Comment by antonvs
1 day ago
> As a gamer, this seems fine to me
As a software developer, it almost certainly has a bad effect on the ecosystem long term. "Hacks shit in" is the very definition of technical debt, and that has a cost that someone, somewhere is going to have to pay in some form.
I can't reply to the person that replied to you, so
> You’re looking as a dev, but the reality is that a consumer cannot see technical debt.
The consumer can't _see_ technical debt, but they sure as heck can be impacted by it.
- Technical debt means the code base is harder to work with later. So fixes/enhancements take longer to make it into the code (and sometimes never can)
- This particular type of technical debt means the code by the game developers sets precedent, and the next developer may us it as an example. So the amount of code incorrectly using the api grows faster over time
For some reason HN sometimes hides the reply button on leaf comments. I think this only happens for very new comments.
You can click the timestamp ("X minutes ago") to view the comment without context, and reply from there.
I think it's a anti flamewar tactic to put the brakes on quick replies.
>the next developer may us it as an example
These hacks are game specific, so another developer wouldn't get them.
The way the API was used incorrectly "worked", and the game didn't see the negative impact of it because it was "fixed away". And then the incorrect usage is used again on another game and doesn't get the "fixed away" benefit. And the same incorrect usage could happen over and over because "it works".
The next developer at that company that uses or references the crappy code for another project would still have the issue, but not get the benefit of the down-stream GPU vendor hacks to fix the buggy game.
> technical debt, and that has a cost that someone, somewhere is going to have to pay in some form
There is no reason anyone has to pay each and every iota of technical debt. Plenty of things with technical debt hit end of life and no one ever looks in that code again. I suspect most technical debt goes this way - in program, program never updates (or minor updates), then dies.
Your claim would require every piece of technical debt in anything ever (code, buildings, cars, anywhere) has to be removed before the thing goes end of life or goes into a mode where it never is changed. That seems ludicrous to me.
Does anyone talk about how technical debt often just gets thrown into the garbage so we can buy fancy new technical crap, and its what pays for most of yalls jobs.
You’re looking as a dev, but the reality is that a consumer cannot see technical debt. If the studio churns out a game, the vendor sprinkles on some optimizations, people play it and move on, then the tech debt just vaporizes into the void. It’s not real at that point.
Just because a consumer can't see technical debt doesn't mean they aren't paying for it. Most game studios continue to re-use code, so it doesn't just "vaporize" into the void.
I'm pretty sure I pay this debt with lost FPS and every time I glitch through the floor into the nether.