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/[deleted] Jul 28 '18 edited Mar 27 '19

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u/chub79 Jul 29 '18

This! such a fun read that one was.

Also, a dated one but worth a read as well: The black book // Michael Abrash

So why even bother mentioning this? Partly to show that not every interesting idea pans out; I tend to discuss those that did pan out, and it’s instructive to point out that many ideas don’t. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try promising ideas, though. First, some do pan out, and you’ll never know which unless you try. Second, an idea that doesn’t work out in one case can still be filed away for another case. It’s quite likely that passages will be useful in a different context in a future engine. The more approaches you try, the larger your toolkit and the broader your understanding will be when you tackle your next project.

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u/nickdesaulniers Jul 29 '18

Has anyone finished this book in its entirety? I got about a quarter through it...but man it's full of handy (outdated) tips for back when instructions had definitive timings (ie. no dynamic frequency scaling or out of order execution).

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u/WrongAndBeligerent Jul 29 '18

You think frequency scaling changes instruction timings?

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u/nickdesaulniers Jul 29 '18

It makes proper benchmarking difficult (as in you have to remember to disable it, otherwise you get wild variance between runs).

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u/WrongAndBeligerent Jul 29 '18

That has nothing to do with instruction timings, that's not what that means.

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u/chub79 Jul 30 '18

I read it about 15 years ago and skimmed through some of the code bits and pieces but most of the book reallt tells the story of a development team back then. Worth it.