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Bob, if you're lurking this thread: Congrats. Any idea when I'll be able to buy it? Like the other free-online-first books I've read, I've gotten enough value from it that I'd like to thank you by paying for it.
Does anyone have a script to package this into an ebook format? I'd love to be able to read it on my Kindle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always phrased it tongue-in-cheek: "The first 90% of the work takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of the work takes the other 90% of the time.
That reminds me of the Pareto Principle (20/80): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle I've found it to apply to many things in life. Edit: why would this be downvoted?
Bob, if you're lurking this thread: Congrats. Any idea when I'll be able to buy it? Like the other free-online-first books I've read, I've gotten enough value from it that I'd like to thank you by paying for it.
The author is the submitter of the post and is replying to comments. He addressed the same question there too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That reminds me of the Pareto Principle (20/80): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle I've found it to apply to many things in life. Edit: why would this be downvoted?
Because someone tried to upvote you on a smartphone, and Hacker News has a stubbornly non-mobile friendly design, with no undo.
Thanks so much for all of this. It's extremely well put together. I'm still trying to figure out the optimal way to organize every part of a Dwarf Fortress-style simulation (but multi-threaded of course), and I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel somewhat poorly. Component-based design is an important part of that, but there are still so many hairy problems to solve. These are problems which most games don't encounte…
That's an ambitious project you're undertaking. Can you share more?
The same underlying simulation could conceivably be used for a peaceful economic sim, or a highly strategic military game, or just an RPG with a ton of depth.
I remember seeing one of Bob's posts earlier about how he struggled to finish this. Congratulations to him, I know how difficult it is to complete big projects (they say there's the first 90%, then when the finish line is in sight, there's the second 90%). His perseverance is inspiring!
True, always the last 10% consume as much effort as the 90%
-- Yogi Berra
Looks great! I think it would add greatly if you have a chapter that illustrates the development of a simple game where many of these ideas are illustrated. I teach coding to high-school kids. When I tell them that "We'll be building a game" attention increases exponentially; unfortunately I know nothing about how to program anything beyond simple board games, e.g. tictactoe. I can totally use ideas from your book in…
Congratulations, Bob! He had some interesting comments on his writing process in a previous thread entitled, "Write Code Every Day." [1] He also graciously answered some questions I had regarding his writing workflow, as well as his plans to self-publish a print version of the book. [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7569108 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7569660
Thanks!
> He also graciously answered some questions I had regarding his writing workflow
I've got a long blog post about the whole writing process I'll put up soon.
Bob, if you're lurking this thread: Congrats. Any idea when I'll be able to buy it? Like the other free-online-first books I've read, I've gotten enough value from it that I'd like to thank you by paying for it.
As soon as possible!
Unfortunately, I don't know how long that will be. I'm going to be typesetting it myself with lots of love using InDesign. I hope the final result will be a really nice book, but it could take me a while.
Still, I plan to work on it every single day, so maybe it will go quickly.
> I've gotten enough value from it that I'd like to thank you by paying for it.
Just a thanks is more than enough, but buying a copy of the print book will be the best way to throw money at me (short of showing up at my house and making it rain, I suppose).