ID:119188
 
Let me start off by saying my last few blog posts were simple, short updates/questions, but not much substantial. I thought I'd get a bit of writing done today, so here it is.

Perhaps it's because I'm of the younger generation (after all, I'm only a sophomore in college - technically), but it seems tastes in nearly everything are vastly different even here on BYOND. For example, if I had to narrow down my top 3 music genre's, it'd be very strange:

House, Acoustic, and then Classical. But the strangest thing happened. A BYOND member earlier this morning claimed house music was "the gayest music [he's] heard in a long time." I thought it was interesting. Not particularly insulting, but I was just intrigued as to how much negative energy can flow just from a style one isn't particularly fond or accustomed to. Likewise, in my programming class, my professor would rather teach the entire class in COBOL rather than C or C++, and then just opted for sole pseudo-code to split the difference (which didn't go over well with students).

More and more as I come to this local Starbucks, slaving away at my endless piles of homework for my 20.5 unit semester, I see students coming here and engulfing, like myself, a deluge of coffee within a mere two hours. It's horrible, I know, but why? Why is my generation, and every generation chronologically (my generation isn't the only one) obsessed with getting faster? Quicker, more efficient. I understand we want things done, but my biggest question remains that what's the real point at getting everything done so quickly? I opted to stay at a JC for 3 years so I could improve my GPA (I'll be transferring with a 3.85), but secretly it's because I wanted to enjoy my time rather than work the whole time (ironically, I still work the whole time, but at least I enjoy some of my classes). I attempted polyphasic sleeping (quit that) because I wanted more time, but it was nearly a farcical; I wanted to stay up later, but at the same time wanted to do things quicker. I wanted to save time, and then add even more time to my life. Of course, in our puny human brains (or maybe just my puny human brain) this seems like a good idea, but recently I learned that sleep is a God-given gift and I should enjoy it while I can.

I guess my initial point here really had nothing to do with the outcome of this blog post - to be honest, I just started writing and hoped I'd be able to fill in the text box. I got a little further than simply filling it, I guess. Anyways, my advice here is this: Don't rush everything. Sure, GiaD encourages it (not really), but make sure you put in full effort into something rather than half-assing it just so you can get it done in 20 minutes. Why do I maintain straight A's with my heavy workload? Because I spend 5 hours a day studying/memorizing material (give or take). Why is my relationship with my girlfriend healthy? Because I take time to enjoy my time spent with her (however little that is - she lives a decent distance away, so I see her twice a week). Give up your concept of multi-tasking. If you are doing your dishes, keep focused on cleaning the dishes. If you are doing your math, put the laptop away and take out paper, pencil, and your math book. Phone off, and just start doing the problems.

Guaranteed not only will you do it faster, but you'll learn it quicker and actually understand it far better. You'll be able to appreciate everything you do, and you'll be able to do it all well. Don't worry about how long something takes. If a game you're developing should take 20 weeks to make, then spend 20 weeks to make it. Don't try to cram it into 3 weeks and say that you've got something you're proud of. Because it'll probably suck.

I should take a writing class. That way these blog posts can be even better quality.
Our need to be ever efficient is driven by our prior generation, and the nature of our society. Parents want their children to have the opportunities they did not, the system of business will never say to a worker "You've done your worker quick / better than usual, go chill out for a day".

Our life is structured to be a series of demands on us and tasks for us to do, and we (collectively) are the ones that imposed this. Your post makes demands on me, even. The only real difference between that and my job is a sense of which demands I should heed more.

I prefer a system where-by we share "what works for us" in a less demanding manner. I've always felt that with their being so many of us around, there must be a good many "good approaches" to leading your life, that work for different people. Given that, it wouldn't make too much sense for me to constantly place specific demands on people, so much as general social contracts.

"If you do X, I shall do Y". The option is open for them to do X if they wish, and they are aware of what my response may be. Same goes if I'm fortunate enough to have the same in return, I know how my options weigh up much better.
I don't particularly have a proper response to your post Stephen much more than I agree. Especially in a corporate world, which many countries advocate (though so many people wish to say they didn't), efficiency is necessary. It's a given. I suppose efficiency however is different than speed. It's both speed and good quality. I guess my emphasis is just more on the good quality. The more you do something well, speed will just come along naturally.

Also note: I discourage anyone to be lazy. It irks me when I see people sit on the couch 6 days a week.
How much is 20.5 per semester? In here it would be the equivalent of 3 heavy courses and plus a small course. I tried that, a bit of a headache if you ask me. I think there was only one semester where I took 4 courses, I usually altered between 3 and 2 - 12-16 units per semester (but then, I had an early start by about 4 years, so I never felt much pressure time-wise in uni).
I'm not sure that people are really rushing things. Newer generations will have different expectations than older generations. One generation had to spend 6-8 hours reading a book to be entertained. The next generation could get the same entertainment in 30 minutes from a radio or TV show.

If you drive to work going 5 miles an hour under the speed limit, by today's standards you're not rushing. By the standards of the 1800s when people didn't have cars and the same trip would have been expected to take four times as long, you'd be rushing.

I don't lack the ability to focus because I expect entertainment to come in 22 minute episodes, it's just because of the time I've grown up in that I'm accustomed to this. That being said, sometimes people do lack the ability to focus and they do rush. The GiaD is an example of this. The typical BYOND project goes like this: a developer posts a screenshot or demo, some people say "hey that's neat", then the developer stops working on it. The GiaD needlessly accelerates the process and makes it acceptable to quit working on the project. It's not a product of people's expectations that games should be developed in a day, it's just lazy.

Don't worry about how long something takes. If a game you're developing should take 20 weeks to make, then spend 20 weeks to make it. Don't try to cram it into 3 weeks and say that you've got something you're proud of. Because it'll probably suck.

The problem is: how do you know it's supposed to take 20 weeks to make? You're really just guessing. If it should take 20 weeks and you guess it should take 10, you're not intentionally rushing - it was just a bad guess.
Toadfish wrote:
How much is 20.5 per semester? In here it would be the equivalent of 3 heavy courses and plus a small course. I tried that, a bit of a headache if you ask me. I think there was only one semester where I took 4 courses, I usually altered between 3 and 2 - 12-16 units per semester (but then, I had an early start by about 4 years, so I never felt much pressure time-wise in uni).

It's 7 courses, 4 of them being "heavy", 1 being "medium", and 2 being "small" courses. I had to get permission from counselors, if that helps.

Forum_account: You bring excellent points, on both accounts. I was raised into wanting things quicker, because of the environment surrounding me. Similarly, you are correct in stating "How should one know it should take 20 weeks?" However, look at this:

Say you've got a project, and you're all alone in it. You can cover the programming no problem, but you know your artwork is dreadful and it will take you some time to even get your basic sprites going, let alone your environment. As well, though you may be proficient at programming, you want to experiment with a brand new concept for yourself (I can't think of one at the moment). Don't allot yourself a simple week to try to finish this project. Handle each task as it needs to be handled and pace yourself to a point where you are productive, but not overwhelming yourself and rushing an unfinished product.

The more experience you have, the better your guess will be. A newbie would guess that it takes between one day and three years to make a game. Someone with more experience would guess it'd take between two and eight months to make the same game.

The catch is that you don't know when you're way off. Refining your estimate doesn't mean you're more experienced. The only way to know is to see how other people of similar experience levels are making estimates and assume that the correct answer is somewhere around the average guess. The problem with this is that BYOND doesn't have enough good developers. It's not necessarily a good idea to base your development timeline on what other people are doing.

Handle each task as it needs to be handled and pace yourself to a point where you are productive, but not overwhelming yourself and rushing an unfinished product.

The reason an unfinished product is bad is because you're not learning as much as you could. To apply this to homework instead of game development - if you start your homework at the last minute you'll rush through it and might complete it, but you won't learn nearly as much as if you had spent an appropriate amount of time on it.

You want to work hard enough on something that you are just getting to the point where you're overwhelmed. If I knew anything about exercising I'm sure there are lots of parallels that could be drawn - you increase your flexibility by trying to go a little bit past the limit of your ability.

I guess this is why game development is intimidating. People want to create a big game on the first try, they don't want to take small steps and increase their ability gradually. If you think you're going to go from lifting 100 pound weights to lifting 300 pound weights in a week, you're sorely mistaken and will probably give up on weightlifting within the week. The same goes for game development, but how many BYOND game developers are working their way up to more and more complex games? I can't name any.

I sense a demo/tutorial coming out of this... or maybe a trip to the gym.