Dun's Blog

So, I haven’t posted in a while… Mostly because of being busy and partly because I have had little on my mind to talk about.

However, today I am going to talk about charity. I have recently signed up to participate in the Extra Life charity to benefit localish children’s hospital.

So what is Extra Life all about?

Well in short it is a 24 hour game-athon in which the sponsored player plays games from 8 am October 16th to 8 am October 17. The participating gamer is sponsored by donors who give via the gamers donation page. Read more about it here .

As a gamer it will be a lot of fun for me because I get to play games for 24 hours straight and give to a good cause.

I would love to see more people and teams participating. We are all tied together under one banner in the development world and that is “gamer”. We love games and many of us love to help others, so it is win win!

If you want to participate read more about Extra Life here or if you just want to donate you can donate to me here . Either way its a good time and a good cause!

– Jason

The dirty side of software development, you know that dark time sink called Documentation. It seems that many shops suffer from not enough documentation, mostly in the realm of end user material. I know the software I use in my day job often suffers from a sparse documentation set, though they are revising how they release and present documentation so that may be a moot issue soon!

I used to be very hard on developers that provided documentation the left you twisting in the wind when it came to certain things. Though, I still believe documentation is important, as I have been asked to write an increasing number of guides, tutorials, and documentation sets I understand why this is often the last thing done. It is a major time sink. Hours spent regurgitating things and testing them can be taxing.

However, I think it is a sign of a truly good developer/development team if they provide good documentation that is regularly updated.

There are some things we as developers can do in order to provide documentation and keep it up to date.

1) Make use of tools like Doxigen. This is a huge time saver in creating a basic set of documentation.

2) Post your documentation in a wiki. There is nothing more flexible for users and developers alike.

3) Keep a local copy of the documentation that you can update on the fly. This allows you to update the docs locally and update the changes to your website when you have time.

4) Recruit interns and students. Writing documentation is an excellent way to gain an understanding how something works. Students crave and need this understanding; it’s a win win situation.

5) Allow the community to contribute revisions. Of course you will need to review proposed changes. See #4

6) Regularly review your documentation to ensure you haven’t let something age.

7) Do Not make changes for changes sake. If it hasn’t been updated don’t bother touching it.

Of course there are tons of ways to provide documentation, some better than others, either way just remember that good documentation is crucial.

*Goes back to writing more documentation*

Studying in a specialized degree such as Game Programming or Game Design really focuses a student on a specific skill set. We have classes that teach us to code, to model, to bring ideas into reality. We especially have classes in the later years that are geared toward teaching us how to sell ourselves.
In this industry that is exactly what you have to do. You have to sell yourself, often in some very creative ways.

The biggest tool in a student’s/industry wannabe’s repertoire is his/her portfolio. A portfolio is used to show you have skills that a studio/project needs and cannot do without. EVERYONE interested in the games industry should have one, this is excluding those higher ups like executives because their portfolio is their resume.

Of course a portfolio is not an easy thing to build. There are requirements to portfolios, things you cannot do with out and things you should not have on there at all.

Here is a basic stripped down list that is in no way definitive or job specific:

• Quality examples of your work
• Quality examples of your work in action
• The ability to download your resume
• Contact information

It is a short list for a reason. This is not your blog, your fansite, or a site for you to voice your opinions. This is a site to advertise a product, you, and should only contain information about the product, you.
So, let’s look at this list of ours.

“Quality examples of your work” sounds simple right? It is. If you are proud of this work and is something you think someone should give you money for doing, put it on the site. However, there are some basic rules. First, be honest with yourself. If it is a stick figure, maybe the best stick figure EVER, and you are an artist it probably shouldn’t go in your portfolio (unless of course it is part of the game).

“Quality examples of your work in action” see above and add the following. If your art, code, models, etc are in game this is awesome! Put a video of it on your site and show off your work in action. This shows that you can complete something useful and put it into action. Nothing sells better than showing a product in action. If you balk at the idea of making a video, don’t, fraps is cheap and youtube is free. Use the tools and use google to fine them. I promise you can make a great portfolio on the cheap.

“The ability to download your resume” this is a very “Duh!” style statement. The site is meant to sell a product, you, and should have information on the product aside from showing how it works. This information should include the products work history, education, experience, etc… It should be no more than 1 page, unless you have extensive experience within the field you are working in, if it is longer than one page then you are fluffing and you need to revise it.

HR people see thousands of resume’s that all look the same. They do not want to read a manuscript about anyone, in fact I imagine a mass resume burning in HR departments once a position is filled, grass skirts, war paint, the works. So keep it short but make it good.

The resume should be made available in at least two formats, .doc and .pdf, avoid the new M$ .docx format because some people might not be able to open that format. Oh, and name your resume with something other than “resume”! It should have something meaning full such as smithJason_resume. That give my full name and what the file is in a friendly organize able format.

“Contact information” yes, they need to know where to find the product! Basically you can just put the basic e-mail address, no need to broadcast all your information if you don’t want to. If you do put an e-mail address please make it professional, and no PinkKittyIs_1337@kittykitty.com is not professional. Another, even better option, is to have a contact form added to your page where they can easily contact you for information without having to leave your webpage.

Some other notes for those of you still reading, you poor poor bastards, any links to project sites that you have worked on, and you have thought to include those right?, should open a new window. Try to avoid closing or navigating away from your webpage as much as possible. Remember, this is mostly about the product.

Oh! And keep things simple. Yes, flash is neat and pretty but it is annoying, prone to break, takes too long to load, and often does not work in workplaces (thank you sys admins!) so avoid it if you can.

I have been an online student at DeVry University for almost 3 years and I have learned a lot in such a short time. While I have learned a lot about myself and the subjects I am studying (Game and Simulation Programming), the amount I have actually learned about the woes and benefits of online learning are far more…. interesting.

For me the move from Columbus State University to DeVry Online was a move of convenience. Working a full time job and going to school is a huge challenge for anyone and I was no exceptions. As I moved into a new position at work the demands on my time started encroaching on school work. This caused my grades to slowly start slipping below acceptable levels. I needed the ability to still learn without having to actually show up in a class room and listen to lectures. This led me to looking at online schooling and DeVry just seemed to offer the things I wanted.

Of course the biggest attraction to any virtual learning opportunity lies in the flexibility. The ability to log into your class and participate anywhere in the world at any time is a powerful tool. For me this allows me to stay late at the office or travel to remote locations and still be able to go to class and be a student.

This same flexibility applies to teachers as well. Students are no longer limited to the faculty on campus. Instead teachers from many different schools and business direct students through the course material. I say ‘direct’ in this case because the amount of teaching they do is limited, if present at all.

Courses at DeVry are designed by a course designer, often one of the teachers. This acts as the outline for the class that can be adjusted by the teachers on a class by class basis or can be followed to the letter. Depending on the dedication of the teacher classes can range from challenging and interesting to just going through the motions. Often, the class feels like the teacher is just going through the motions.

This leads to the fact that you are truly on your own when it comes to the material covered in the class. Yes, you can contact the teachers for advice and help but this takes a lot more time than if you were in a traditional learning environment because most communication is done via postings in discussions or emails. As such, students must help themselves by doing research, reading course materials, and a lot of self teaching. To me this is both a positive and a negative aspect of virtual learning. For those who tend to learn better through coaching virtual learning is going to be a lot more difficult. However, those who are more apt to learn on their own are going to excel.

There are some solutions to these issues that students can make use of. First and foremost is to help each other. There are a multitude of programs that help facilitate communication (IM’s, Forums, IRC, etc). Second and equally important is for each student to find a way to challenge his or her self outside of the course work. In my case I have become a programming apprentice of two well seasoned programmers. Third, contribute to your field of interest. If you want to be a programmer than program! To do this I am using my apprenticeship to contribute to the Indie Game Engine which gives me both experience and resume material. Finally, and this is very important, don’t try to do it all yourself.