Sunlight

Last week I showed the coding methodology that we use at Ronimo , which describes our workflow. This week we'll have a look at what our actual code looks like, which is defined in our coding style guide . The idea behind our style guide is that if all code is formatted in a similar manner then it's easier to read and edit each other's code. For example, reading a different bracing style or naming convention usually takes some getting used to, and we avoid that altogether by having a strict style guide that all programmers at Ronimo must follow. I haven't seen a whole lot of style guides from other companies, but from what I've heard our style guide is quite a lot stricter than what's common elsewhere. I'm not sure whether that's true, but I can totally imagine it is since I'm known for being precise (sometimes maybe overly much). Our style guide isn't set in stone though: there's an exception to every rule. If our style guide really doesn...

I'm a strong believer in working in a structured way. As a game programmer you need to build complex systems and just going with the flow isn't good enough. That's why I've written two documents to describe how we code at Ronimo , which every programmer and intern gets to read on their first day. Our Methodology document explains the workflow while the Style Guide explains the layout of our code. Today I'd like to show our Methodology and describe the reasoning behind the rules in this document. Note that the contents of this document aren't very original: most if it is a combination of common agile practices that I like. Let's start by having a look at the actual methodology document: The Ronimo coding methodology General method of implementing a new feature: Analyse what should be made. Discuss approach with end users (usually artists and/or designers) and lead programmer. Split into small tasks of a day at most. Make a basic planning for the small task...

In the past 7.5 years I have supervised over a dozen programming interns at Ronimo and have seen hundreds of portfolios of students and graduates. In almost all of those I saw the same things that they needed to learn. One might expect that I think they need to learn specific techniques, algorithms or math, or other forms of specific knowledge. And of course they do, but in my opinion that is never the main thing. The main thing they need to learn is self discipline . The discipline to always write the clearest code you can, the discipline to refactor code if it becomes muddy through changes later in development, the discipline to remove unused code and add comments. Most of the time I spend supervising programming interns is spent on these topics. Not on explaining advanced technologies or the details of our engine, but on making them write better code in general. I always ask applicants what they think is important in being a good programmer and they usually answer that code should ...

An important question in code structure is whether to make classes work together through composition or inheritance. The "has a" relationship versus the "is a" relationship. For example: a seat has a cushion and a seat is a piece of furniture. While in this example the difference is really obvious, there are in practice many cases where both could make sense. Does a character in a game have a collision box, or is it a collidable object? These are not the same, but each can be used as the main structure for collision handling (or even both together) and it is not always clear which is better. In my experience intuition often favours inheritance, but it gives so many problems that in many cases composition is better. Let's first have a look at an example of how the same problem can often be solved in both ways. In Awesomenauts we have a separate class that handles the 'physics' of a character. This class handles things like gravity, knockback, sliding...

Bugs are usually caused by simple things like typos and oversights. As a programmer, this might make you think you need to become smarter and concentrate better, or maybe you conclude that bugs are simply part of any programmer's life. Both are of course partially true, but there is more to it than that. There are methods that can be used to reduce the chance of creating bugs (even though such methods won't fix all of them). One of those is better coding structure. Ideally code is structured in such a way that mistakes and oversights are not possible, and that the code is easy to understand. In practice these goals are often not fully achievable, for example because they contradict with the amount of time you have to build it, or the performance requirements, or maybe the problem you are solving is just too complex for easy code. Nevertheless, striving for good structure does make a big difference. Today I would like to give a couple of examples of common coding practices in C+...

Today brings the finale to this epic series of two posts on the many connections between Italian eating habits and creating games. Whereas last week I discussed how lasagne influences game design in a good way, today I will talk about all kinds of Italian food. I will explain why programmers should not only fear the dreaded spaghetti, but also the less-known evil of lasagne. And how about pizza and ravioli? What can they learn us about the art of code? Note that I realise that the food metaphors might be slightly lame, but the point of this post is that I think it is important to think about the implications of various structures and methods of programming, and this blogpost is basically just an analysis of some pitfalls and approaches. Most programmers know the term spaghetti code . It refers to a larger code base that is so intertwined, that is it impossible to know how the rest of the code reacts when you change something somewhere. Every line of code might be referencing almost any...