Notch programming a Doom-like in Dart | Hacker News Reader

Notch programming a Doom-like in Dart

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I'm so impressed watching Notch program in realtime. "Last Minute Christmas Chopping" was an eye opener for me. (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview...). I was totally baffled when he started to draw the ascii character map pixel by pixel in an 48h competition, but the result was usable and actually quite simple.

My takeaway is this: Doing something quick and dirty for a first draft and improve it later on often leads to better results in the long run than planing and over-engineering a solution beforehand, because you can start refining details much earlier or throw away bad approaches without investing too much time.

What I don't get is, why he seems to like Dart so much. Don't get me wrong: I love Dart as an language. The syntax looks very familiar to someone coming from c#, adds syntactic sugar and the editor, with line step debugger, is great. But in the end it's still javascript which makes it hard to create native and mobile builds. Wouldn't Haxe be more suitable?

Your takeaway reminds me of this quote from John Carmack:

"Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better."

I wish I followed it more :)

that's an amazing quote. thanks for sharing!

>My takeaway is this: Doing something quick and dirty for a first draft and improve it later on often leads to better results in the long run than planing and over-engineering a solution beforehand, because you can start refining details much earlier or throw away bad approaches without investing too much time.

I think it depends on what you're doing, I doubt it works for every project out there.

> My takeaway is this: Doing something quick and dirty for a first draft and improve it later on often leads to better results in the long run than planing and over-engineering a solution beforehand, because you can start refining details much earlier or throw away bad approaches without investing too much time.

I like Dart because it supports what you've described really really well. Optional type annotations enable you to don't worry about types when you do rapid prototyping.

Once your understanding of a good solution solidifies you can sprinkle type annotations over function signatures and wherever it makes sense to get great tooling support and to fortify core parts of your code base :)

In a nutshell it enables project lifecycles many companies go through many times (something written in Ruby eventually might have to be rewritten in Java for performance and tooling/collaboration support) yet being able to stick to one language which removes a ton of complexity.

I agree, Dart offers alot regarding prototyping. Maybe I'm thinking too much, but I believe native os and mobile targets are simply too important in the gaming industry and therefore it's difficult to leverage the device capabilities if your primary target is the web & webgl.

I guess, what I miss most is cross compilation, which would be totally awesome. But Dart moves slowly and I'm very hesitant to invest in a platform where its fate relies on the adoption in browsers. (how long until the Dart VM runs in chrome, ff, ...?)

The dart people seem to be focussed on getting it to generate code that is at fast as handwritten JavaScript. If they get there then you won't have to worry about a dart VM in a browser (won't happen in a non Google browser anyway). You still have really rapid development and rich debugging with the dartium browser (like notch) and you can use a dart VM on the server for faster than js performance.

I was totally baffled when he started to draw the ascii character map pixel by pixel in an 48h competition

Yeah, he always does a good job of it. The rules allow you to use pre-created fonts now, I'm not sure they did when notch started to do LD48 though.

> What I don't get is, why he seems to like Dart so much.

Dart has a good mix of fast live-reload dev workflow, great IDE editing and debugging experience as well as productive optional typing analysis and feedback. Which seems to suit @notch's GTD/experimental coding style.

Now I see why he was pushing so hard for 0x10c - it's the game he wants to play, a game of experimental live-coding AI.

You should always try to do games you want to play yourself, anyway :)

Idunno, I think there's room for admitting you have eclectic tastes and throwing in some compromises and making a game that isn't exactly your perfect fantasy but is something that includes elements you love in a way that's accessible to everybody else.

> But in the end it's still javascript which makes it hard to create native and mobile builds.

It's not "still JavaScript." Dart has its own VM and own libraries. Yes, you end up deploying to JavaScript in most scenarios, but Dart is its own platform which can live on its own in the server context and when the Dart VM is integrated with Chrome, on the client side too. I know what you meant, but the way you worded it does a disservice to Dart, making it sound like another CoffeeScript.

This might be of interest too: http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

>Doing something quick and dirty for a first draft and improve it later on often leads to better results in the long run than planing and over-engineering a solution beforehand, because you can start refining details much earlier or throw away bad approaches without investing too much time.

If it's something not too big, sure. Won't work so well if you don't know what to even do because you don't have any idea what the structure of the program's going to be like. I've found planning much more beneficial for myself.

Watching Notch hacking on the Ludum Dare competition is such a comforting experience - to me he is the Bob Ross of game development. He also seems to end up developing the same thing over and over again with different shades of green on the leaves.

Even though you may don't like his style, you have to admire his pragmatism, productivity and humbleness.

http://notch.net/games/

There's a pretty big variety there.

You're right about him putting out a few little games, which do not share the same game mechanics, but a lot of his work is based on repetition and refinement. Or to quote [1] himself:

"I am forever cursed to keep making the same game over and over again!! But at least it's fun.. Now, space!"

[1] https://twitter.com/notch/status/189315622818168832

That's so dismissive, Bob Ross was the running ironic joke of the painting world.

The analogy is apt. Notch isn't known for being a stellar programmer.

I'd rather be a successful programmer than a stellar one (probably).

Of course! "perfect is the enemy of good"

Minecraft itself was a clone of the game "infiniminer". Whose developer had given up and stopped work after the source code was stolen.

When I think of the rise of Minecraft I am drawn to a few things he did differently.

1) He set up a way for customers to pay him for the game early (as soon as he had a minimum viable product). This gave him tons of feedback, money to keep working, and incentive to keep going because people were constantly asking him for features and tweaks.

2) He employed a simple and fun mechanic that allowed users to create their own things in the game (forts castles etc).

3) all of the content is procedurally generated. So every time you play it you get a different experience to some extent.

4) From very early on you would get weekly updates pushed out constantly adding new features. For most people new things were being added far faster than they could get bored with them.

5) it ran everywhere.

6) He didn't focus on graphics. He made design choices that would drastically simplify development at the expense of quality and/or performance. This lent itself to a blocky 'style' that was both easy to handle and visually unique.

What do you guys think? am I missing anything?

> 6) He didn't focus on graphics. He made design choices that would drastically simplify development at the expense of quality and/or performance. This lent itself to a blocky 'style' that was both easy to handle and visually unique.

This one is widely considered to be false. There have been numerous catastrophic overhauls of many of Minecraft's sub-systems because they are very poorly designed, leading to stalled overhauls and whatnot. The architecture of systems was definitely not Notch's strong suit. That he chose an easy way to structure the world is only one of many design choices.

This is why the "mod kit" is still a pending feature. And at this point would probably be too late considering the amount of community work put into creating their own environments.

I agree 100% but there were many choices he DID make which simplified his job regardless of how poorly they were ultimately implemented such as:

* Everything is forced into a cube

* No dynamic lighting

* No Shaders

* 16x16 Textures

* Water/lava is not volumetric

* No AI

* He used Java

* barely any physics (removing the bottom segment of a tree does not make the top fall down)

and on and on and on.

While he is no doubt a programmer it is his superb game design skills that brought him to success.

His taste, if you will?

In the case of Minecraft, sure. Its design is mostly just a case of having the right idea and running with it. Making a few critical early choices that have shaped everything.

That "taste" wouldn't necessarily translate to the nitty-gritty game design skills necessary for a complex strategy, card, or board game, for example. But hey, it's enough. Not all of us can be Reiner Knizia.

I would say that Bob Ross being the running ironic joke of the painting world says a lot more about the painting world than it does about Bob Ross. Every episode I watched contained a man with the calm manner of Mr. Rogers guiding his watchers through the process of creating something, providing them constant reassurance that they possessed the ability to create art and that they weren't making mistakes but merely going through the process of creation.

A quick trip over to reddit will reveal dozens, perhaps hundreds, of posts from people who have followed Bob Ross' methods and create a piece of art that brings them joy and satisfaction despite possibly a lifetime of doubting that they had the ability. In that sense I rank him up there amongst other great teachers who have been able to find methods that allow people to get past the initial stages of self-doubt and embarassment and begin participating in a fulfilling activity. Think "The Inner Game of Tennis" or "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". Anyone who can let the everyman participate in the satisfaction that comes with creating something is pretty darned ok in my books.

I am not sure if Notch quite lives up to that legacy, but it is a comparison that I think anyone should be flattered to receive.

interesting fact, Bob Ross was a drill sergeant:

"I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work. The job requires you to be a mean, tough person. And I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way anymore." [1]

[1] http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-...

There is a reason the military limits how long a person can be a drill sergeant for. 2 years, iirc, with an option for 1 more. My step father was a drill sergeant.

It wasn't meant to be dismissive.

To me, Bob Ross's art wasn't so much in painting as it was in creating that synergy of education and relaxation by taking you with him through the joy of creation.

Something in Notch's live streams triggers the same nerves for me.

I'm not sure Bob ever noticed. He was too busy painting.

Aside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGN5xaQkFk0

I was wondering how this thread got so long without anybody linking to ERB :)

Bob Ross was a national treasure who dedicated his life to helping others see that it is wonderful to make or create for the sake of it.

Anyone I've met who thinks he's a joke have been illustrators who hadn't yet come to terms with the reality that they were craftspeople and not fine-artists. As if there is some dishonor for being a dedicated and skilled craftsperson. Having a passion for and love for a craft at any skill level is a beautiful thing.

I live in a country where Bob Ross isn't really known at all, and I spend a lot of my free time doing illustration or painting (http://ultimatehurl.tumblr.com is where I post stuff, to give an idea). Having relatively recently learned of him and his show I think it's amazing and encouraging. I have no formal training yet frequently have people say to me 'I could never do something like that!', Bob Ross worked to prove that's not true, because it's really not.

is this really live? I mean -- hardly see him pause for thought or anything.

Interesting to see he just uses plain 'ol Eclipse (Eclipse FTW!).

Yeah it's really live - he's done a lot of work on stuff similar to this so he's probably got a mental checklist of everything that needs to happen. He's pretty good at what he does: making games! Rarely is watching somebody write code entertaining, but he makes it so.

i like his games -- been playing minecraft off-and-on with some friends for years -- but I have to admit, most of his games look very similar. the thing he's working on now looks like it could have been made from in minecraft. Use Craftbukkit or MineForge and you can just add things like new overlays and ui's... bam! new game.

It's probably akin to a many types of artists, like painters. A certain style will always follow. But evolve as you go.

>he's probably got a mental checklist of everything that needs to happen.

I would love to see someone make such a list explicit and then post it as a submission here.

his minicraft certainly was, but also super-engaging

He is using the Dart Editor (an editor using the Eclipse platform written from scratch for Dart support):

https://www.dartlang.org/tools/editor/

Doubt it's "from scratch" -- a lot of projects use Eclipse as the base for their "custom editor" when in reality it's just a bunch of plugins strapped on top of the base Eclipse. (Android editor, CTools editor, etc). You probably can just install the Dart support plugins and get the same features.

Eclipse is a very robust, very flexible editor.

UPDATE - Here seems to be the plugin: https://www.dartlang.org/tools/eclipse-plugin/

I've watched Notch code numerous times (mostly on Ludum Dare streams) and he's strongly in the always keeps moving camp of developers. He thinks as he goes and isn't scared to backtrack or rip stuff out when he changes his approach.

I imagine that having a live feed of you working also motivates you to avoid procrastinating.

For somebody successful I doubt it matters much.

I participated in Ludum Dare this time and live streamed for a little bit, but the constant knowing that someone was watching me was really distracting so I eventually turned it off and was more constructive.

and he's worth like a million million bucks, yet still does what he loves, and gives $ away to his team, like keanu. may he live as long

Corrections: he's worth $10's or even $100+.

Notch uploaded the code to GitHub:

https://github.com/xNotch/dark

I'm amazed how much of editing he actually does by hand (like growing/shrinking indentation) and mouse. That sort of switching between actual coding and lexical editing would kill my flow.

Yeah, he's switching eclipse tabs by using the mouse! Another reminder to not obsess over development tool choice, and just get things done.

I think I spend most of my time reading, navigating and debugging code.

IDE developers should do more heavy lifting to support these use-cases imho.

I really like what the SourceGraph people are doing (https://sourcegraph.com/)

Control PageUp/PageDown!

I'm watching now and it doesn't seem that bad, sure he switches tabs with the mouse but it seems like he is using quite a lot of keyboard shortcuts otherwise. I'd almost wager he has a plugin to emulate vim or emacs keybinds, seeing as he's moving the cursor forward by words and jumping around the code a lot without using the mouse at all.

By the powerful sound of the keystroke when moving words, I'd say he is using Ctrl+<Arrows>. That is very common in Windows.

BTW I'm not able to switch between OSX and Windows (home & work) efficiently - Windows' shortcuts are so much easier on my hands.

Is there any way people make the two OSes more similar?

I know on Windows you can use AutoHotkey[0] to recreate all your OS X keybindings, but I'm not sure about recreating Windows binds on OS X.

[0] http://www.autohotkey.com/

I come from windows and now use a Mac (iOS dev). I was so used to all windows shortcuts (shift+ctrl+keyright to select a word, ctrl+c to copy, etc), I know what you mean!

I use KeyRemap4MacBook, which kicks in as soon as I connect my hardware windows keyboard to it (which is basically always when I sit down to code). It has a lot of default windows compatibility settings, but you can customize at will. I added a few myself by hand as well (also to get desktop switching the same as I was used to from Ubuntu :).

Thanks for this. If I can map C-v, C-c, C-t, C-w, Shift-home, Shift-end... I should capture a good portion of my misses :)

My flow has always been a mixture of keyboard and mouse. Even as far back as RHIDE with DJGPP. I basically program with 90% thought, 10% code. So a faster interface doesn't change much for me.

If you're noticing the same thing I did, he's doing that because he's working on OpenGL shader code that's embedded in a string inside his Dart code. In this case, the IDE only sees a plain vanilla string, so Notch has to indent the GLSL manually.

Notch's Ludum Dare video for Metagun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV-AFnCkRLY) was inspiration for a series of scripts I now use for clients and my own entertainment purposes (for some loose definition of "entertainment").

It's a series of shell scripts I use that screencap videos of coding and set them to music (so, for example, rendering a 48-hour coding competition to a 5-minute song, or as I more typically do for clients, render the development process down to a few minutes for them to watch in fast-time how their development was done).

It's called watchmecode (https://github.com/choptastic/watchmecode) and I just have to do

  ./make-av-video.sh /path/to/video.mpg /path/to/song.mp3

And it does the rest, and outputs it to "done.mp4"

The result is something that looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwn7mfmo0SQ

(disclaimer, I've plugged this before on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685859)

Chronolapse can do this on Windows for those looking for an alternative: https://code.google.com/p/chronolapse/

I found these hilarious: https://github.com/xNotch/dark/issues

My favorite: https://github.com/xNotch/dark/issues/13

Note the username.

The only one Notch kept open. lol.

Looks like John opened an account just to file the issue: "Joined on Aug 25, 2014"[1]

[1]: https://github.com/jcarmack

John - or a random guy/troll that thought that username would be funny?

Did the real John Carmack endorse this account somewhere (Twitter, elsewhere)?

Or I did and I'm self-endorsing on HN for karma?

So how does his process work? Does he start with the original C engine source and start porting to Dart? Does he do some of the work beforehand?

It does it mostly all in his head. He's built a fair amount of rendering engines so he knows all the basics of how to do it.

That is impressive if true. Does he also figure out how to read the WAD files himself too for level geometry and textures? I just find it hard to believe he isn't referencing the original source at all...

Well, the title is "Notch programming a Doom-like in Dart." So, it doesn't sound like it's a port of Doom, just a game that's like Doom.

Was watching and the level he loaded was definitely a Doom one. Looked like the WAD was in his assets.

The WAD format was reverse engineered and published some time back in the 90s when the first third party level editors and mods were produced.

Indeed it was. Here's the unofficial spec in case anyone is interested. http://www.gamers.org/dhs/helpdocs/dmsp1666.html

It's not ALL in his head, he has the doom spec list to help him out when he needs it. But he's pretty skilled.

Typically a -like doesn't imply a port, but rather a game inspired by .

For me personally it is interesting to see that Notch seems to prefer Dart Editor (Built on the Eclipse platform) over something like Intellij IDEA or Webstorm (https://www.dartlang.org/tools/webstorm/).

I don't see how that is interesting, his using the official Dart IDE.

Also, he's always been an Eclipse user.

He comes from a java heavy background. I would expect him to already be comfortable with Eclipse.

Didn't know that, makes sense, thanks for the pointer.

I normally use IDEA for Java, but the Dart Editor works fine for Dart. The Eclipse foundation it's built on doesn't show through too badly so you don't have to mess with perspectives or anything like that.

(I don't yet trust its refactoring, though.)

I'm currently switching between IDEA 14 (preview edition) and Dart Editor but using IDEA more and more.

IDEA 14's Dart plugin is further along than the one from IDEA 13 :)

I'm on the Dart team and I recently switched from the Editor to IDEA (13 then 14) too. It really is much better. There's only so much you can do when you build on top of Eclipse.

Judging by how often it's freezing / locking up he should investigate alternatives.

He doesn't seem to like it: "Argh! This editor pretty horrible" - Notch (Aug 25 2014 19:37 UTC)

Also something like "Argh! This doesn't let me use the mouse... I have to wrestle this" - Notch (Aug 25 2014 19:49 UTC)

Eclipse is a wonderful development platform which is why it's used by millions of developers worldwide.

Each time there's a Ludum Dare or someone prolific livestreams themselves coding (usually Notch) I get all excited and want to do the same but I can never find a website or platform which really caters to coders. Am I alone in this? Is there somewhere? Is there actually any demand for this?

Either way, I've created a quick landing page to see if anyone would actually be interested in a live streaming site specifically for coding - http://devv.tv

It's nothing pretty but some validation or feedback before I jump head first into this would be amazing.

Signed up. Please make it work on Linux (I use xmonad on Ubuntu).

Thanks! Will certainly add this to the list. Out of interest what's support for live streaming like currently for you?

Might want to make that email input type="email"

Either way, signed up.

Thanks for signing up, will take a look at that input type.

Hi, I'm also working on a plataform with focus on streaming live-coding. I would love to talk with you about how to tackle that space. You can contact me at schmitt.hansy at gmail.com.

I would love for this to exist. I've thought about streaming on twitch before but it is apparently against their ToS to stream anything which isn't video games.

It's against their TOS to stream anything which isn't video game related, which means you're allowed to stream development of a video game but most likely not of a website or app (not sure about a video game website or app...).

I aim to make discovery and categorization much easier. It's pretty difficult right now on twitch to find someone streaming game dev, if you add into the mix only wanting to see streamers using specific languages (e.g. JS) or specific tools (e.g. Unity) then things get exponentially more difficult.

I want to make interactions more useful and clear than what you currently get with twitch. Allowing things like code snippets, markdown, line number references, live source code updates should go a long way towards this goal.

There is http://devstream.tv/ which is just a listing of relevant twitch streams.

I've had this idea as well. It would really scratch my own itch so I definitely hope someone makes it!

Focusing on live coding would open up a lot of possibilities as well. How about hooking up the source code next to the stream in real time? The ability to paste snippets to the audience etc etc.

Yes! These are definitely the sort of features I'll be looking to build as I think they'll be key to gaining attention by offering something not available as seamlessly elsewhere.

Maybe it's time for me to quit the VIM/Emacs addiction.

People are addicted? News to me.

I've been using VI/VIM for decades. If I am looking at a piece of code, I don't think too much about how to move around, or delete lines, or such. It mostly happens while I'm thinking of higher level issues.

Fixing indent issues is just a couple keystrokes, so that reduces my distraction too.

Practice, practice, practice with the tools you are going to use every day.

Why? Because Notch doesn't use it? What should that matter? Use what works for you.

I think it's great to see some live programming, with all the goofs and dead ends. While I appreciate the prepared demos that are common at conferences and elsewhere, they are more of a quick way to provide an intro to something new, and I feel they can give beginners the wrong idea about how real programming works. Seeing the whole development process, warts and all, live like this is amazingly educational. Props for doing this Notch!

Btw, this is 2014 and I feel like we would already be able to play a simple game like Doom in the browser, just like the real thing. But no..

--edit--

...multiplayer with several people, of course.

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Legal/Infringement_Notices/3_June_2...

Try this in the latest Firefox:

http://kripken.github.io/boon/inception/

The inner doom game is playable.

Also playable by itself at http://kripken.github.io/boon/boon.html

We've played this off and on at the office for the last couple years: http://www.quakelive.com

It wasn't browser based though. It is was a plugin. (it's standalone these days)

Oh, got it. Didn't realize "in the browser" specifically meant javascript.

https://www.runescape.com/game?html5=1 looks pretty good in chrome.

Here: http://www.quakejs.com/

I missed the livestreams due to opposite timezones. Are there archives of the videos? Can't seem to find the button on hitbox.

I can't change the streaming quality? Is this a bug?

It sucks that hitbox doesn't work on mobile.

I haven't ever heard of hitbox before - are there other streaming sites out there that are popular other than twitch?

Hitbox is only popular because it isn't Twitch (in the same vein as Facebook and Google+ a couple years back)

Specifically, Hitbox has laxer policies regarding non-gaming content [which is relevant in this case], better streaming quality, and lower stream delay.

Twitch is in the middle of a media fiasco resulting in policy changes.

Hitbox and other twitch like platforms already existed but are enjoying people mass moving from twitch.

:.:.:

>What happened?

Twitch introduced a new service to flag copyrighted music, and. The problem is a lot of games have copyrighted music inside of them, so a lot of music was cut out of footage simply because you couldn't stream the music, just the games footage.

Valve actually had most the sound removed from their "The International" DotA2 tournament. Because in-game music was owned by Valve. As an example. Even twitch's own podcasts were flaged and muted due to this.

Twitch started enforcing a 30second + stream delay, which angered both Users and Streamers. Since it removed the instant feedback/conversation from the stream.

Twitch also deleted terabytes of recorded video on a policy change.

You can get the long version from the AMA Twitch.tv's CEO did during the middle of this shit storm http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2cwfu2/i_am_twitch_ceo...

So basically they got big enough that they had to start taking copyright seriously, then users switch to other services causing them to grow....

The issue wasn't so much that, they were taking copyright seriously. Its how they handled taking copyright seriously.

Their practice was Draconian, even if the streamer owned the copy right, they still have to appeal to have their content posted. Even twitch took down their own videos explain how this system works, due to copyrighted music.

This has been going on for >2 weeks without much change.

Isn't this similar to youtube? It seems that all services end of with draconian policies when they get big enough.

The difference is YouTube is on at least a couple magnitudes larger scale. Furthermore, YouTube doesn't create content and host that, it only hosts the content, allowing for a much easier way to share copy-written material. On Twitch, the things they are muting are recorded videos of streams of their own site. Note the difference here. There's not an easy way to take say a movie and upload it to twitch VoDs in a reasonable amount of time. Lastly, the entire VoD is muted, even if its background music, game music, etc. and most of the time the key sound element is the streamer himself/herself, which is completely lost with muting system. Also why can they not just respond to DMCA requests? There is nothing that has been shown that they are receiving an inordinate amount of DMCA requests that would be impossible to handle with a more refined approach.

I think it must be clarified that only archived videos (often referred to as VODs) are affected by the copyright music detection. Live streaming is not affected in any way currently. This is relevant because viewing of VODs is quite rare on Twitch (I say this as someone who almost exclusively views VODs on Twitch so as to regain time control.) The Twitch streamers I'm aware of are not that bothered because they consider their streams ephemeral and aren't concerned by the archived copies. Any streamer who feels differently can save their content locally and upload to Youtube or other such service. Of course Youtube also has issues with copyrighted content.

Another disclaimer: I stream on Twitch occasionally and post much of my streamed content to Youtube.

Haven't heard of hitbox before, great there is now an alternative to Twitch. There were rumors that Google wants to buy Twitch (parent company already closed Justin.tv) But today Amazon.com has agreed to acquire Twitch for more than $1 billion.

Interesting, it's an Austrian company (http://about.hitbox.tv/imprint/). Keep up the good work!

Edit: changed the "Google bought" to "rumor that Google wants to buy", thanks ender7. Edit2: added Amazon.com deal sentence

Friendly reminder: rumors that Google is going to buy Twitch are still just that -- rumors. Nothing has been announced, and there are new rumors that Amazon is now thinking about a purchase [1].

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/amazon-not-google-repo...

Amazon confirmed [1].

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-buy-video-site-twit...

Working for me on iPad.

hitbox has a Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hitbox.app

That's new, thanks for pointing it out!

It has now ended.

Hey Notch, why Dart?

Is notch a HN member?

None of the usernames he usually uses seem to be registered. He does respond frequently on Reddit. Maybe there's an equivalent thread over there? He seems to be too busy coding to respond to any comments at the moment, though.

he just said on the stream he "likes HN but doesn't hang out on HN because there's too many nerds"

I hope Notch-senpai will notice us....

It's funny when nerds don't like other nerds for being nerds. But so typical of human nature...

Over TypeScript? I imagine for JS based languages the main draw is portability.

"I'm doing it in Dart because it's fun." -Notch

Clicked, watched someone's screen reading the same messages I was reading with "Bubble butt" in the background for 1 minute, then closed and commented this...

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