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John Carmack on mutable variables

(twitter.com)
504 points azhenley | 14 comments | 31 Oct 25 02:34 UTC | HN request time: 1.248s | source | bottom
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lopatin ◴[31 Oct 25 03:07 UTC] No.45767913[source]▶
How fast this got to the top, you would think John Carmack just invented nuclear fusion.
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1. bmitc ◴[31 Oct 25 13:42 UTC] No.45771892[source]▶
People worship this guy, but other than being a good C++ graphics programmer, it isn't clear what he's actually done.
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2. modeless ◴[31 Oct 25 15:09 UTC] No.45772859[source]▶
His engines are open source, and graphics are far from the only interesting thing about them. If you don't know what he's done that's on you; it's no secret.
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3. rvba ◴[31 Oct 25 16:40 UTC] No.45773991[source]▶
Doom which was countless fun for people up to this day who make mods? (E.g. the great Myhouse.wad that was perhaps FPS of the year... 2023)

Quake, which was a good game, but arguably a better engine that lead to things like Half-Life 1?

Other games?

Shared the code to Doom and Quake?

I guess you dont understand how big of a game Doom was. The first episode holds suprisngly well up to this day, even after hundreds of doom-clones as they used to call FPS games.

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4. bmitc ◴[31 Oct 25 17:44 UTC] No.45774662[source]▶
So again, what has he done successfully besides C++ graphics?
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5. bmitc ◴[31 Oct 25 17:45 UTC] No.45774670[source]▶
But he didn't design the Doom game. He designed its graphics engine.
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6. ◴[31 Oct 25 18:11 UTC] No.45774950{3}[source]▶
7. tom_ ◴[31 Oct 25 18:26 UTC] No.45775117[source]▶
Well some people do, I'm sure, but most people just pay ordinary levels of attention to him. And they do that because he's made interesting contributions to multiple products that people like using - which is enough, surely?

(Regarding this specific tweet, this seems to be him visiting his occasional theme of how to write C++ in a way that will help rather than hinder the creation of finishable software products. He's qualified to comment.)

8. zenlot ◴[31 Oct 25 20:19 UTC] No.45776250{3}[source]▶
You understand how games work, do you? Please tell me you do. Else, what kind of argument is it?
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9. zenlot ◴[31 Oct 25 20:20 UTC] No.45776263{3}[source]▶
More than you will ever do mate.
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10. tredre3 ◴[31 Oct 25 20:53 UTC] No.45776570{4}[source]▶
The engine enables people with actual creativity to realize their vision. I believe Carmack was part of that creative process, but the condescending tone of your comment really isn't appropriate because in most games the engine is just a means to an end (nobody sane idolizes games because they're using unreal underneath, for example)..
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11. bmitc ◴[31 Oct 25 21:44 UTC] No.45777042{4}[source]▶
What is your point?
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12. bmitc ◴[31 Oct 25 21:44 UTC] No.45777044{4}[source]▶
That's not part of my argument.
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13. zenlot ◴[01 Nov 25 07:27 UTC] No.45779844{5}[source]▶
You don't have any argument at all.
14. zenlot ◴[01 Nov 25 07:30 UTC] No.45779853{5}[source]▶
Just decided to talk shit on Friday? What you believe doesn't matter. Facts matter, and your knowledge of facts are far away from truth.