A new son - attempt number #2

So, I mentioned briefly we had received another referral. We got another boy, which was quite surprising but gratifying. We had to wait on the medical translation due to the Chinese New Year and them all off having a good time, with no thought to us parents to be who are sitting here agonizing about how invested we should get with the pictures we've been sent - swine - and finally it arrived.

And it was good. No brain hemorrhaging this time thank you - we got what looks like a normal healthy baby boy, if with some rather interesting hair.

I waited until we signed on the dotted line to say "yup, we'll take him" and since we did that yesterday I feel it's probably ok to present him to the world.

Anyway, so here are some pics -

Posted at 15/02/2008 03:13:58 PM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Life, Family

Programming Tests part 3 (or is it 4?)

I didn't realise my article was going to be published on Gamasutra (it's great though!) but it has generated a fair bit of discussion and one of the things that I hadn't really considered (but have thought a bit about today) is that of What Knowledge Do You Want?

So there you are, doing your technical tests. What do you _Actually_ want to know about the person? Well, obviously you want to know that _they_ know "what they are doing".

But what tells you that? Does knowing the order derived virtual destructors are called in qualify?

Well, it kinda does and it kinda doesn't.

There's what I call institutional knowledge (what a hick would call
"book learnin'", and there's what I call experience knowledge.

The afore mentioned question is a good one, but it's very institutionalized - it's a binary thing and you either know it or you don't; this is why questions of this nature are so popular - because it's easy to judge the answer.

Experience knowledge is far harder to test, but is of far more immense value. One of the reasons it's hard to test for is that you really need to have it (and recognise it for what it is) in order to recognise it in other people.

It's *much* more subjective too - although it's possible to look for situations where your candidate has hit a particular problem and listen more to the description of what the problem was than the actual solution - most people tend to focus on the solution but that's one of those things that tend to be very situationally specific. Obviously the very wrong solution is something to take notice of, but generally the solutions are very specific to the environment in which the problem was found, and often can't be compared to your environment, which is what happens. - I'm sure you've been in interviews where the interviewer wants to argue about a solution you came to because it's not what they would have done related to their specific situation.

Now realistically for good experience knowledge to exist, and for the candidate to have solved whatever situation he was in, the afore mentioned institutional knowledge is required - otherwise he has no tools in his tool box with which to fix the original problem.

So from my point of view if you start in at the experience knowledge then you kinda get the institutional knowledge along for the ride, since you kinda _have_ to dip into that in order to really explain what was done.

Thats one of the reasons why I rail a bit about technology tests - they often aren't an invitation for a discussion but more a check list "he knows that, he doesn't know this".

My style is far more conversational since thats how I think people develop < shrug > YMMV.

Posted at 14/02/2008 05:45:48 PM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Game Development

My god! It's full of Coders!

Someone from the UK emailed me this -
Hey,

I'm in my 2nd semester in 1st year at uni studying for a Computer Games Programming degree at Staffordshire Uni, so far so good and just been learning C and Java which I am finding pretty easy at the moment (useful being a programmer and all..), but I just was wondering how the promotion thing goes.

I have been looking around a few games jobs and you have the junior programmer, programmer, senior programmer, lead programmer etc. Are these all? Or are there more? Just trying to figure out what sort of direction I would be going in when in the games industry. It doesn't help there are all sorts of different types of programmers, physics, AI etc. although I did choose an extra module so I can study AI methods as I do find it more interesting.


I thought my response might be of some interest..

"OK, so programmer career path, such as it is.

Generally it goes
Intern
Junior Programmer - all checkins over seen, entrusted with certain smaller systems or modification to larger system
Programmer - entrusted with mid level systems - usually game side. Stuff like joystick input systems, glue code between systems, pipeline tools and so on. May well design systems with oversight from the senior programmer.
Senior Programmer - Entrusted with engine level systems / large game side systems. E.g. Animation, Networking, rendering- root systems like that. He's an architect of systems, and how they fit together along with usage cases.

All disciplines tend to be covered in this area - junior programmers don't tend to be specialists, mid level programmers move into a specialization and senior programmers either get in much deeper into their specific discipline, or they make a concerted effort to get out and become a generalist.

Now then it deviates into several area's once you get to a senior level - you can move into a Lead position or into Technical Direction.

A lead programmer is one direction to go in that effectively means management experience. You'll generally have a team of programmers reporting to you and you have to start dealing with stuff like schedules, code dependencies, and interfacing with other departments in terms of delivering what they need when they need it, as well as saying no to some feature requests.

A lead programmer is basically responsible for handing the finished game on a disc to the publisher. He's going to sit with the designers and work out what the feature set is for a game, what is possible, what is not, what the areas of risk are and how important / likely they are to get done. It's all give and take in terms of what's required and what's possible and likely that can get done with the people he has and the time he has.

He's going to set the delivery schedule of what gets delivered when (in conjunction with the seniors who are going to be doing the design / implementation of the big risk items) and attempts to make the team to stick to it.

Realistically if you get to Lead Programmer then if you have more than 8 people reporting to you, you aren't going to be writing any code, nor should you be responsible for developing any critical path systems - that's what other people are for. You _should_ be reviewing all the checkins, but not actually writing much yourself (unless it's a tool or some firefighting is required).

Now Leads generally end up managers, and their coding skills often go to crap. With the speed that our industry moves at, a Lead Programmer from 5 years ago probably wouldn't have a clue how a shader is written, nor the deeper deferred rendering tricks you can do with them - he'll have an overview understanding but I doubt he could implement it; this is just something you have to accept as a Lead Programmer.

Some companies split the lead programmer role into two actual positions - one that is purely management of the schedule and having the programmers report to them for personnelly things (EA does this - they call them Development Directors). These people do have to have a technical background but really are all about management of the people and making sure the jobs get done.

The Lead Programmer in this case is now free to concentrate on the codebase, architecture decisions and the generation of tasks for the coders who report to him to do. In this situation I would expect the Lead Programmers skills to not atrophy as much as in the traditional model. However this model is not the norm.

Going into the Technical Director role is slightly different.

Generally Technical Directors don't have anyone reporting to them (or if they do, it's purely a Lead Programmer) - they act as oversight to the lead programmers architecture choices, they make recommendations on external 3rd party software, they set the development process of how the game is made (what the check in policy is and so on), and generally act as riding shotgun for the lead programmer. If something goes down in flames it's the Technical Director who leaps in there to help fix it all up. So he's got to be a generalist by definition.

Technical Directors move up into the CTO role, which is the overall company technology strategist - they set the technological rules the company runs on "We are using Unreal 3" or "There will be no STL in our codebase" or whatever. Basically a higher level Technical Director.

Now that's an internal Technical Director. There are also 3rd party TD's - these work for the publishers and they are basically the publishers technologically tuned eyes and ears on a given project. They usually have several projects they are working on, traveling to different developers, working with them on trouble spots, offering 3rd party assistance and also giving a technical judgment on those developers back to the publisher. A TD can totally have a game canceled if he doesn't believe the team is able to actually deliver on it's promises because of it's bad tools pipeline or lack of technical ability in a given area.

Now CTO is as high as you can go, and generally there's probably 200 of those positions in the world. And the competition is fierce. Most programmers either decide to just stay at a senior level, rack up the salary as high as it will go and just stay there. The alternative is to move into a lead programmer position, and from there move into production as a producer or as a Development Executive.

Really it depends on how comfortable and successful you can be at management.

I hope that helps."

Posted at 13/02/2008 11:24:06 PM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Game Development

Gettin' Rich or Die Tryin'

Hmm.

So recently a friend has asked for some help finding work in the games industry, and in attempting to help him out I found some interesting questions being asked by other people as I talked to them about my buddy.

These were people from outside the industry who kept asking why I was spending my time and my contacts to help this person and what happens if he makes a mint at where-ever he ends up at, cos we all know game developers drive ferraris right (Well, apart from me, obviously, but apparently I am just a crap negotiator to my friends).

Annnnyway. Basically the subject of "how do you get rich in the games industry" came up and I was explaining my thoughts on the subject and I thought I might echo them here.

Firstly, if you come into the games industry to get rich, you might as well go back where you came from. The number of people in this industry who generate serious wealth for themselves (and I define that as Never Having To Worry About Money Again Even If They Just Sat On The Beach All Day For The Rest Of Their Lives) is vanishingly small.

In fact, the old joke goes that the fastest way to make rich man poor is for him to invest in a video game company.

You have to a) be in the right place at b) the right time with c) the right product and d) have a contract (or own the company) that entitles you to some of the impending profits.

Good luck making all that happen.

Still, it can happen and it does for some devs. There are several ways to get there -

1) Be on a small team who makes a mega hit in a company that likes to reward the development team. Epic, Gearbox, Bungie, Infinity Ward, 3D Realms are all companies with policies like this, and the teams are small enough that the sums awarded are most assuredly worth having. Having said that unless you are one of the leads / top guys you won't be retiring on the bonuses and maybe not even then.
NOTE - coming in after a massive hit has happened makes your chances of making out big time on bonuses far less. Thats just the reality of it. a) the team is now larger and diluting the pool and b) you weren't there to start the magic in the first place, so you come second in the hand outs.

2) Own a company that has a massive hit. That way you hand out the bonuses and you can award yourself anything you want.

3) Be a top level Exec at a place like EA or Take 2 and award yourself gobs of stock options and bonuses.

4) Own a company with some decent IP and sell out to a big company like Microsoft.
NOTE - you do need the decent IP for the serious wealth here - being a great port house means you'll sell for 10m (which isn't 10m after fees and taxes are done, and in most cases is stock which you can't sell for a set amount of time anyway). Owning a hit IP means you'll sell for 30+m. IP ownership is everything in this business which is why publishers will *always* try and own it.

5) Have a very rich relative who dies and leaves it all to you.

That last one works for all industries in fact; if you have a rich and elderly relative that wants to adopt a 40 year old, please let me know.

So basically you either have to Become An Exec (and there's a quite a lot of competition for that) or Own a Company to make out like a bandit in this industry.

Now that's not to say a very decent living can't be eeked out, particularly if you are considered to be an Above The Line (ie better than the average) developer - depending on where you base yourself you can live a very comfortable life making games.

But don't expect to make out unless you have enough entrepreneurial ability to start and sustain your own games company.

Posted at 13/02/2008 09:24:15 PM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Game Development

Good Old Religion

So it seems the ArchBishop of Canterbury is advocating Shari (IE Muslim Religious law - that which governs Iran and so on) law for civil cases in the UK.

The idea being that if you want a divorce you can choose to take it through the religious courts (if both sides agree) rather than the UK legal ones.

Now give him his due, he's not advocating Shari Law for criminal cases - ie the lopping off of a hand for thievery and stoning of adulterers - but he is advocating it as an alternative stream for civil cases.

And, of course, it's generating uproar in the UK. It's a slippery slope, it's the first encroachment of Islam on UK soil and so on.

Well, quite a few people do this anyway - divorces are often handled by Imans at Mosques - the people in it just agree to abide by the decision and the UK courts are never involved. It's really not that much different from how lawyers do it in an arbitration case.

The big different is punitive punishment. What happens when you agree to an Islamic Shari interpretation, then break the covanent? You can't then take it to a UK court because the agreement wasn't made with UK law in mind in the first place. Whats the Shari courts authority? Well none (unless they send in the heavies), so it really all falls down, since without the binding agreement in and ability to enforce punitive measures behind it, the whole thing is pretty meaningless.

That's the difference between Lawyers doing it and a Shari court; the lawyers are doing their negotiation mindful and in full understanding of what UK law (which has the power to enforce) says. A Shari court is not.

But that aside, lets examine the reasoning behind why an Archbishop of a competing religion thinks that Shari Law should be given a try. Hmmm, what reasoning could he have?

Could it, perchance, have anything to do with the fact that 75% of the UK is Church Of England, and if there's Shari Law then ipso facto there can then be a COE law / court as well? I wonder if thats occurred to him.

Right now there is massive dispute between the COE and the UK Legal system about the Blasphemy laws. The Establishment wants them cast down entirely, particularly in cases of Homosexuality (The COE wants the right to call Gay People an Abhorrance - they want an excerpt from the Intolernace laws). The COE wants them cast down to, to be replaced by even nastier ones. If the COE got the ability to try civil cases in its own courts, and could demonstrate that people were actually using them, I wonder what kind of power it would have in demanding new Blasphemy laws?

There's always a reason for stuff like this, deep down.

In other news, hopefully the RSS should be formatting correctly now. I've moved the Last Update, Hit Counter and all the links across to the MySQL DB now, and I'm going to do the Galleries next. Then it's just the blog / comments.

Then I intend to add Search to the website, and tidy up the nasty long links.

It's all just time, isn't it?

Posted at 09/02/2008 12:00:29 PM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Life, Rants

One other thing - RSS change

I'm modifying the RSS output to put all the blog content in there instead of the just One Third I've been doing till now.

I use Googles RSS reader and having it all there in one stream is Just The Way To Go.

So apologies to Joe Siegler and Mat Nougchi who told me that was what I should do and I completely ignored them.

Hopefully this should all work right now.

Except it doesn't. Well, it does, but it's not formatting the XML correctly for web usage.
Damn.

Well, I've also update the counter so it doesn't use a flat file any more. First use of MySQL on this site! Wooo!

Next up I'll fix the XML for the RSS going forward, and start porting all the posts into MySQL instead of the local files, which should fix some of the problems of posts getting corrupted.

Posted at 06/02/2008 09:27:37 AM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Misc

Adoption Prose

When we were first adopting our little girl we went to a party a friend had and met a producer for the Hallmark Channel. She was an extremely nice individual and was totally interested in our story, so much so that she put us in touch with the production group for their ongoing Adoption TV Show.

Anyway, they asked us to put a little bit of prose together to talk about our process and since I was in a jovial mood, I wrote something up. I just came across it the other day and re-read it with a smile.

What I wrote follows - I just thought you guys might be interested. All the dates are way out of date now, but it's an interesting insight into the whole decision to adopt process.

We didn't get on the show - our story wasn't sufficiently against all odds enough to be an episode - no Problem In Life for the second act. But that's ok, I'm not sure I would have wanted to adopt with a film crew following me around anyway.

So here it is.

"So here it is, the greatest story on earth - the story of Jake and Cathy?s adoption of little Mila.
Actually it's a pretty mundane story as adoptions go - no one needed brain surgery (although there were several large scale open-wallet surgeries occurring), no one had 'the man' dead set against them, and no one broke out in song at any part either.

For a little background, we are Jake and Cathy Simpson. Jake is from England, and has that charming British accent that gets him out of so many speeding tickets. Cathy is from the Chicago area and is as American as apple pie, and just as tasty. We've just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, and plan on spending the rest of our lives together, unless Hallmark starts a series on Divorce and we can get them interested.

Our story starts about 4-5 years ago, when we lived in Chicago. We had been trying to have children for several years, not really taking much notice of the lack of success because the trying was so much fun. Eventually we began to realize that it wasn't doing what we had been lead to believe by "Jane's book of the Birds and the Bees" would be the natural eventuality, and so we went straight to font of all knowledge - Ann Landers - for help.
After searching back issues of the paper and not finding what we needed, we thought about going to a doctor, so we started seeing a fertility specialist. To cut a long story into smaller pieces, we both had medical issues that had to be taken care of, and after about two years of being prodded, cut up, pieced back together again, and generally messed around with, we went forward. We did the progression that most couples did of fertility drugs, then on to artificial insemination, (where I learned one did not actually have to even be in the room to create life with ones spouse. Clever, but ultimately not quite as satisfying).
None was successful, so we moved on to IVF, spending more of the insurance companies money with gay abandon.
That wasn't successful either, and at this point Cathy was starting to feel somewhat like a pin cushion. I empathized, since I was the one making her feel like it, what with my constant insistence on a prick twice a day. So we decided to take a break before starting a second round.

Suddenly life intruded and enquired if we were ready for a slap in the face yet? We said no, but it did it anyway. I was made redundant and we ended up moving to Wisconsin, where the medical insurance companies are tighter than a ducks bottom and wouldn't cough up for any more fertility treatments.
So we sat and looked at each other despondently, in a big bay window, with the rain streaming down outside, listening to mournful deep purple songs.
Then we decided that this wasn't getting us anywhere, and besides, the album had finished, and there wasn't a Movie cameraman around with us anyway, at least not one with a soft focus lens.
At which point we made the decision to adopt instead.

When we made that decision we went to a seminar a local adoption agency was running, regarding steps couples would take. We sat, we listened, and we were more than a little surprised concerning the dubiousness of the whole operation. It was a very "perhaps" activity, with large sums of money being laid out for the potential of one day, down the line, possibly, maybe, if the gods were smiling, it was a Tuesday and your name ended in a "D", a child becoming yours. It seemed that in over 30% of the cases all monies outlaid just vanished upon the lady in question having the child and deciding she didn't want to give it up. And that's assuming you actually got chosen from the large catalog of potential parents that cost 4k just to get into (not to mention a further 1k fee for each successive year you wanted to be in this list). The final cost of an adoption was put at between 20 and 30k depending on circumstance. Remember, 30% of all domestic adoptions don't go to term and that money is lost.
I distinctly remember at the end of this seminar asking, "So, lots fail then?" and the woman replying, "Well, if you really want to adopt, you will. You may be put to some expense first, but you'll get there eventually". To which I asked "Some Expense? Right. And where is this money coming from?" The answer I got I will carry with me forever - "Oh, you can hold things like garage sales and stuff like that".
Yes. Of course. What was I thinking? I don't know about you but we often find ourselves with around 20k after a good garage sale.

So, given that situation (and given the example of Cathy's brother and sister in law, who adopted two boys from Russia. Cathy's brother is an FBI agent. That must have been interesting explaining that to Russian immigration.), we decided that if we were thumping up that amount of cash we wanted at least some guarantees. Plus, after the baby Richard fiasco in Chicago about 4 years ago, (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go look it up. It's a triumph for biology over parental rights.) we decided we wanted to adopt a child with no possibility of biological parental intervention in later years.
Choosing China came about by simply looking at where a poor standard of living was to be found for a child, yet getting one that wouldn't have baby issues that would cause a problem down the line (IE fetal alcohol syndrome etc). Looking back on the decision it would be fair to say it's probably more than a little pompous, but on the other hand, what do you base a decision like that on?
Besides, I hear that Chinese girls are very good at finding the TV remote control when it's been lost, and really know how to mow a lawn well.
Why are you looking at me like that?

Given that it's China, it was going to be a girl, which we were both happy with. That or a boy. We'd have been happy with that too. Either in fact. Although some combination of the two would probably have given us some pause for thought.

So we started the process. Getting letters from friends, and then editing them with completely new content so we looked good, instead of what they wrote, but retaining the signatures. Gathering all the documents on work, home, probation and parole reports, witness protection programs, etc etc.
And then came the home study, which is a quite intense experience. Not that I think it shouldn't be done. I do, most strongly. I just think most biological parents should have to do it too. That would stop even the most ardent of ardor, some guy who holds absolute power over you asking you about your relationship with your father before you consummate.. And if it didn't dampen your enthusiasm, then you certainly shouldn't be having kids.
We passed that; so hiring other people to impersonate us?was probably a good move on our part.

Then, when all the documentation is done and sent off, we wait. Then we continue waiting, doing some waiting on the side, just incase it was needed. After that we waited a bit more, and did some waiting. We heard that the time for the Chinese adoption agency went up from 12 months to 13, then 14.
We did start to get a bit concerned that we hadn't waited enough so we got in some extra waiting on the weekend and while we were asleep, so we could have this in hand.
Time started adding up and then, Life Slapped Us Again. Harder this time. It's probably because we hadn't waited enough.

I was made an offer I couldn't defuse and we moved to California. While this doesn't impact our adoption at the Chinese end, this does affect it for American immigration. Now, this is all post 9/11, so Immigration is obvious tightening their rules and is less flexible and we find it difficult to get a concrete answer on what documentation needs to be re-done because of our move.
While this is happening, time is ticking on, and our petition to adopt filed with immigration moves closer to expiring (Feb 28th) - in which case we would have to reapply here in California with a new home study, more time spent doing it, and, oh look, a crap load more money! Hey, when you are drowning who cares about a cup of water right?
I care. We had worked out what we needed and had scrimped, saved and pulled it together. Another 3k suddenly required meant another loan, and we are stretched pretty thin as it is.
We looked at each other and made a decision that we'd find it if we had to. Time drew on. We went to parties. We met a very strange looking Angel and Devil at a costume party, but that's neither here nor there.

And then! And Then! We went to Chicago. No, that's boring. When we got back, on December 12th, we returned and found email with a picture of our little girl to be in it. We had our referral! We had been approved! We had fooled them all! Hahahahah!
In the days that followed we sorted out our documentation, solidified our travel plans, went out to eat a lot and spent crap loads at Babies R Us (Which I might point out is simply not fair. When I want to spend that amount in Best Buy I have to go the Supreme Court to get approval, but when it's for "the baby" well, that's fine. Well, two can play at that game. Next year for Christmas she's going to get a Digital Video Camera.).

When we got our travel dates we found that we returned on Feb 22nd, exactly 6 days before our petition to adopt expired. Now that's what I call cutting it close.
It also happens to be my birthday (in case anyone wants to get something? I'm still looking for seasons 4 to 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD?), and what more could I ask for then a little girl to bring home? Apart from a new 60-inch plasma wide screen High Definition TV obviously.

And that's our story.
Riveting isn't it?

Seriously, we make a point of trying to be down to earth about this. We don't want to be desperate parents doing the best we can to be all bright and chirpy. We decided to do this, after much anguish and lamenting (but no blaming) after realizing we couldn't do this through biological means. When we made the decision, we put it into motion and then deliberately took a step back because we didn't want to become desperate would be parents who spend their weekends gazing at families in the park, and decorating and re-decorating the babies room.
We knew we were in for a long wait, and to pass that without it preying on our minds we made a point of doing all the things that having a toddler makes much more difficult - going to movies, going out for dinner, spur of the moment trips and so on.
Occasionally we would make a point of thinking about it, like when we calculated the likely time she would have been born and things like that, but mostly we just shut up?and got on with life.
Parent's who can't talk about anything else but how great their kids are, are extremely boring. And those who can't talk about anything else when they don't even have any yet are doubly so. We didn't want to become those kinds of people.

People would ask about the current situation all the time, and almost always the answer was a shrug and the statement "hurry up and wait". One of the most frustrating things about the whole thing was listening to people who had to either tell you all about a friend of their who had just adopted ("oh, I must put you in touch". Gee thanks, our lives will be made so much better by your introduction to someone else that's adopted. We could never have met anyone by ourselves.), or those that dispensed that little known pearl of wisdom that "All you have to do is stop trying, go on vacation and it'll just happen! It did for my sister, brother, grandma, cousin, cat, ferret, pet rat, lawyer". Well thanks again, Doctor - which fertility clinic did you say you worked for again?
Sometimes, towards the end of the wait, we'd almost feel like frauds because there would be no news. Saying "We haven't heard anything" to the same people for 14 months can make anyone feel like a scam artist, especially after they've gone out of their way to help you out with baby showers and gifts.

But there was nothing we could do about that, and eventually it worked out. Well it will. Mila will come home with us soon. We have too great of a hole in our lives for her not to.

Jake Simpson"


P.S. By the way. We got another referral yesterday. For another boy. No pics until I get the medical report and am sure of this one - I don't want to go down a potentially bad path again.

Posted at 06/02/2008 08:59:43 AM PST by Jake Simpson
Groups : Life, Family