Abstraction

So today in class my teacher was giving us the usual BS… people don’t know how to scroll a webpage… bla bla. So I’ve turned to thinking bigger and better things.

As I was surfing the web, toucharcade specifically, I saw a new social gaming service called GFace. Its being developed by Crytek, and about the only interesting thing about it is the possibility for same game, different gameplay based on device. That sparked my thoughts on how things are so often done poorly. I think the biggest reason is that people misuse the ideas of abstraction. People read abstract and thing guy who cut off his ear, or hey time to be lazy!, but abstraction is the key to humanity. It’s how humans developed language, built pyramids and most importantly how large teams of people develop video games! So often though mediocre work is done in the abstraction process and we’re stuck with GaGa instead of the Beatles.

It is so important that when we are thinking we think things through and don’t rest until the unseen part of the fence is painted, so to speak.

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I forgot the point of this post…

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I think I was trying to preach sound engineering or something to that effect…

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Ok I remember. The point is to never accept what your teacher says until you have done the leg work yourself. There is so much to learn in the world that every time you come across something useful stash it away and abstract it. What that means is don’t just let it float in one ear and out the other, but go over the idea, write it down, polish it. Once you’ve got the idea fully down you will be able to abstract properly and use sometimes the most basic of ideas will stretch to fit most circumstances you find yourself in, and in the end the little bit of extra effort in the beginning, will pay you back many times more.

Effort is worth it, half-assery is the leading cause of ass-duchery. (more on ass-duchery later)