Yeah I feel like people just don’t understand that the efficiency gains have not kept up with the scope of problems we’ve been tackling and that’s why it feels people used to be great.
Games yesterday: worked on certain HW, sound probably required you to jump through hoops to get working, and networking maybe worked on a LAN. If things crashed it was fine because that’s the only thing you ran anyway. Cutting edge graphics for the time but at that time showing an image or playing a video was also an achievement.
Games today: supports HW from at least 2 GPU vendors, an insane amount of resolutions and typically basically the same code for PC, PlayStation, XBOX and maybe even Linux and Mac. Sounds and graphics just works. Networking lets you play with people across the continent over the public internet. Oh and the time and effort invested in graphics quality is insane.
Teams yesterday: highly motivated engineers who were extremely talented and new every part of the machine
Teams today: a mix of highly motivated engineers who are extremely talented with many more who just want their paycheck and to go home of very varying quality of talent. Same expectations of excellence. Machines have gotten very complex that cutting through abstractions is challenging
Infrastructure yesterday: sell a database and the business is responsible for maintaining it and having it run well with onsite domain experts to help
Infrastructure today: sell almost anything so that you need almost no understanding and expertise of the software you’re utilizing.
Games yesterday: worked on certain HW, sound probably required you to jump through hoops to get working, and networking maybe worked on a LAN. If things crashed it was fine because that’s the only thing you ran anyway. Cutting edge graphics for the time but at that time showing an image or playing a video was also an achievement.
Games today: supports HW from at least 2 GPU vendors, an insane amount of resolutions and typically basically the same code for PC, PlayStation, XBOX and maybe even Linux and Mac. Sounds and graphics just works. Networking lets you play with people across the continent over the public internet. Oh and the time and effort invested in graphics quality is insane.
Teams yesterday: highly motivated engineers who were extremely talented and new every part of the machine
Teams today: a mix of highly motivated engineers who are extremely talented with many more who just want their paycheck and to go home of very varying quality of talent. Same expectations of excellence. Machines have gotten very complex that cutting through abstractions is challenging
Infrastructure yesterday: sell a database and the business is responsible for maintaining it and having it run well with onsite domain experts to help
Infrastructure today: sell almost anything so that you need almost no understanding and expertise of the software you’re utilizing.