Comment by hackinthebochs
5 years ago
The circumstances he operated under while writing Doom were much different than most people encounter. The couple of people working with him on the code were all experts in their field and have a complete understanding of the problem space. What you seem to be identifying as indications of unnecessary complexity of modern development practices might really just be accident of circumstance and the individual skill of the contributors at the time. It is a mistake to look at the behaviors of the unusually talented few and see takeaways to apply more broadly.
He wrote doom by himself and worked with people on later projects. You can look at the source yourself. What he himself said is the exact opposite of what you are saying - because he was able to write things directly he was able to experiment a lot. He was able to get the easier things working and go through trial and error on more difficult aspects.
If you would actually read through some of his work you would see that it a refreshingly simple way to do thing. No trying to hide that global data isn't global, no unnecessary indirection etc. etc.
> What you seem to be identifying as indications of unnecessary complexity of modern development practices might really just be accident of circumstance and the individual skill of the contributors at the time
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
> It is a mistake to look at the behaviors of the unusually talented few and see takeaways to apply more broadly.
This is the point you are trying to make but you just keep repeating it without backing it up in any way.
John Carmack used his skill to do things in a simple and direct way. Anyone can start to imitate that immediately. There is no invisible magic going on, he just doesn't subscribe to a bunch of snake oil nonsense that distracts people from writing the parts of their program that actually do things.
>This is the point you are trying to make but you just keep repeating it without backing it up in any way.
Do I really need to back up the claim that what applies to the rare talents doesn't automatically apply to everyone? That should be the default assumption unless proven otherwise.
> Do I really need to back up the claim that what applies to the rare talents doesn't automatically apply to everyone? That should be the default assumption unless proven otherwise.
You do actually, yes
This makes me think you are just ignoring what I'm actually saying. Read some of his source code like I mentioned multiple times and tell me this somehow only applies to John Carmack. There is no reason anyone couldn't program that way, but people have their head filled with nonsense and get distracted thinking they need unnecessary overhead. John Carmack's programs are incredibly simple and clear. Why would someone try to emulate this charlatan who doesn't make anything when they could mimic Carmack?
This isn't saying everyone can drive as fast as a race car driver, it's saying that you should at least go in the same direction if you want to get to the same place.
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