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Heysoon What it takes to make a game by yourself

How do you compare flash game to mobile games ?

I have played a lot of flash games, but mobile games become boring very fast to me. I think this has to do with the input limitation of the device : touch with one thumb on half the screen. Maybe this force mobile games into limited gameplay choices.

Heysoon What it takes to make a game by yourself

I've made a game with a team in~ 6 month, we almost didn't play it. And this is an obvious sign the game isn't "fun".

About your question, if part of your job is game design or assurance quality, you have to play the game a lot. Like a player would.

Heysoon What it takes to make a game by yourself

Yes it is an art that can contains multiples others arts.

On a small project you also usually have to do the game design, it is art too.

And art is harder than technique in my opinion.

I got a lot of respect for artists.

Heysoon Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

Why/How would it screw you ?

Heysoon It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

I agree with most of it. Insult are forbidden/taboo, that's also why kids use and abuse them when they can (like in a game).

It just crossed my mind : we should be teaching kids how to handle insults and toxicity in life. Non-violent communication principles, and "don't take things personnaly" from the four agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz.

It is likely that the toxicity kids put into game is to help themselves learn how to handle toxicity/insults in life. Can I hurt somebody with words and actions (hello griefing) ? How much ? Can he retaliate ? Do I gain or lose something by being a dick (or victim) ?

Think about it, testing that out in real life is much more dangereous and costly. At worse, in game you may get banned.

My point is that I suspect online toxicity to be a ground for learning some valuables lessons. If we want to reduces online toxicity, we should be providing theses valuable lessons elsewhere (in school for example).

Heysoon Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part III: On the Move

Interesting, although having most stuff in miles is not helping me. I don't understand why he keep making "what if we double the size of the army" explorations. Isn't his 20k+ army already big enough ? And if it is just to say we double everything (food, etc), well I can do the maths myself. It is also repetitive.

Heysoon What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

Magic.

Heysoon Libraries – how companies do not understand open spaces

In my case, sometimes I like to move, lie on my bed a few minutes, when I am thinking. Can't do in open office.

I also don't have half my focus spent on my surrouding (who's saying what, who's moving, who's looking at me for attention...).

I also don't have project managers or commercials chatting around me. I am getting stressed if someone pass by closely behind me.

Heysoon Libraries – how companies do not understand open spaces

I agree, as a dev, going to office is mostly to coordinate and socialize. I work much better from home. I worked in an open space, where the rule was "if you have more than 1min conversation, move out".

In the team I was, we often talked with each others, be it work related or not. So we ended up often working in others places together (one room for us 3-4 devs).

Heysoon Absurd Trolley Problems

LMAO. That's a very simple and senseful answer I missed to think of.

Heysoon Absurd Trolley Problems

Any third choices ? Maybe pulling the lever hallfway derail ? If it is fast, that means more deaths, otherwise, you may have some injuries but everyone survives ?

Heysoon Job interview questions engineers should ask, but don't

I like the first question. May indicate if they care about technical debt.

Heysoon The collapse of complex software

Well, if you compare react and angular2+, react has less stuff, and is less complex. But on the opposite side, a function that tries to do too much (like lodash pick function) look simple at first glance, but is actually complex.

Heysoon My students cheated... a lot

In chinese, copying and learning are the same word.

Also, "cheating" may be viewed as "not re-inventing the wheel" (someone already made the proof for this theorem, just copy paste it from your smartphone), "not doing the same work twice" (your neigboor just solved the equation, why re-solve it ? ), and "using the fastest, most reliable solution" (your neigboor is better than you in Maths, just take his answers). This is similar to taking a library (ex : deep-equal) or framework (nextjs) or service (carrds, netlify) instead of doing it yourselves.

I agree that, the issue is mostly not the student but the school (and society):

1. Does the student really need to remember historical dates, or Maths equations, when nowadays he can just google them in 10sec ? (Aka : unnecessary use of memory)

2. Does the student really need to understand the notion by himselves ? For example, I don't know how to use quaternion myself, buy I know how to work with, in Unity. I also don't care about Pythagore theorem proof, I know it works, that's all I need (all Maths lover will condemn me).

The thing is that we believe that school focus on teaching. They don't. They are called schools, but behave a lot more like evaluation (grading) centers. And mostly evaluate (grade) memorization and servitude btw, not actual understanding.

To be clear, evaluation (grading) is what you in job interview and for pilot, to make sure he knows how to fly the plane.

Is evaluation a part of learning ? It is. But not the same type of evaluation.

"I am able to make a small game like ping pong from scratch ?" - evaluate yourselves, test your skills. If you have success, it means learning phase is completed. The main differences are that : - You do it for yourselves, not for someone or something else (employer, school, teacher, parents, certification organism). If you cheat, you have 0 gain out of it. Cheating in a pure learning environnement make no sense. If students cheat, it means your environnment contains more than just learning.

Testing yourselves, to know for yourselves, if you have got an understanding of a notion. Is part of learning.

Without grading, a test become just a way to confirm to yourselves your knowledge. This is part of learning, and cheating on that make no sense, because you fool only yourselves.

School mix both learning and grading, it shouldn't.

In chinese, copying and learning are the same word.

Also, "cheating" may be viewed as "not re-inventing the wheel" (someone already made the proof for this theorem, just copy paste it from your smartphone), "not doing the same work twice" (your neigboor just solved the equation, why re-solve it ? ), and "using the fastest, most reliable solution" (your neigboor is better than you in Maths, just take his answers). This is similar to taking a library (ex : deep-equal) or framework (nextjs) or service (carrds, netlify) instead of doing it yourselves.

I agree that, the issue is mostly not the student but the school (and society):

1. Does the student really need to remember historical dates, or Maths equations, when nowadays he can just google them in 10sec ? (Aka : unnecessary use of memory)

2. Does the student really need to understand the notion by himselves ? For example, I don't know how to use quaternion myself, buy I know how to work with, in Unity. I also don't care about Pythagore theorem proof, I know it works, that's all I need (all Maths lover will condemn me).

The thing is that we believe that school focus on teaching. They don't. They are called schools, but behave a lot more like evaluation (grading) centers. And mostly evaluate (grade) memorization and servitude btw, not actual understanding.

To be clear, evaluation (grading) is what you in job interview and for pilot, to make sure he knows how to fly the plane.

Is evaluation a part of learning ? It is. But not the same type of evaluation.

"I am able to make a small game like ping pong from scratch ?" - evaluate yourselves, test your skills. If you have success, it means learning phase is completed.

When evaluation is part of learning: - You do it for yourselves, not for someone or something else (employer, school, teacher, parents, certification organism). That is called intresic motivation (vs extrinsic). - There may be or not be grading, but only you care about grading.

The employer doesn't care about how you grade to the tests he send to you, what he care about is that you've got the skills he need. And grading is just a means for that.

Everything the school does should be a means for making someone a good person for the society, a happy person, a person that can contribute to the society (a phrasing more large than employable).

What I have seen in my scolarity, is students and teacher focused on "passing exams", "getting good grades". But completly forgetting exams and grading "means to".

In a pure teaching environnement, grades and exams only purpose is to give a learning status indication to the student.

In school (in France national education), they also serve to give you right/priority on school entrances. And serve as social status indicator (the dumbs and the smarts).

Cheating in a pure learning environnement make no sense. If students cheat, it means your environnment contains more than just learning.

When you create extrinsic motivation (carrot and stick), it override intrinsic motivation. And you end up with student doing the homework ONLY if it is graded (carrot) or if not doing it is punishable (stick). And not because it give them a learning opportunity.

Schools (I am still referring to France national education) believe that humans dislike learning. This is false. Babies loves learning. School is teaching us that learning should be hard and painful.

If you do teaching, you don't need a carrot or a stick, because authentic learning is fun by itselves !

(I don't want to make this text longer, but this make me question if schools are just doing big mistakes, or if they have been designed in a way that favour something else than learning (eq : have there been malicious intention ?)).