[HN Gopher] The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Dev...
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       The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer's
       Perspective (2005) [pdf]
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2022-08-26 10:42 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de)
        
       | richardjam73 wrote:
       | So a functional modula 3 perhaps?
        
         | PainfullyNormal wrote:
         | Epic hired Simon-Peyton Jones to work on it (Verse), so I'm
         | guessing more like Haskell.
         | 
         | https://discourse.haskell.org/t/an-epic-future-for-spj/3573
        
       | bluedino wrote:
       | Resources:         - ~10 programmers         - ~20 artists
       | - ~24 month development cycle         - ~$10M budget
       | 
       | $166,666 per person a year? Does that include office space,
       | computers, tools, software? Seems very low.
        
         | justinlloyd wrote:
         | In 2022, in a HCOL, $150K base for an exceptionally senior/lead
         | developer with 10 to 15+ years of experience, writing hard-core
         | C++ and multiple shipped AAA titles, in the games industry,
         | working on console or PC or mobile, with a BSc, that isn't
         | connected to blockchain/web3/nfts/crypto, is actually on the
         | high side. If the developer is pure Unity (even if they are
         | writing C++/HLSL every day), you can cut another $20K off of
         | the price. Senior developers sit around $100K to $120K. Mid-
         | levels below that. I am specifically talking HCOL US wages. I
         | got a "generous" offer last year where the company struggled to
         | get to $160K base for the Los Angeles area. There's a reason
         | that Roblox, Amazon, Microsoft, Google can slurp up pretty much
         | any software developer in the games industry.
         | 
         | Artists and designers will rarely break $100k. There will also
         | be project management (director & producer), and QA. Though
         | depending on how the studio is set up, QA might be a shared
         | resource and only get line items towards the end of
         | development.
         | 
         | Tool & software budgets in the games industry are miniscule.
         | Training and continuing education are non-existent. Bonuses
         | hardly exist. You might get a $40 "special sale" office chair
         | that at least four other people have had before you. Unless you
         | buy your own or get really lucky, that keyboard and mouse
         | you're given has been there since the company was founded and
         | are now considered religious artifacts.
         | 
         | A fully loaded team of 10 developers is going to be one lead,
         | two or three senior SMEs, 50% mid-levels (if you're lucky), and
         | the rest are juniors or developers who are (non-visual)
         | scripters building visual (UI, effects, game play) in Lua or
         | some other scripting language.
         | 
         | We can argue the numbers back and forth in endless pedantry,
         | but my salary numbers are going to be pretty close to reality,
         | with $5k to $10k here and there based on current industry
         | trends. I keep my finger on the pulse of the industry pretty
         | closely. In 22+ years, high-end salary of $100K in 2001 has
         | slowly crept up to $130K-ish in 2022. Over my 40 year career
         | I've spent a good two decades doing AAA development, have been
         | senior/lead/tech director and CTO, and run my own studio, built
         | multiple teams and managed large projects and have hired a lot
         | of game developers over the years.
        
         | meheleventyone wrote:
         | Like all budgets it's wildly optimistic. I'm pretty sure
         | precisely zero games Epic have made fit.
        
         | wizofaus wrote:
         | For 2005 though?
        
           | aliqot wrote:
           | Even in 2022, this is a Noble's wage where I live.
        
             | loudthing wrote:
             | Not when you factor in equipment, travel, keeping the
             | lights on, etc.
        
               | aliqot wrote:
               | You'd be surprised.
        
         | gervwyk wrote:
         | What would a reasonable rate be in today's terms?
        
       | makapuf wrote:
       | Wow unreal engine in 100kloc of c++ ! Should be a dozen millions
       | now.
        
       | debacle wrote:
       | I wonder what the author would think of C# now. Seems he's very
       | much a fan of C++ over C#/Java, which may have changed in the
       | intervening 15+ years.
       | 
       | Personally, I think continuing to use C++ for game dev (it is
       | still the lingua franca) is more about momentum than it being the
       | best choice (in most instances).
       | 
       | His predictions on what computing power will look like "in the
       | future" (e.g. now) are interesting as well. Some have played out,
       | others haven't.
        
         | smallstepforman wrote:
         | The author is Tim Sweeney, creator of the Unreal Engine.
        
       | agluszak wrote:
       | I'm looking forward to Rust's adoption in popular game
       | development engines. There's https://bevyengine.org/ in the
       | meanwhile
        
         | kriro wrote:
         | I find it interesting that one of the go to "let's learn Rust"
         | books (Hand on Rust) is cantered around building a rogue like
         | game. I feel like this will have a subtle but noticable (long
         | tail) impact because many people who start learning Rust will
         | do so on gamedev examples. The next logical step for a couple
         | of them will be "all right now I'll build my own cool game".
         | Maybe it'll be a tiny fraction but I feel there will be more
         | good people moving into the Rust-Gamedev area than if that book
         | was about building a web server.
        
         | maxbond wrote:
         | Also worth noting that you can write Godot native plugins (I
         | don't think that's the correct terminology - forgive me, I'm
         | not a Godot developer) with Rust, and wire them up with
         | GDScript. This seems super promising to me as far as Rust in
         | game dev.
         | 
         | https://godot-rust.github.io/
        
         | Thaxll wrote:
         | Rust will be nowhere in the next 10years for gamedev, not even
         | sure it will be used at any point. The only one I know using it
         | to some extend is Embark but they have a very good engineering
         | culture ( ex DICE / SEED ).
         | 
         | For people not working there, it's kind of a blackbox in term
         | of tooling / pipeline etc ... when you work in webservices you
         | have a ton of opensource knowledge / tools available, videogame
         | are kind of different they re-invent a lot of the stuff in-
         | house.
        
           | steveklabnik wrote:
           | One interesting development in this space: "Treyarch has been
           | gradually integrating Rust into our tools and pipeline since
           | 2018."
           | 
           | https://research.activision.com/publications/2021/09/the-
           | rus...
           | 
           | Not in the actual games themselves yet that we know of, but
           | still very cool!
        
           | mustache_kimono wrote:
           | I think this is sadly true. If you follow Game Devs with
           | Large, Fragile Egos Twitter (I'm not naming names!), you'll
           | hear a lot of "I hate (but secretly also love) C++ (because I
           | know it intimately)" and "Rust isn't the answer" because they
           | can't iterate fast enough.
           | 
           | My guess is that's probably a function of them thinking they
           | can learn Rust in a weekend, because they are 10x-ers,
           | instead of any inherent problem with the language. There is
           | also a machismo aspect to C/C++, especially in game dev ("I
           | eff with raw pointers all the time!").
           | 
           | But, if you read the article, Tim Sweeney seems to be saying
           | "I want a fast functional language" which Rust is. One thing
           | I am less clear on is whether Rust is better re: modularity
           | and extensibility.
        
             | eska wrote:
             | Your first paragraph sounds so unprofessionally dismissive
             | that I doubt anyone reads the second.
        
               | ben0x539 wrote:
               | As a data point, I read the second paragraph.
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | Are you saying you've never encountered an engineer with
               | a large, fragile ego? Because lucky you.
               | 
               | I guess I'd also say there is another, more mature side
               | that takes Rust much more seriously, even on Twitter,
               | such as John Carmack. I didn't know this needed to be
               | said but _not all game devs have fragile egos_ , but,
               | wow, some certainly do.
        
             | generichuman wrote:
             | > Tim Sweeney seems to be saying "I want a fast functional
             | language" which Rust is.
             | 
             | He also wants a garbage collector (pg. 57) and Pascal / ML
             | family syntax (pg. 58). He clearly wants https://nim-
             | lang.org/.
        
               | fprotthetarball wrote:
               | > He clearly wants https://nim-lang.org/
               | 
               | I think a lot of people want Nim, but either don't know
               | about it, or some language feature turned them off. There
               | are a few polarizing language design choices, but every
               | language has something. Perhaps it just needs a killer
               | app using it in some visible fashion (e.g., Lua in Neovim
               | and Hammerspoon).
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | > He also wants a garbage collector (pg. 57) and Pascal /
               | ML family syntax (pg. 58). He clearly wants https://nim-
               | lang.org/.
               | 
               | Since this was written in 2005, Rust/the Rust model
               | didn't exist, so maybe Rust is memory managed/ML enough?
               | But I am interested in looking at Nim. Had no idea it was
               | ML influenced.
               | 
               | And I think I read in another comment Sweeney hired an
               | engineer to write a new language called Verse.
        
               | generichuman wrote:
               | > Rust/the Rust model didn't exist
               | 
               | FYI Nim also follows the Rust model with sink/lent
               | annotations[0] + optimizes the (not yet default)
               | automatic reference counting with static analysis so that
               | RC overhead is minimized. Nim is like something between
               | Pascal / Rust / Python, not sure why it is not more
               | widely used.
               | 
               | > Sweeney hired an engineer to write a new language
               | called Verse.
               | 
               | Not just an engineer, Simon Peyton Jones:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones
               | 
               | [0] https://nim-lang.org/docs/destructors.html
        
             | adamrezich wrote:
             | why would a preference for the use of raw pointers indicate
             | "machismo"?
             | 
             | do you think there's any possible other reason why game
             | developers would choose to not use rust aside from some
             | hypothetical jerkbag strawman that exists in your mind? is
             | it possible that there's any practical reasons you haven't
             | considered?
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | > why would a preference for the use of raw pointers
               | indicate "machismo"?
               | 
               | Ugh. That's not what I meant/said. What I meant was that
               | there can exist a certain belief that there is only one
               | way of doing things, when in fact there may be several.
               | And there can be a belief that, because one has
               | experience dealing with the most unsafe and bug ridden
               | things, that experience is somehow necessary everywhere
               | and all the time.
               | 
               | Perhaps you might try to address the question at hand, is
               | there a certain amount of machismo re: C/C++ in game dev?
               | Heck, everywhere?
               | 
               | > do you think there's any possible other reason why game
               | developers would choose to not use rust aside from some
               | hypothetical jerkbag strawman that exists in your mind?
               | 
               | Oh, totally. I'm reading the comments and looking for
               | exactly these sorts of serious, interesting criticisms.
               | 
               | However, from what I've seen, some game dev criticisms
               | have been pretty shallow _from certain segments of that
               | community_. In another comment, I explain there are some
               | game devs that have gone really deep on Rust and have
               | really interesting things to say about it. My fear is
               | simply that the more shallow sentiments of these high
               | profile enfants terrible will take hold, because they
               | often do.
        
               | adamrezich wrote:
               | if you're actually interested in learning different
               | perspectives from people who have done significant work
               | in the field and you're willing to stomach someone who I
               | have to presume is one of these "large fragile egos" or
               | whatever other vague terms you want to use about vague
               | people vaguely (this passive-aggression is rather
               | unbecoming), I personally found this comment, and the
               | rest of the thread, to be very enlightening with regards
               | to how I think about memory management in video game
               | development and why rust's lifetimes maybe aren't the
               | best solution for the problem domain
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26443768#26451692
               | (specifically the numbered list of memory usage patterns
               | and the ensuing discussion about them)
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | I hadn't seen this, and I will read it.
               | 
               | FTR, I'm not talking about jblow. I acknowledge his
               | criticisms are superficially similar to what I wrote. At
               | the very least jblow is seriously engaging with the
               | arguments re: Rust, like in this thread. As to whether
               | he's actually seriously tried to learn Rust, I'm unsure.
               | I hope he does.
               | 
               | And I'm not naming names not to be passive aggressive,
               | but for self preservation. I don't know if you noticed,
               | but games can have a really toxic fandom.
        
               | psyc wrote:
               | I thought about this for a bit, because at first I
               | thought you were making up a rather insulting caricature
               | that could only detract from your case, or at least from
               | anyone wanting to engage with you. I've been in C++ game
               | dev for something like 25 years, and I'm sure I have
               | never encountered a programmer who acted like using
               | pointers was any more impressive than using the alphabet.
               | That goes for any daily-use language feature not
               | including all the optional C++ esoterica. We don't even
               | talk about using pointers, we just use them. We no
               | kidding talk more about how to use curly braces than how
               | to use pointers. But then it occurred to me that perhaps
               | that's only true amongst ourselves, where we don't have
               | as much to feel defensive about. It's just silently
               | understood that pointers are basic. But maybe if a C++
               | programmer were talking to a Rust programmer or any other
               | language with a higher level memory paradigm, and if it
               | was a conversation about whose language was best for
               | what, then maybe they would feel defensive and need to
               | act a bit superior.
               | 
               | Or, perhaps when you say they act big about using
               | pointers, do you mean that they act big about using
               | pointers _safely_? Because that is different. That 's a
               | conversation I began declining to have because I no
               | longer believe it's possible for a person who is trying
               | to use C++ for a task, and has already decided it is the
               | best available tool for that task, to have that
               | conversation with pretty much anybody without it
               | devolving into a pissing match.
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | > But maybe if a C++ programmer were talking to a Rust
               | programmer or any other language with a higher level
               | memory paradigm, and if it was a conversation about whose
               | language was best for what, then maybe they would feel
               | defensive and need to act a bit superior.
               | 
               | There is a reason "I will never be able to get the
               | control I need (but _I don 't know_)" or "I'll have to
               | use unsafe everywhere (but _I haven 't tried_)" are anti-
               | Rust tropes. It's possible for certain game dev patterns
               | to be awkward in Rust (really interested in hearing more
               | about these!), but these other criticisms smell less like
               | highly relevant informed criticism, and more like one
               | hasn't tried Rust, as much as surface-level, mole hill
               | criticism of hypothetical or pathological instances of
               | bad syntax do.
               | 
               | It isn't that one uses raw pointers. It's much more an
               | attitude I've witnessed in younger programmers that if
               | they're not doing it in C/C++, they're not doing _the
               | thing_. It 's about vibes as much as anything else, and I
               | think, when their heros use their own vibe-level
               | criticisms, they only reinforce that perspective.
               | 
               | > Or, perhaps when you say they act big about using
               | pointers, do you mean that they act big about using
               | pointers safely?
               | 
               | No, I wasn't thinking of that, but that's another part of
               | it. And now that you mention it, " _My code_ doesn 't
               | have any of these issues" can be yet another defensive
               | tact.
        
               | adamrezich wrote:
               | really? "anti-Rust tropes"?
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | If you don't actually know, and haven't actually tried
               | Rust? _Yeah, maybe_.
               | 
               | Do you have something you'd like to offer the discussion?
        
               | adamrezich wrote:
               | it's just that the specific phrasing of "anti-_______
               | tropes" is usually reserved for something much more
               | severe than criticizing a programming language...
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | Gosh, if I knew I'd be dealing with the your-specific-
               | phrasing-makes-me-uncomfortable police today, I would
               | have worn pants.
        
             | munk-a wrote:
             | A lot of game development happens under the pressure of
             | _constant_ crunch and low budgets. I 'm not just talking
             | about EA and their constant penny pinching but small studio
             | releases are a huge gamble with a steep upfront cost (Sean
             | Murray, the face of Hello Games that released No Man's Sky,
             | famously took out a large personal mortgage against his
             | house to keep the studio afloat) and no guarantees of
             | success after release - games can fail for the most absurd
             | reasons.
             | 
             | I think a lot of game programmers will keep an iron grip on
             | using C/C++ for a while simply because they don't have the
             | luxury of exploring other options. That said, I think Rust
             | is exceedingly well designed to supplant C/C++ - game
             | development really wants to minimize runtime failure cases
             | and push more errors onto the compiler and static analysis
             | due to the size and complexity of the project and Rust
             | manages to deliver that without compromising on the
             | performance needs - Go was a similar hopeful for a while
             | but the lack of exception throws even under controlled
             | situations is very difficult to deal with (I know you can
             | panic and catch panics but it is a very rudimentary
             | system).
        
               | mustache_kimono wrote:
               | > I think Rust is exceedingly well designed to supplant
               | C/C++ - game development really wants to minimize runtime
               | failure cases and push more errors onto the compiler and
               | static analysis due to the size and complexity of the
               | project and Rust manages to deliver that without
               | compromising on the performance needs
               | 
               | I hope so!
        
         | summerlight wrote:
         | Not so sure about this, it may take quite a time. It's not
         | because of language's strength or weakness but simply because
         | the upfront cost of building a modern game engine from scratch
         | is getting more expensive and expensive. It's going to take a
         | decade to build a competitive ecosystem against Unity or
         | Unreal, assuming the best scenario.
        
         | speed_spread wrote:
         | I love Rust, but it's "righteous" nature might go against the
         | grain in many game shops where quick and dirty is not only
         | accepted practice but where anything more rigid than C is
         | deemed necessarily inferior. Something like Zig might have a
         | better chance in that space.
        
           | msmenardi wrote:
           | You can always use "unsafe" code in Rust. At that point
           | you're basically writing a block of code in C++ with the
           | guarantee that it'll interface correctly with all your other
           | "safe" code.
        
             | Jensson wrote:
             | Have you ever tried writing significant amounts of unsafe
             | rust? It isn't like C++ at all, you get the worst of both
             | worlds.
        
           | generichuman wrote:
           | Zig also tries to block quick-and-dirty stuff, unused
           | variables are errors for example. There are formatting
           | related things too.
           | 
           | This is obviously not as "righteous" as Rust as you put it,
           | but when you look at the source of some shipped games, you'll
           | see that some programming best practices are ignored.
           | 
           | None of this will block Zig from being used in games, of
           | course, but I wish they had a "let me work in peace until I
           | get this working and then we can worry about that small
           | stuff" mode in the compiler.
        
             | zaphar wrote:
             | I think the reasons languages like Zig choose not to make
             | this configurable is because other than the odd exception
             | occasionally very few shops bother to turn on the stricter
             | mode or are actively hostile to the stricter mode.
             | 
             | And when you rely on other libraries that sort of less
             | strict mode tends to start leaking out everywhere since
             | that one critical library you really don't want to rewrite
             | won't compile when you use strict and you don't want to
             | carry a bunch of patches for it either.
             | 
             | The net result is if you don't start out enforcing
             | cleanliness your community of users will unintentionally
             | devolve into unclean over time.
        
               | generichuman wrote:
               | > The net result is if you don't start out enforcing
               | cleanliness your community of users will unintentionally
               | devolve into unclean over time.
               | 
               | Well since the package manager will be integrated to the
               | compiler, I think they could enforce the cleanliness for
               | people who want to publish their libraries.
        
               | adamdusty wrote:
               | Why not just enforce it in release configuration?
        
           | runevault wrote:
           | There are at least some studios using Rust. Chucklefish did
           | for a while though they ended up stopping. Ready at Dawn was
           | using Rust at one point but not sure if they still are.
           | Embark still is so far as I can tell.
           | 
           | It certainly isn't a language for every gamedev shop but some
           | seem to be taking it seriously.
        
           | littlestymaar wrote:
           | Are there game studios out there still using C? From what
           | I've heard the majority is using C++, so switching Rust just
           | makes your life easier without changing too much (C++ devs
           | already uses templates, smart pointers, RAII, etc. which Rust
           | has too, but with a better design (a stronger type system,
           | and also hindsight from 30 years of C++)).
           | 
           | From what I've seen on HN, Zig seams to appeal people who
           | like the "simplicity" of C and find Rust too complex, but I
           | don't think anyone coming from C++ could find Rust "too
           | complex" (a bit different, with a learning curve indeed, but
           | not "too complex").
        
             | z3phyr wrote:
             | > C++ devs already uses templates, smart pointers, RAII,
             | etc.
             | 
             | These are frowned upon in the game industry circles. Most
             | of the game code is C style C++ with occasional function
             | overloading and classes.
        
             | ska wrote:
             | I don't know much at all about game development circles,
             | but have a fair appreciation of others areas using c or c++
             | for combinations of high performance, low level, bare
             | metal, etc. I've found some shops that very specifically
             | use c, but other that use "c++" but that means "pretty
             | c-like, with a few c++ features but don't you dare do
             | x,y,z". Some of these variants are pretty simple, but it's
             | enforced by code/design review (and sometimes tooling) not
             | the language.
        
           | junon wrote:
           | I'm writing a kernel in Rust, having a great time. I'm not
           | sure what all the arguments here about it not being suitable
           | for game dev are but I would imagine it works perfectly for
           | game dev.
        
             | throwawaymaths wrote:
             | Suppose you wrote a kernel in rust. Now there has been a
             | CPU regression and you have to implement a retpoline.
             | Obviously you don't want to implement it in places where
             | you don't have to. Would this be easy? Or hard?
        
         | dxuh wrote:
         | I am sure it will happen, but (in my opinion) there is no way
         | that it will gain significant popularity. It's just too high
         | friction and in game development being low friction is imho one
         | of the most important attributes of a programming language.
        
           | cardanome wrote:
           | Rust itself is high friction but the Bevy Engine is offering
           | a ECS System with delightful ergonomics.
           | 
           | So while I share the general sentiment, who knows, it might
           | actually work out. Maybe Rust can be tamed.
        
       | wly_cdgr wrote:
       | Cool. So, C++ it is, then, for our next real game
        
       | danschuller wrote:
       | I'd be interested to see some non-text super-IDE integrated
       | programming languages. Maybe even hosted in the webbroswer. I
       | think that's interesting territory that can unlock a lot of
       | value. Simple instant variable renaming, far better commenting
       | and interactive debugging that can all be stripped from a
       | compiled final version etc.
        
         | runevault wrote:
         | Have you looked at visual scripting which is popular in games?
         | It may or may not be what you want but it is non-textual way of
         | creating logic. UE has Blueprints, Unity has Bolt (as well as
         | 3rd party ones available on their asset store, but Bolt is the
         | one Unity purchased). Godot had one though it is being taken
         | out of the core engine in 4.0
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer's
       | Perspective (2005) [pdf]_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30139794 - Jan 2022 (1
       | comment)
       | 
       |  _The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer 's
       | Perspective_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2802897 -
       | July 2011 (1 comment)
       | 
       |  _The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer 's
       | Perspective (2006)_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044261 - Dec 2010 (18
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _The Next Mainstream Programming Language: a game developer 's
       | perspective_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1296608 -
       | April 2010 (22 comments)
       | 
       |  _The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer's
       | Perspective_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1029820 - Jan
       | 2010 (14 comments)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rnk wrote:
       | That slide deck is pretty interesting just to see the 10k foot
       | vision of a game. I'm working at that level in infrastructure
       | software and the vision of what comes together for the game
       | development and design is fun to see.
        
       | pelagicAustral wrote:
       | Jonathan Blow has been working for ages on a new programming
       | language that seemed pretty cool last time I checked. Joi, i
       | think it was called.
       | 
       | Overall just looked like a more comfy C++ designed specifically
       | for game development.
       | 
       | Correction: the language is called Jai https://inductive.no/jai/
       | Joi is Ana de Armas AI version.
        
         | generichuman wrote:
         | The community library wiki will probably be more useful to
         | people who don't want to watch a bunch of videos:
         | https://github.com/Jai-Community/Jai-Community-Library/wiki
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | doodpants wrote:
         | Just to be pedantic: the command is jai.exe, and the source
         | file extension is .jai, so everyone calls the language Jai.
         | Except Jonathan Blow, who only ever refers to it as "the
         | language" in his videos. I vaguely recall him saying in an
         | interview that he doesn't want to commit to a name just yet.
        
           | pelagicAustral wrote:
           | Ah! thats pretty cool. I wasn't aware of that.
        
       | SleepyMyroslav wrote:
       | Its funny how nothing of that actually got implemented.
       | 
       | Instead we have visual scripting to allow people that cannot
       | program at all to contribute.
       | 
       | There are no near future improvements that fit game development
       | people. All people who could have been creating and using new
       | languages are not even going to go to job interviews. Because
       | ads, fin-tech and web are paying a lot more.
        
       | silvestrov wrote:
       | > All dereference and array accesses must be statically
       | verifyable, rather than causing sequenced exceptions
       | 
       | This is such a pipe dream. In so many cases you will not be able
       | to verify array index statically except by having the programmer
       | write assert statements which the compiler could do automatically
       | when it can't prove correctness (like the java JIT which can lift
       | out bounds checking from loops).
        
       | mcagri wrote:
       | that font...
        
         | Tomte wrote:
         | Yeah, isn't it great?
         | 
         | Oh, and see what SPJ has to say about quirky fonts:
         | https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/38226/what...
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | barrysteve wrote:
           | It isn't 'just fashion'. I agree with SPJ that what we are
           | all here for, is the content of the education, not how it's
           | presented. The problem is that a good font makes it easier
           | for people to relate to the content.
           | 
           | Having a comedy font for a dead-serious funeral company
           | technically communicates the required information, yet it's
           | going to limit your audience to those that can tolerate the
           | conflicting tones and the people who will choose to relate to
           | what you're trying to say.
           | 
           | It's really so difficult to press CTRL-A and select a
           | different font? Would it cost him so much to relate a little
           | closer to the tried and true methods?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | willyt wrote:
             | I agree, it's like clothes, sometimes it is appropriate to
             | dress up if you want people to view what you are saying
             | through a certain lens, wether that is wearing gold
             | cufflinks to your job as a banker or wearing a hoodie to
             | your job at Facebook it all signals something. Computer
             | games are a visual medium, where aesthetics is very
             | important, I'm not sure I would want to signal that I don't
             | care about aesthetics to my audience, presumably quite a
             | few of whom will be designer/programmer/artists type people
             | (whatever you call front end in game dev).
        
               | Tomte wrote:
               | Tim Sweeney is a game development legend. He could put
               | handwriting on these slides and people would read it.
               | 
               | Did HN's reverence for John Carmack drop because he
               | dabbled in rockets, instead of doing "proper
               | programming"? Stars can afford to be eccentric.
               | 
               | I wouldn't recommend slides like these to a normal game
               | developer giving a speech. But it's preposterous to claim
               | that it might hurt Tim Sweeney in any way.
        
               | opyate wrote:
               | Nothing is more "proper" to me than working on an AGI :)
               | 
               | https://uk.news.yahoo.com/john-carmacks-agi-startup-
               | raises-2...
        
             | Tomte wrote:
             | There is no readability argument here with just short
             | phrases and bullet points, so your stance is purely
             | middlebrow gatekeeping.
             | 
             | SPJ and Tim Sweeney don't care about people who are only
             | willing to listen when the other one does it "the right
             | way". They put something out and if you don't like it, you
             | can leave it unread.
             | 
             | I like good fonts, I have bought several "serious fonts"
             | for private use that cost serious money. I would never use
             | Comic Sans in larger texts. I wouldn't probably use it
             | myself anywhere.
             | 
             | But this here is whimsical, and cool, and fun.
        
               | barrysteve wrote:
               | I agree no readability argument. The relatability and
               | tone argument is what I wrote.
               | 
               | SPJ and TS don't have to relate to me, or anyone if they
               | so wish. Just making the point SPJ's argument is quite
               | poor, whatever "brow-level" it exists at.
        
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