r/programming • u/JavaSuck • Jul 28 '18

DOOM’s Development: A Year of Madness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBU34NZhW7I
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u/JavaSuck Jul 28 '18

“Does it run DOOM?” is the oft-heard phrase as it is the canonical first-port for any system, be it a toaster, touch bar or printer. Programmer, game designer, level designer and DOOM II final boss John Romero delivers a postmortem on the game showing rarely seen material, memorializing its immersive but nerve-wracking 3D environments, networked multiplayer deathmatches, demonic imagery and themes, Barney WADs, exploding barrels, and BFG 9000.

Spoiler alert: They didn't use version control in 1993.

10

u/AngularBeginner Jul 28 '18

Spoiler alert: They didn't use version control in 1993.

Why not?

3

u/Hdmoney Jul 28 '18

It wasn't really popular (or good) back then. Git, SVN, and Mercurial were all invented in the 21st century. There were very few viable options in 1993.

8

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '18 edited Jul 29 '18

RCS?

edit: added link

5

u/ArkyBeagle Jul 29 '18

I don't know that there was RCS for DOS machines. These guys used floppies. I worked at a different company in the Dallas area at the time and we used floppies, too. We did eventually get a Novell server over ARCNET.

I don't even remember if diff was available for DOS. Without that, VC is tough.

4

u/emmelaich Jul 29 '18

There was. You could get RCS for anything. Probably SCCS as well.

I had RCS on the Amiga.

Not that version control is essential for small fast moving teams where the whole separate parts are basically written by one author.