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Reader Comments (5)

Posted: Nov 1st 2011 4:08PM enamelizer said

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Very insightful blog post. The example and explanation is simple enough for most users to started getting an idea of how complex software systems can be.

I am always surprised at how users treat complex software systems. Software is a very abstract idea, and all users see is the inputs and the output of the system. This allows them to create a very simple mental model of the system, and that is what allows someone to make vastly nieve statements like "Oh, thats just one line of code!".

Posted: Nov 1st 2011 4:16PM Space Cobra said

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Yeah, I remember my flow-charts and even remember some stuff about de-bugging code, but this is a good reminder for many who have not gone through such things, programming-wise.

Code can be a *pain*.

Posted: Nov 1st 2011 4:18PM fallwind said

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I'm going to post this the next time someone says something about "but it's such and easy change!"

I was on a project last summer for 6 months, wrote nearly a quarter million lines myself... I will die a happy old woman if I never need to do that again. When it comes to databases, nothing is a "single line of code".

Posted: Nov 1st 2011 4:28PM Plastic said

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I love the candidness of these Devs. I've taken a break from the game, but I still hold that they have the absolute best community management that I have ever witnessed in an MMO, and I've witnessed many.

Posted: Nov 2nd 2011 9:02AM Critical Mass said

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The 3d software Maya uses afaik something that is called "push and pull" to update the screen data without having to recalculate too much information.

Things that are not flagged dirty are not calculated anew. If something is flagged dirty, the lowest level is recalculated causing a chainreaction, where upper levels are flagged dirty of this consequence and recalculated. I am not sure but this system is node based, where each node with attributes are connected to some other node up- or downstream. A node can have multiple connection points, and uses the data from these to process it and provide output data, with one or more connection points.

I was thinking maybe this push and pull system could work for MMO games as well, however I have no idea how it might be useful.

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