it's entirely reasonable that this source code leak would delay the release of the game. however, i also think it's simply a good excuse to spend more time on it.
the original Half-Life missed its release-date by a year (gamasutra.com had a nice article on it by Ken Birdwell). they produced one of the best games ever, so the delay was a good thing! i'm excited about HL2 and i for one do not mind waiting another year for it -- if that's what it takes.
finally, i'd like to say that i would be thrilled to have the opportunity to study the source code for valve's engine. i'd prefer to see it legitimately (as with id's GPL releases) of course, but still...
it sure would be fun to build one of those! unfortunately it would also be very expensive...
(i'd be pretty happy "just" with two XGA projectors, in a dual-head config. i've borrowed one from work and brought it home to show DVDs on the wall, which works well, but i've got room for twice as wide a screen....)
I went to work for a high-profile company a few years ago which did NOT have the California language in their contract. After all, it wasn't in California... But I refused to sign the contract as it was. HR sent me to legal, and upon discussion they agreed to add it, and I agreed to sign. Nice.
BTW, this company was (and sometimes still is) reviled as "evil" on slashdot. But they are not so bad really.:)
"It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing." -- Raymond Chandler
I work for a company which is doing J2ME development. The device constraints are even more severe on cellphones! Total application size can be limited to something like 50-90K.
We develop "enterprise" applications, ie the usual database-driven screen/field kinda stuff. I wrote a stripped-down SQL database for J2ME which takes up less than 20K. (Originally we were using a commercial 3rd party database but it was too big and way too slow.)
Like the previous poster, I found it to be a fun challenge. By today's standards, it requires "Real Programmer" skills, as opposed to more typical "Java developer" skills.
Of course the market is tough, but there does seem to be some interest in this sort of thing, primarily on the basis of cost savings (to the customer). Mobile empoyees already have cellphones, maybe even PDAs, so the cost of the "solution" is low. But enough of that; I'm a Programmer not a Marketroid.:)
i have been reading this book (FAST FOOD NATION) recently and thinking it would be a great subject for a slashdot review. whatever you think of katz's review (i didn't read it) i highly recommend the book! the description of french fry processing reminded me of logfile-processing in perl.:)
Slashdot Mirror
it's entirely reasonable that this source code leak would delay the release of the game. however, i also think it's simply a good excuse to spend more time on it.
the original Half-Life missed its release-date by a year (gamasutra.com had a nice article on it by Ken Birdwell). they produced one of the best games ever, so the delay was a good thing! i'm excited about HL2 and i for one do not mind waiting another year for it -- if that's what it takes.
finally, i'd like to say that i would be thrilled to have the opportunity to study the source code for valve's engine. i'd prefer to see it legitimately (as with id's GPL releases) of course, but still...
slashdot did a story a while back on Sandia's 20-Million-Pixel, 130-Square-Foot Screen.
it sure would be fun to build one of those! unfortunately it would also be very expensive...
(i'd be pretty happy "just" with two XGA projectors, in a dual-head config. i've borrowed one from work and brought it home to show DVDs on the wall, which works well, but i've got room for twice as wide a screen....)
This reminds me of raph's proposed terminology:
I went to work for a high-profile company a few years ago which did NOT have the California language in their contract. After all, it wasn't in California... But I refused to sign the contract as it was. HR sent me to legal, and upon discussion they agreed to add it, and I agreed to sign. Nice.
:)
BTW, this company was (and sometimes still is) reviled as "evil" on slashdot. But they are not so bad really.
"It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing." -- Raymond Chandler
I work for a company which is doing J2ME development. The device constraints are even more severe on cellphones! Total application size can be limited to something like 50-90K.
:)
We develop "enterprise" applications, ie the usual database-driven screen/field kinda stuff. I wrote a stripped-down SQL database for J2ME which takes up less than 20K. (Originally we were using a commercial 3rd party database but it was too big and way too slow.)
Like the previous poster, I found it to be a fun challenge. By today's standards, it requires "Real Programmer" skills, as opposed to more typical "Java developer" skills.
Of course the market is tough, but there does seem to be some interest in this sort of thing, primarily on the basis of cost savings (to the customer). Mobile empoyees already have cellphones, maybe even PDAs, so the cost of the "solution" is low. But enough of that; I'm a Programmer not a Marketroid.
i have been reading this book (FAST FOOD NATION) recently and thinking it would be a great subject for a slashdot review. whatever you think of katz's review (i didn't read it) i highly recommend the book! the description of french fry processing reminded me of logfile-processing in perl. :)