Dear Internet, I refer you to my thoughts of 2 years ago about April 1st. yours grumpily, Elbeno
Author: elbeno
How a Bug Made Me a Better Programmer
This is the tale of a bug. A challenging bug I encountered some time ago, and which changed my career for the better. It was late 2004. I was lead multiplayer engineer on Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, a title which could charitably be described as mediocre, but I like to think…
I wrote my first Python program
Last Friday. Knowing almost no Python at noon, by 5pm I had some code to munge XML and do something useful for my current project. So it’s not bad. It’s good for productivity. Mostly because: It has useful libraries. Bread-and-butter data structures are built in, i.e. lists and dictionaries. I…
Tips for night owls, midnight snackers, etc
If, like me, you often stay up late, finding yourself in a dark, quiet house, with the rest of the family asleep, then you are probably accustomed to moving about stealthily and not really needing much in the way of light to do so. I almost never turn lights on…
What I got for Xmas
Jeans x 2, khakis, silk shirt, long sleeve shirts x 2, top, underwear, socks x 3. Real World Haskell, Successful Lisp. Guns, Germs and Steel. BC-900 battery charger. Super Paper Mario. Ripping Yarns. A make-your-own root beer kit, and selection of interesting root beers. 2009 Dilbert desk calendar and a…
Merry $HOLIDAY
Whether you will/have celebrate(d) Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, the southern solstice, HumanLight, Saturnalia, or something else entirely: have a peaceful and contented time.
Another CD for the mini-Elbeno
I Love Rocky Road – Weird Al Yankovic Mr. Blue Sky – ELO Paradise City – Guns N’ Roses I Wanna Be Sedated – The Ramones Funkytown – Lipps, Inc. The Gambler – Kenny Rogers Video Killed the Radio Star – The Buggles Hit Me With Your Best Shot –…
I have one (UK) wish list item this Christmas
If anyone in the UK family is reading, and hasn’t yet got me a gift, and intends to get me a gift, the only thing on my wishlist is Absolutely. Or alternatively, DON’T. Just get a gift for mini-Elbeno, as I’m sure you’ll want to. I admit that I’m not…
Complexity Theory: 8 Things a Game Programmer Needs to Know
For the most part, forget about space complexity. Time complexity is the important one. You can often trade off time for space, though, so be aware of how much you’re using. O(1), or constant time, is the best option: if you know the array index, great! Unfortunately, hash tables usually…