industry discovered it with Rails and Django.

The way that we teach programming these days and languages/tools/frameworks just make some bottom tier mistakes from the past impossible (or very impractical). People often ignore this context when evaluating modern framework

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#112

Post by markus_zhang »

pixl97 wrote: post #99
markus_zhang wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what's in the code, but I think each cat (which is some sort of entity by itself) is composed by body parts, which at the lowest level owns a bunch of attributes/components. Would that make sense?

The bug in this case was the minimum alcohol value a cat could like from its paws was above the cats LD100, so if they licked their feet when soaked in beer they would die.

Ah, that's interesting, so it's actually a bug. But yeah it shows the sophisticated system underneath.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#113

Post by mypalmike »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #32
emteycz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I invite you to try using Git as much as possible for two weeks. After a week I started using Git for branching out of my main branch to test several different ideas and then compare them at once with other developers - colleagues or friends. I think that moved the meetings and discussions with my teammates up a level.

I have used Git when working with FOSS projects, and I tried using it for my own but it never took. The sort of workflow it is built for just isn't how I like to do things when I work on my own.

Solo workflow is as simple as write code, git commit, repeat. Throw in a git push every once in a while. All on master, no branching or forking.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#114

Post by LeegleechN »

reidjs wrote: post #31
petercooper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually play it? I'm a bit the same about reading about it, yet I have never once played it for myself!

I tried playing it like a decade or two ago. Couldn’t get past the ridiculous learning curve.

They're working on a Steam release with a more accessible interface, including mouse support. I suggest trying it again when that comes out.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#115

Post by minsc__and__boo »

petercooper wrote: post #7
reidjs wrote: post #2

I read everything about this game I can get my hands on. I don’t fully understand why I find dwarf fortress so intriguing. It’s such a pure passion project… that actually made it.

Do you actually play it? I'm a bit the same about reading about it, yet I have never once played it for myself!

I've put in probably over a thousand hours on it, and have played it over the years as new releases come out. I've gotten to the point where I usually hit FPS death (too large a fortress that it overloads the CPU) even on the harder starts and with dfhack to help.

The draw for me was the steep learning curve that rewards you with logical complexity when you finally understand it. The lore that your fortress generates, as well as the random stories, is just icing on the cake. It's definitely not for everyone though since the UI requires additional programs like DF Therapist and DF Hack to be manageable still.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#116

Post by mypalmike »

Yajirobe wrote: post #74
nhooyr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't! It's so easy and effective for keeping track of your work and backups. If you want the absolute simplest way to use git, just setup an alias to do: alias gcmp="git add -A && git commit && git push" Now all you need to do is run gcmp every time you're ready to log the new state of your codebase. How could it be simpler? git only becomes more complex as your needs become more complex. At which point I'd re…

git commit to which branch? git push to which branch?

master, origin/master

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#117

Post by psyc »

njharman wrote: post #91

I thought it was developed by the two brothers? I've seen talks and interviews by both brothers on DF. like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMRsScwdPcE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtKmLciKO30

This is StackOverflow, and the interview is about code, so they probably mean developer in that sense. Tarn is the only programmer.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#118

Post by dharmab »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #106
nmz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is? He's making almost 9k a month, that's pretty good if you ask me. https://www.patreon.com/bay12games

I stand very much corrected, I didn't realize the project had gathered so much support steam compared to 5-10 years ago. Happy to see it

IIRC they added paid options after a family health scare caused them to realize that they needed a way to pay for better health insurance.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#119

Post by darkarmani »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #8
chaostheory wrote: post #5

To me what was most surprising about Dwarf Fortress, given the complexity, is that Tad didn’t use git or any other code repository until more recently.

Why would that be surprising? For a single programmer working alone Git is an incredibly complicated tool. P.S.: A lot of you are confusing "complicated" with "difficult".

What? How it more difficult that CVS or even RCS that lies under CVS?

That would have been the OS tool back in 1998.

Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built

#120

Post by AndyMcConachie »

mabbo wrote: post #33

> What’s your favorite bug and what caused it? > A: It’s probably boring for me to say, but I just can’t beat the drunken cat bug... That was the one where the cats were showing up dead all over the tavern floor, and it turned out they were ingesting spilled alcohol when they cleaned their paws. I think that bug explains very well just how deeply complex Dwarf Fortress really is. Drinks can be spilled. Some drinks ha…

One of my favorite Twitter users.

https://twitter.com/DwarfFortBugs

It's just funny Dwarf Fortress bugs.

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