justindz

Thanks, this is another great idea and I'll consider it as an addition or alternative. Do you think this works in an open-world, non-linear type game?

What a great lunch read! I've been weekend-warrioring a terminal-based CRPG for a bit myself. I was recently exploring ways to use agents to help with balance testing, which is a real scale problem for solo indie dev. So far, all I've created is a fight simulator: essentially, have the current player state (stats, effects, gear, companions, etc.) do this fight, simulated, X number of times using one of the currently-implemented GOAP personalities and report how often it wins, loses, average end turn, stuff like that.

I hadn't really thought about trying to create a harness for agents to play the full game interactively. I'd love to explore this. If you don't mind, here are a few questions:

1) Correct to assume that I probably need a text-only harness even though my game is text-based already because I do make use of menu selections made via arrow-key-and-enter interactions?

2) Do you have prompt recommendations for the type of feedback you have found to be useful? I would guess in your case, the objectives of the game are more clear than an open-world RPG. What dead ends have you run into? Maybe a variety of approaches would be good? One agent tries to fight everything. Another focuses on gaining and completing as many quests as possible?

3) How bad is the token burn doing this? Any optimization strategies you've employed?

I think it would be fantastic to have a reference site for significant, complex projects either developed or substantially extended primarily via agent(s). Every time I look at someone's incredible example of a workflow for handling big context projects, it ends up being a greenfield static microblog example with vague, arm-wavey assertions that it will definitely scale.

I ride the metro for about 1:30 a day (part of which is walking to and fro), which I prefer to my prior driving commute of 25-30 minutes. I have had to increase my fantasy and sci-fi novel budget, however.

One can perhaps take comfort in the fact that a civilization advanced enough to be aware of us would likely be aware of the fact that we were more advanced than what they could see at any given moment (or they had found a way to narrow the perception lag).

I was in the Azure TAP program many years ago and they talked about this extensively to the participants. I would echo the consistency of direction on this. I had a vague sense that it was an attempt to quell enterprise fears about the cloud and lock-in, but perhaps not.

I am the same way. I found it surprising. I get so much positive feedback from the editing process that I have actually developed a routine of editing as I draft. Although it improves the quality of my draft, it takes ages. For poetry, it worked well. For novels, I think I'll need to break the habit.

I'm not sure I quite expected to see this on HN, though I'm glad it was posted since I happen to be trying to learn novel writing. I thought the before and after example of the basketball article was a concise and clear way to explain over-writing. The second version was clearer, more accessible, less obnoxious and no less informative and narrative. A series of poetry and short fiction teachers in college helped me become self-aware about this bad habit. I still make the mistake consistently, but I have learned to either catch it or agree with the suggestions of my peers who catch it when I don't.

I personally believe that programmers can learn from poets, for example. Write constantly. Read the work of others, both critically and for enjoyment. Writing is the sexy part, but revising is at least as important a task.

I was at a product management event once and met a guy who managed a product in this space. A group of us went out for drinks after the event and he ended up explaining what he did. At some point he mentioned "Chinese hackers." Another guy in the group called him on it, wondering why he just assumed it was Chinese. He laughed and said that the near constant level of activity they see goes basically flat on Chinese New Year.

I suppose if you're not a Chinese hacker, it might pay to pretend you are by tailoring your working hours and days.

I read it the way you apparently intended to write it. In college, getting to where I could write and get published poems that weren't a personal embarrassment took more or less the same amount of study and practice as getting my CS degree. I think mastering either craft would be a comparable endeavor and accomplishment (though one would pay much better).

The nice thing about compilers is they tell you when your code has a problem. There's no equivalent barrier to posting awful poetry-drivel on Facebook ;-)

My experience has also been that managers at the "average company" these days are pretty much expected to both manage and be a fully productive individual contributor. Realistically, this means that they spend about 80% of their time working to hit their own goals, which directly point at them, and 20% of their time (at best) really working to enable their team to succeed, which can always be deflected from direct responsibility to some degree. Since most managers' managers are also in the same boat, they can't tell when someone is shooting their own team members for self-preservation because they are too busy to have any sense for the morale and culture they've created.

In my personal opinion, you get a healthier culture if you either 1) have managers and let them manage or 2) admit that you require them to be individual contributors and restrict their "managing" purely to part time HR initiatives and not to actual additive management (something more like extra-curricular mentoring and not talent management, career and skills development).

I should caveat that I've had good managers, bad managers and completely mediocre managers. So I do believe that, although rare, it can be done well and it can provide value to individual contributors' careers and to the company's value. I just don't assume it's automatically the right approach at every company.

Looks like they got the cert deployed, although the process isn't directed to https yet. I hand-added https to the URL for the payment collection page and had no issues.

Agreed. In its current state, I will not participate.

I've spent a lot of time in technology product management (PM) and I still frequently encounter "Product Managers" who are doing entirely project management (PMO). And there's business analysts and other technical product management functions that are centered around requirements and specifications rather than market discovery, product fit and strategy, plan for making actual money, etc.

I'm not suggesting that anyone in the thread is conflating PM and PMO in this way, but it's a challenge for the profession and I wouldn't be surprised if given posters perspectives reflect different views on what the PM role is actually supposed to be the expert on. I don't think it's their fault. We use a hyper-generic name that is almost indistinguishable in full and acronym'd form. We also tend to write awful job postings, though that's a rant for another thread.