Did Casey ever finish the video series?
Its like everything these guys rant about you could add on the tagline "...yet the world keeps spinning and we all keep shipping things"
I've shipped a few things over the years, but doubt I have strong takes in programming, besides 'the "properness" of a variables name is dependent on the amount of lines between it's definition and usage.' Doubt anyone will take my considerations seriously.
If someone comes out saying "you guys are all doing this wrong" and yet they can't finish their own project then why would I take their advice seriously?
If you suggest a way of doing software development and you can't even show it working out to completion, what does that say about your proposed methods?
Yes, one can argue that lack of produces results does not give big plusses towards their work processes, but it does not necessarily negate the value of the concepts that they preach. The value of a thing is not only defined by who is spouting it, one must evaluate the argument on it's own merits, not by evaluating of the people yelling about it.
There are plenty of concepts in this world that I cannot make work, that does not mean that the concepts are bad. It only means that the failure reflects on me and my in-capabilities.
And this might be something that you are not noticing: You are making claims about programming practices indirectly by stating that THEIR practices are not worth considering due to lack of shipping anything.
We're not saying games taking longer than a few years are failures, we're saying good games can encompass both approaches. But Casey, and his followers, are doing purity tests to feel good about themselves.
And this is assuming the games they ship are even good or noticeable to the user. I don't much care for Braid or The Witness, and I don't want my favorite dev studios to suddenly write everything from scratch every time. I would have a lot less fun things to play.