Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!gistdev!flint
From: flint@gistdev.gist.com (Flint Pellett)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: some advice to a software engineer (let's get real)
Message-ID: <1013@gistdev.gist.com>
Date: 2 Oct 90 23:09:11 GMT
References: <1161@dms.UUCP> <31112@athertn.Atherton.COM> <31216@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Organization: Global Information Systems Technology Inc., Savoy, IL
Lines: 30


It has been my experience that games that are newly minted tend to have
a fair number of bugs, but ones that have been through several revisions
are usually a lot more reliable than any other application software that
has been through a similar number of revisions.  They tend to start life
buggy because they're developed on relatively low budgets and not always
heavily tested.  But after they get out into the world for a while,
game software has a big advantage over other application software-- it
gets pushed to the limit, thereby uncovering the bugs, so that the bugs can be
fixed.  A lot of other software just isn't used that same way, and the bugs
aren't uncovered.  For example, in a typical game environment you have a lot of
players going full-bore trying to "win" the game, and trying every trick they
can think of to do it.  The result is that if there is some strange sequence of
events that will break your program, or some race condition, somebody is going
to try it.  (This is expecially true in an interactive game environment, where
several players are interacting in the same program at once.)   Most game
programs also enjoy a large customer base of several thousand (or more)
players.

Compare this to, for example, software to control a $1M medical scanner, where
there may be only 20 scanners just like that in use across the country: you
just aren't going to see your customers trying every possible combination of
inputs as quickly as they can when some patient's life is on the line, so it
may be years before somebody presses button 2 within 1/100th of a second after
they pressed button 1 and discovers that some piece of hardware couldn't reset
itself that fast. 
-- 
Flint Pellett, Global Information Systems Technology, Inc.
1800 Woodfield Drive, Savoy, IL  61874     (217) 352-1165
uunet!gistdev!flint or flint@gistdev.gist.com