Timeline for Why is it bad to hard-code content?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
36 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 5, 2014 at 0:12 | history | protected | House | ||
| Oct 4, 2014 at 7:18 | comment | added | Kyle Baran | @immibis: While that is true, it doesn't feel worth it to compile and publish a shiny new binary just because balance dictates a sword should do 80 damage instead of 81 damage. Getting a game out there is great, but getting a robust engine that you can reuse for future games is even better. | |
| Oct 4, 2014 at 4:51 | comment | added | user50286 | Parsing a data file doesn't even have to be much trouble. Just as long as it is more trouble than the alternative, it is worth considering doing the alternative. | |
| Oct 4, 2014 at 1:15 | comment | added | Criticizing Israel not allowed | Whatever you decide, do realise that hardcoding content allows for a lot more special cases. Want a certain boss to only appear between midnight and 7AM (real time)? It's a lot easier to hardcode that than to create a generic way for monsters to only appear at certain times. | |
| Oct 3, 2014 at 8:19 | comment | added | Luaan | If parsing a data file is so much trouble, perhaps you should have a look at some other programming language that makes it a breeze :P There's many languages and platforms where you can just serialize and deserialize objects "as-is", with no extra work involved (although it's usually a good idea to put at least some work into it :)). | |
| Oct 2, 2014 at 14:03 | answer | added | unor | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 2, 2014 at 10:25 | answer | added | Christian | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 19:48 | comment | added | House | @eBusiness I'm not sure the amount of hard coded content is actually all that critical. There are plenty of applications that use large amounts of text or other data sources. I think the title question is what really matters here, and that's not specific to game development. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 19:21 | comment | added | aaaaaaaaaaaa | @Byte56 I can't think of any other type of program that naturally include a large set of arbitrary but static data. While the same question may to some degree be relevant to other programs, games are unique with respect to the amount and purpose of such data. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 9:02 | comment | added | Lilienthal |
just making every unique dungeon (content) its own class. That just made me shiver. Separation of data from logic is such a fundamental principle to me that I'm surprised there are still developers violating it.
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| Oct 1, 2014 at 8:17 | answer | added | Nzall | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:17 | answer | added | John Cobalt | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:13 | comment | added | fluffy | And of course there's games out there which generate all of their content procedurally, using code in the first place. That's a different sort of art, though, and it's usually (but not always) to make the game seem more "organic," as well as usually being a much smaller download. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 2:48 | answer | added | Panda Pajama | timeline score: 7 | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 0:14 | history | edited | Anko | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Summarised and clarified by removing examples where unnecessary, resolving double negatives, rearranging words for clarity and other such standard editing work.
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 23:29 | comment | added | R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE | @pllee: Hardly. The whole gettext translation model is based on having content in one language (usually English) embedded in the source. | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 22:20 | comment | added | House | Not so sure this is game development specific. In the future consider asking on the programmers SE or stackoverflow. | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 22:04 | answer | added | Ted Wagner | timeline score: 3 | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 22:03 | comment | added | pllee | i18n would be very hard to do with content embedded in the source. | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 21:40 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackGameDev/status/517066359331905536 | ||
| Sep 30, 2014 at 21:34 | answer | added | GameAlchemist | timeline score: 3 | |
| S Sep 30, 2014 at 21:09 | history | notice removed | user1430 | ||
| S Sep 30, 2014 at 21:09 | history | unlocked | user1430 | ||
| S Sep 30, 2014 at 21:00 | history | notice added | user1430 | Comments only | |
| S Sep 30, 2014 at 21:00 | history | locked | user1430 | ||
| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:53 | comment | added | Glen Swan | Text based games do hard code a lot of content, but I think that's just because of the time when they were developed and poor design choices. The same might apply to Dwarf Fortress. I personally have taken all my text-based games and moved the content outside of the source and into a database. It made my life so much easier. | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:48 | vote | accept | user50286 | ||
| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:45 | answer | added | Christian | timeline score: 85 | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:35 | history | rollback | House |
Rollback to Revision 5
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:35 | history | edited | user50286 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 31 characters in body
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:34 | history | edited | user1430 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 45 characters in body
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:34 | answer | added | user1430 | timeline score: 30 | |
| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:33 | history | edited | user50286 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited title
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:33 | history | rollback | user50286 |
Rollback to Revision 1
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:28 | history | edited | user1430 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited title
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| Sep 30, 2014 at 20:26 | history | asked | user50286 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |