Independant game developer Wolfgang Deutsch has posted a thought-provoking rant over at his games and software development blog, On Programming, taking the industry and more specifically, programmers within the industry, to task over their seeming lack of appreciation for quality coding practices. As one would expect from a blog about coding practices and software development, coders take the brunt of the rant for ignoring proper coding practices within their implemented code and for many times simply substituting hacks in-place of actual tested code. Also included is a stern warning for producers to pay more attention to their project’s souce code, keeping an eye out for apathetic or just plain pathetic comments or notes explaining hacks to the source that just may end up in the final product. Though I’ve heard many excuses from many conferences, blogs and presentations on what ails the gaming industry, this is honestly the first time I’ve heard a rant against the coding practices of the industry’s developers. I have to admit, though many points in Deutsch’s post do ring with some truth to my ears (er, eyes), I think these are but some of the many problems that ail the mainstream gaming industry.

I’ll end this with a random quote from Wolfgang’s rant on the lack of quality coding practices within the games industry..

The real reason for exploding costs in game development is incompetent software developers. I am sorry to say. It’s not the big, all encompassing, unrelenting and unchangeable advancement of technology and refinement of consumer taste and expectations, neither is it those “risk averse” publishers who won’t finance your creative idea. No, it is simply incompetence. Our skill in devising reliable and flexible software architectures is, to put it mildly, severely lacking.

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