www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - Welcome to the Jungle (article about the future of parallel computing)

reply Paulo Pinto <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
Hi,

I just saw a follow up article from Herb Sutter about
the future of parallel computing.

http://herbsutter.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/

Very interesting read. Excuse me if someone has already
posted it.

--
Paulo
Jan 06 2012
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message 
news:je7vvh$253f$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,

 I just saw a follow up article from Herb Sutter about
 the future of parallel computing.

 http://herbsutter.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/

 Very interesting read. Excuse me if someone has already
 posted it.


It is interesting...But I have to say: The *one* thing that really bugs me 
about it is that it seems to be written under the assumption that the 
highest-end hardware that's *sitting around on store shelves* is the only 
hardware that's relevant, or even exists. It makes the whole thing feel 
uncomfortably ivory-tower when reading through it. Even a simple 
*acknowledgment* of the distinction would have made a huge difference. But 
the way it's written, it makes him sound like (and for all I know, he may 
very well not be like this at all), but it makes him sound like "CliffyB", 
or Tim Sweeny, or some other such graphics-whore, "in bed with MS, NVidia 
and ATI" jackass over at Epic (Epic used to actually be respectable back in 
the "MegaGames" days...).
Jan 06 2012
next sibling parent reply Paulo Pinto <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
Am 07.01.2012 08:08, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:

 "Paulo Pinto"<pjmlp progtools.org>  wrote in message
 news:je7vvh$253f$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,

 I just saw a follow up article from Herb Sutter about
 the future of parallel computing.

 http://herbsutter.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/

 Very interesting read. Excuse me if someone has already
 posted it.


 It is interesting...But I have to say: The *one* thing that really bugs me
 about it is that it seems to be written under the assumption that the
 highest-end hardware that's *sitting around on store shelves* is the only
 hardware that's relevant, or even exists. It makes the whole thing feel
 uncomfortably ivory-tower when reading through it. Even a simple
 *acknowledgment* of the distinction would have made a huge difference. But
 the way it's written, it makes him sound like (and for all I know, he may
 very well not be like this at all), but it makes him sound like "CliffyB",
 or Tim Sweeny, or some other such graphics-whore, "in bed with MS, NVidia
 and ATI" jackass over at Epic (Epic used to actually be respectable back in
 the "MegaGames" days...).


But he is in a way right.

Even the small embedded systems are slowly becoming multicore. The most 
recent ARM processors are now multicore.

As an example of a multicore PIC, see the Parallax Propeller processor,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller.


Sure there will still be lots of scenarios where this won't be the case,
like there are still 8 bit PIC processors being deployed in Assembly, 
but they are niche products. The vast majority of the developers will 
have the reality he describes.

--
Paulo
Jan 07 2012
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message 
news:je92bp$t68$1 digitalmars.com...

 But he is in a way right.

 Even the small embedded systems are slowly becoming multicore. The most 
 recent ARM processors are now multicore.


Yes, because after all, who *doesn't* need to decode genomes on their 
telephone? ;)


 As an example of a multicore PIC, see the Parallax Propeller processor,
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller.


Warning to all: The following two paragraphs may sound very strange 
considering they're coming from me...

The Propeller's awesome. Brilliant little chip. Not exactly a big fan of 
SPIN or the IDE, though (Personally, I would just as soon have spared the 
silicon used to embed that SPIN interpreter into the chip, or maybe 
repurposed it somehow). And the video output capabilities could be a little 
bit better. But those niggles aside, I admit, I'm a big fan of the 
Propeller. And the whole "multi-core microcontroller", believe it or not, is 
probably the main reason why. It's a cheap little thing and in terms of 
power, I'd estimate it to be...as if you had a device somewhere between an 
NES or SNES, but made the A/V circuitry almost entirely re-programmable.

I was actually lucky enough to have the opportunity to play with a Propeller 
on an early revision of the Hydra board ( www.xgamestation.com ) before 
either of their official releases. Still have the board right here on my 
desk, too:  https://www.semitwist.com/download/img/Hydra-v0.1.jpg  Although 
as you can see it's gathered...ummm...more than a little bit of dust since 
I've been drowning in the web world for so long now :/  (Actually, I'm kind 
of embarrassed by all the dust on it...I really should have covered it long 
ago...) I wrote the sound and eeprom drivers that come with the Hydra, and 
three of the demos: Hydra Rally, Deep Cavern 3D, and Piano Demo. (They're 
shown in a random rotation on the xgamestation homepage, reload the page a 
few times to see them all). It was a lot of exhausting work, but I had an 
absolute blast developing them. I love working with systems where you have 
full control and understanding over every single byte - especially when it's 
to the end of making games. Unfortunately I never really get the chance for 
such things anymore.



 Sure there will still be lots of scenarios where this won't be the case,
 like there are still 8 bit PIC processors being deployed in Assembly, but 
 they are niche products. The vast majority of the developers will have the 
 reality he describes.

 --
 Paulo
Jan 07 2012
parent reply Paulo Pinto <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
Hi,

so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
old homebrew developer feeling. :)

I also miss those days. I grew up with the ZX Spectrum,
doing some BASIC and Z80 stuff, then most of my friends
moved up to the Amiga 500 and I eventually got a PC,
since my dad was the opinion the PC would be the future.

Anyway, I had lots of fun doing x86 assembly programming
with some Turbo Pascal and eventually C. Then quite a few
languages after that.

Nowadays I develop business software mostly in JVM and .NET
languages, running in clustered environments. With development
teams scattered around the globe.

Doing low level programming and graphics related stuff is
now only a hobby, when real life permits to do so. Until the
day I manage to change area.

Wow, now I am a bit nostaligic

--
Paulo


Am 07.01.2012 11:19, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:

 Warning to all: The following two paragraphs may sound very strange
 considering they're coming from me...

 The Propeller's awesome. Brilliant little chip. Not exactly a big fan of
 SPIN or the IDE, though (Personally, I would just as soon have spared the
 silicon used to embed that SPIN interpreter into the chip, or maybe
 repurposed it somehow). And the video output capabilities could be a little
 bit better. But those niggles aside, I admit, I'm a big fan of the
 Propeller. And the whole "multi-core microcontroller", believe it or not, is
 probably the main reason why. It's a cheap little thing and in terms of
 power, I'd estimate it to be...as if you had a device somewhere between an
 NES or SNES, but made the A/V circuitry almost entirely re-programmable.

 I was actually lucky enough to have the opportunity to play with a Propeller
 on an early revision of the Hydra board ( www.xgamestation.com ) before
 either of their official releases. Still have the board right here on my
 desk, too:  https://www.semitwist.com/download/img/Hydra-v0.1.jpg  Although
 as you can see it's gathered...ummm...more than a little bit of dust since
 I've been drowning in the web world for so long now :/  (Actually, I'm kind
 of embarrassed by all the dust on it...I really should have covered it long
 ago...) I wrote the sound and eeprom drivers that come with the Hydra, and
 three of the demos: Hydra Rally, Deep Cavern 3D, and Piano Demo. (They're
 shown in a random rotation on the xgamestation homepage, reload the page a
 few times to see them all). It was a lot of exhausting work, but I had an
 absolute blast developing them. I love working with systems where you have
 full control and understanding over every single byte - especially when it's
 to the end of making games. Unfortunately I never really get the chance for
 such things anymore.
Jan 07 2012
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message 
news:je9e3t$1g3l$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,

 so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
 old homebrew developer feeling. :)


Yea, I grew up on that sort of thing. And I'd been working with Andre' 
(LaMothe, of course) since well before he started doing hardware kits. His 
old DOS-based game dev books are what moved me from various forms of BASIC 
into finally really grokking things like C, pointers and low-level 
programming (which I had only "kind of" understood before). Then I just 
happened to end up in contact with him through a mutual aquaintence (via AOL 
1.x ;) heh, yea, way back then). Andre' was starting up a budget-game 
publishing company and was looking for a breakout clone, which I happened to 
already be working on. So there was that, and then he started some gamedev 
forums that I was a regular on for years. Then Hasbro Interactive fucked 
everything up with unsubstantiated litigation and typical corporate "drown 
in legal fees" tactics, and then he got into doing hardware kits like he's 
doing now.

IMO, Indie gamedev is really the only way to go if you want to make games. 
All the way until college I was convinced I wanted to work for a major game 
company. Then I started learning more about the nature of the industry at 
the time (around 2000-2001), and that was also the point where the industry 
itself was starting its slow descent into becoming into the 
Hollywood-wannabe cesspool it mostly is today. ("Fuck actual gaming, we're 
gonna be cinematic storytellers!" Too many Pixar rejects in the industry 
now, I guess...Not to mention all the "packaged-goods" managers...)


 I also miss those days. I grew up with the ZX Spectrum,
 doing some BASIC and Z80 stuff, then most of my friends
 moved up to the Amiga 500 and I eventually got a PC,
 since my dad was the opinion the PC would be the future.


For me, it was Apple IIc and ApplesoftBASIC (I'm normally critical of apple 
products, especially after having spent a year or so with OSX, but the Apple 
II line is the one major exception for me. I guess you could say Woz was the 
*real* Apple for me). Plus a small amount of Logo and machine code on the 
machine. Then I got a [Packard Bell, remember them?] 486DX2 and moved to 
QBASIC, had an enormous amount of fun with that. (IIRC, Amiga was pretty 
much out of the picture by then, and I hadn't even heard of it. Sometimes 
now I feel like I really missed out on it.)

Tinkered a bit with C/C++, but didn't quite "get it". Then did VB 3 (It came 
on a bunch of floppies and was for Win3 :) ). Then I found Andre's DOS books 
(this was still *just* before DirectX, or at least around the time of what 
was then called the "Game SDK"). Was into that for years, and somehow 
managed to get sucked into web dev, and these days all my free time goes to 
D-related projects (mostly things that will directly or indirectly make my 
webdev work slightly less painful).


 Anyway, I had lots of fun doing x86 assembly programming
 with some Turbo Pascal and eventually C. Then quite a few
 languages after that.

 Nowadays I develop business software mostly in JVM and .NET
 languages, running in clustered environments. With development
 teams scattered around the globe.

 Doing low level programming and graphics related stuff is
 now only a hobby, when real life permits to do so. Until the
 day I manage to change area.

 Wow, now I am a bit nostaligic
Jan 07 2012
next sibling parent reply Brad Anderson <eco gnuk.net> writes:
On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message
 news:je9e3t$1g3l$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,

 so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
 old homebrew developer feeling. :)


 Yea, I grew up on that sort of thing. And I'd been working with Andre'
 (LaMothe, of course) since well before he started doing hardware kits. His
 old DOS-based game dev books are what moved me from various forms of BASIC
 into finally really grokking things like C, pointers and low-level
 programming (which I had only "kind of" understood before). Then I just
 happened to end up in contact with him through a mutual aquaintence (via
 AOL
 1.x ;) heh, yea, way back then). Andre' was starting up a budget-game
 publishing company and was looking for a breakout clone, which I happened
 to
 already be working on. So there was that, and then he started some gamedev
 forums that I was a regular on for years. Then Hasbro Interactive fucked
 everything up with unsubstantiated litigation and typical corporate "drown
 in legal fees" tactics, and then he got into doing hardware kits like he's
 doing now.


I was a regular on there too.  Small world.


 IMO, Indie gamedev is really the only way to go if you want to make games.
 All the way until college I was convinced I wanted to work for a major game
 company. Then I started learning more about the nature of the industry at
 the time (around 2000-2001), and that was also the point where the industry
 itself was starting its slow descent into becoming into the
 Hollywood-wannabe cesspool it mostly is today. ("Fuck actual gaming, we're
 gonna be cinematic storytellers!" Too many Pixar rejects in the industry
 now, I guess...Not to mention all the "packaged-goods" managers...)


 I also miss those days. I grew up with the ZX Spectrum,
 doing some BASIC and Z80 stuff, then most of my friends
 moved up to the Amiga 500 and I eventually got a PC,
 since my dad was the opinion the PC would be the future.


 For me, it was Apple IIc and ApplesoftBASIC (I'm normally critical of apple
 products, especially after having spent a year or so with OSX, but the
 Apple
 II line is the one major exception for me. I guess you could say Woz was
 the
 *real* Apple for me). Plus a small amount of Logo and machine code on the
 machine. Then I got a [Packard Bell, remember them?] 486DX2 and moved to
 QBASIC, had an enormous amount of fun with that. (IIRC, Amiga was pretty
 much out of the picture by then, and I hadn't even heard of it. Sometimes
 now I feel like I really missed out on it.)

 Tinkered a bit with C/C++, but didn't quite "get it". Then did VB 3 (It
 came
 on a bunch of floppies and was for Win3 :) ). Then I found Andre's DOS
 books
 (this was still *just* before DirectX, or at least around the time of what
 was then called the "Game SDK"). Was into that for years, and somehow
 managed to get sucked into web dev, and these days all my free time goes to
 D-related projects (mostly things that will directly or indirectly make my
 webdev work slightly less painful).


 Anyway, I had lots of fun doing x86 assembly programming
 with some Turbo Pascal and eventually C. Then quite a few
 languages after that.

 Nowadays I develop business software mostly in JVM and .NET
 languages, running in clustered environments. With development
 teams scattered around the globe.

 Doing low level programming and graphics related stuff is
 now only a hobby, when real life permits to do so. Until the
 day I manage to change area.

 Wow, now I am a bit nostaligic




Regards,
Brad Anderson
Jan 07 2012
next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Brad Anderson" <eco gnuk.net> wrote in message 
news:mailman.185.1325982241.16222.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message
 news:je9e3t$1g3l$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,

 so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
 old homebrew developer feeling. :)


 Yea, I grew up on that sort of thing. And I'd been working with Andre'
 (LaMothe, of course) since well before he started doing hardware kits. 
 His
 old DOS-based game dev books are what moved me from various forms of 
 BASIC
 into finally really grokking things like C, pointers and low-level
 programming (which I had only "kind of" understood before). Then I just
 happened to end up in contact with him through a mutual aquaintence (via
 AOL
 1.x ;) heh, yea, way back then). Andre' was starting up a budget-game
 publishing company and was looking for a breakout clone, which I happened
 to
 already be working on. So there was that, and then he started some 
 gamedev
 forums that I was a regular on for years. Then Hasbro Interactive fucked
 everything up with unsubstantiated litigation and typical corporate 
 "drown
 in legal fees" tactics, and then he got into doing hardware kits like 
 he's
 doing now.


 I was a regular on there too.  Small world.


Heh, cool. I'm "Abscissa" over there (although I haven't posted or even 
lurked much in years). I was one of the two-digit user numbers :)
Jan 07 2012
parent reply Brad Anderson <eco gnuk.net> writes:
On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 6:47 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 "Brad Anderson" <eco gnuk.net> wrote in message
 news:mailman.185.1325982241.16222.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message
 news:je9e3t$1g3l$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,

 so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
 old homebrew developer feeling. :)


 Yea, I grew up on that sort of thing. And I'd been working with Andre'
 (LaMothe, of course) since well before he started doing hardware kits.
 His
 old DOS-based game dev books are what moved me from various forms of
 BASIC
 into finally really grokking things like C, pointers and low-level
 programming (which I had only "kind of" understood before). Then I just
 happened to end up in contact with him through a mutual aquaintence (via
 AOL
 1.x ;) heh, yea, way back then). Andre' was starting up a budget-game
 publishing company and was looking for a breakout clone, which I




 happened

 to
 already be working on. So there was that, and then he started some
 gamedev
 forums that I was a regular on for years. Then Hasbro Interactive fucked
 everything up with unsubstantiated litigation and typical corporate
 "drown
 in legal fees" tactics, and then he got into doing hardware kits like
 he's
 doing now.


 I was a regular on there too.  Small world.


 Heh, cool. I'm "Abscissa" over there (although I haven't posted or even
 lurked much in years). I was one of the two-digit user numbers :)


I remember you being a frequent poster.  I haven't been in years.  I was
Catalyst.   It's interesting they are still going strong (and that there
are still people I recognize posting regularly). I joined the forums back
when they were Xtreme Games forums (which got moved over to XGameStation at
some point).  I never really got into the XGameStation stuff but stayed
around the forums after Andre's shift in attention.  I was around for the
Hasbro drama.  I think I'd be nervous to go back and look at some of my old
posts.  I was a young teenager when I frequented these forums so I no doubt
made a lot of embarrassing posts.
Jan 08 2012
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Brad Anderson" <eco gnuk.net> wrote in message 
news:mailman.210.1326051013.16222.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 I remember you being a frequent poster.  I haven't been in years.  I was
 Catalyst.


Oh, yea, I remember seeing you around there a lot.


 It's interesting they are still going strong (and that there
 are still people I recognize posting regularly). I joined the forums back
 when they were Xtreme Games forums (which got moved over to XGameStation 
 at
 some point).  I never really got into the XGameStation stuff but stayed
 around the forums after Andre's shift in attention.  I was around for the
 Hasbro drama.  I think I'd be nervous to go back and look at some of my 
 old
 posts.  I was a young teenager when I frequented these forums so I no 
 doubt
 made a lot of embarrassing posts.


Same here, on all points :)  Although I think most of the old posts are gone 
now.

Did you happen to be at XGDC 2001? We may have actually met.
Jan 08 2012
prev sibling parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On 1/8/2012 9:23 AM, Brad Anderson wrote:

 On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:

     "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org <mailto:pjmlp progtools.org>>
     wrote in message
     news:je9e3t$1g3l$1 digitalmars.com...
      > Hi,
      >
      > so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
      > old homebrew developer feeling. :)
      >

     Yea, I grew up on that sort of thing. And I'd been working with Andre'
     (LaMothe, of course) since well before he started doing hardware
     kits. His
     old DOS-based game dev books are what moved me from various forms of
     BASIC
     into finally really grokking things like C, pointers and low-level
     programming (which I had only "kind of" understood before). Then I just
     happened to end up in contact with him through a mutual aquaintence
     (via AOL
     1.x ;) heh, yea, way back then). Andre' was starting up a budget-game
     publishing company and was looking for a breakout clone, which I
     happened to
     already be working on. So there was that, and then he started some
     gamedev
     forums that I was a regular on for years. Then Hasbro Interactive fucked
     everything up with unsubstantiated litigation and typical corporate
     "drown
     in legal fees" tactics, and then he got into doing hardware kits
     like he's
     doing now.


 I was a regular on there too.  Small world.


I was a regular lurker for a while. Until around the time of the Hasbro 
suit. When I saw 'Abscissa' posting over at the DSource forums, and 
later connected it with Nick, I thought it likely to be the same 
Abscissa from the XtremeGames boards. That was a long time ago.
Jan 07 2012
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Mike Parker" <aldacron gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:jeatr8$tq0$1 digitalmars.com...

 I was a regular lurker for a while. Until around the time of the Hasbro 
 suit. When I saw 'Abscissa' posting over at the DSource forums, and later 
 connected it with Nick, I thought it likely to be the same Abscissa from 
 the XtremeGames boards. That was a long time ago.


Yup, both of those "Abscissa"s are me. I'm also "Abscissa" on github and 
bitbucket (although on bitbucket I'm usually "Abscissa256" because I forgot 
that their existing "Abscissa" account was an old one of mine ;) )...Umm 
"Abscissa256" on linuxquestions.org...Sometimes I go by "Nitrode", like on 
Wikipedia, the GOLD (parser) Wiki, and the now-defunct XBox1-Live.

I have found some "Abscissa"s out there who are not me, though.
Jan 07 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
You went from an Apple IIc to a 486?  That's quite a leap.=20

I interviewed at Blizzard back in the day and that was enough to sour me on t=
he game industry. This was before the era of cinematic games though.=20

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 7, 2012, at 11:29 AM, "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote:


 "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> wrote in message=20
 news:je9e3t$1g3l$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi,
=20
 so you are also following Andre's attemps to revive the
 old homebrew developer feeling. :)
=20


=20
 Yea, I grew up on that sort of thing. And I'd been working with Andre'=20
 (LaMothe, of course) since well before he started doing hardware kits. His=


=20

 old DOS-based game dev books are what moved me from various forms of BASIC=


=20

 into finally really grokking things like C, pointers and low-level=20
 programming (which I had only "kind of" understood before). Then I just=20=



 happened to end up in contact with him through a mutual aquaintence (via A=


OL=20

 1.x ;) heh, yea, way back then). Andre' was starting up a budget-game=20
 publishing company and was looking for a breakout clone, which I happened t=


o=20

 already be working on. So there was that, and then he started some gamedev=


=20

 forums that I was a regular on for years. Then Hasbro Interactive fucked=20=



 everything up with unsubstantiated litigation and typical corporate "drown=


=20

 in legal fees" tactics, and then he got into doing hardware kits like he's=


=20

 doing now.
=20
 IMO, Indie gamedev is really the only way to go if you want to make games.=


=20

 All the way until college I was convinced I wanted to work for a major gam=


e=20

 company. Then I started learning more about the nature of the industry at=20=



 the time (around 2000-2001), and that was also the point where the industr=


y=20

 itself was starting its slow descent into becoming into the=20
 Hollywood-wannabe cesspool it mostly is today. ("Fuck actual gaming, we're=


=20

 gonna be cinematic storytellers!" Too many Pixar rejects in the industry=20=



 now, I guess...Not to mention all the "packaged-goods" managers...)
=20

 I also miss those days. I grew up with the ZX Spectrum,
 doing some BASIC and Z80 stuff, then most of my friends
 moved up to the Amiga 500 and I eventually got a PC,
 since my dad was the opinion the PC would be the future.
=20


=20
 For me, it was Apple IIc and ApplesoftBASIC (I'm normally critical of appl=


e=20

 products, especially after having spent a year or so with OSX, but the App=


le=20

 II line is the one major exception for me. I guess you could say Woz was t=


he=20

 *real* Apple for me). Plus a small amount of Logo and machine code on the=20=



 machine. Then I got a [Packard Bell, remember them?] 486DX2 and moved to=20=



 QBASIC, had an enormous amount of fun with that. (IIRC, Amiga was pretty=20=



 much out of the picture by then, and I hadn't even heard of it. Sometimes=20=



 now I feel like I really missed out on it.)
=20
 Tinkered a bit with C/C++, but didn't quite "get it". Then did VB 3 (It ca=


me=20

 on a bunch of floppies and was for Win3 :) ). Then I found Andre's DOS boo=


ks=20

 (this was still *just* before DirectX, or at least around the time of what=


=20

 was then called the "Game SDK"). Was into that for years, and somehow=20
 managed to get sucked into web dev, and these days all my free time goes t=


o=20

 D-related projects (mostly things that will directly or indirectly make my=


=20

 webdev work slightly less painful).
=20

 Anyway, I had lots of fun doing x86 assembly programming
 with some Turbo Pascal and eventually C. Then quite a few
 languages after that.
=20
 Nowadays I develop business software mostly in JVM and .NET
 languages, running in clustered environments. With development
 teams scattered around the globe.
=20
 Doing low level programming and graphics related stuff is
 now only a hobby, when real life permits to do so. Until the
 day I manage to change area.
=20
 Wow, now I am a bit nostaligic
=20


=20
=20
Jan 08 2012
prev sibling parent Peter Alexander <peter.alexander.au gmail.com> writes:
On 7/01/12 7:29 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 IMO, Indie gamedev is really the only way to go if you want to make games.
 All the way until college I was convinced I wanted to work for a major game
 company. Then I started learning more about the nature of the industry at
 the time (around 2000-2001), and that was also the point where the industry
 itself was starting its slow descent into becoming into the
 Hollywood-wannabe cesspool it mostly is today. ("Fuck actual gaming, we're
 gonna be cinematic storytellers!" Too many Pixar rejects in the industry
 now, I guess...Not to mention all the "packaged-goods" managers...)


Whether or not you'll enjoy the industry depends a lot on why you want 
to be in it in the first place. If you want to be in because you enjoy 
playing games and thinking up cool games to make then I think that's the 
wrong reason. If you enjoy the technical challenges of producing a 
finished, quality (software quality, not design quality) product then I 
think you'll enjoy the industry more.

Of course, you should care about the overall quality of the product, 
including its design, but as a programmer it shouldn't be your focus, 
and it shouldn't be the reason you want to be in the industry.

Going indie is great too. Lots of good stuff happening there. I would 
recommend that people work for a major studio first before going indie 
though, because you'll learn a lot in a very short amount of time about 
the reality of how games are made. It's a very instructive experience 
even if it's not where you want to be.
Jan 08 2012
prev sibling parent bcs <bcs example.com> writes:
On 01/06/2012 11:08 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Paulo Pinto"<pjmlp progtools.org>  wrote in message
 news:je7vvh$253f$1 digitalmars.com...

  Hi,

  I just saw a follow up article from Herb Sutter about
  the future of parallel computing.

  http://herbsutter.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/

  Very interesting read. Excuse me if someone has already
  posted it.




 It is interesting...But I have to say: The*one*  thing that really bugs me
 about it is that it seems to be written under the assumption that the
 highest-end hardware that's*sitting around on store shelves*  is the only
 hardware that's relevant, or even exists.


I think the thought is that *in the long run* the only chips that will 
hang around fall into one of two sets: The most powerful chips available 
and the most power efficient chips available. When you are buying new, 
why would you get anything else? In the short term there will be older 
stuff around but firstly, "nobody" buys used and secondly it's going to 
get replaced at some point (if for no other reason but getting damaged 
by handling).

As a second rebuttal, I think the article is directed squarely at the 
"My program needs to run faster (lets throw hardware at it)!" crowd.
Jan 07 2012