I am writing this on the bus to exhibit at Adelaide’s Anime Video Game Convention. I have helpfully forgotten the grid I intended to use as part of my display (visible in the last blog entry). I was looking for my Steins;Gate future laboratory pin to wear to AVCon and since I can only think about one thing at the time…

Which made me think "I should do less blog entries about motivation." If I am thinking about motivation, I am not thinking about Illic, art, or writing (the list goes on). There are many answers which cannot be found in the mirror - that is through self reflection.

I want to start a thought about Editor scripts, since I tried out using the UI elements with editor scripting. I won't as I don't want to muddy the post. Instead let’s talk about an idea that has been rolling around in my head: Waterfall thinking. 

You can live your life exactly in the way that bad software projects are made. You can try the plan up front and then blame everyone involved when due dates can't be met or it isn’t possible. I have talked about this as "you can’t decide things" before. I have a little bit more to say now though. In reading Gregor Hophe's blog he talks about a lot of interesting topics but the thing that really stood out was his idea of options. He splits solutions into "I think I know", "I have an idea" and "no idea". The first area is easy if you are right, the third is the domain of traditional agile which just leaves the middle option. The second area is the most dangerous one as it is easy for you to confuse it with the first. A lot of big choices fit into this second area. For instance say you want to make a video game from scratch you know there is Unity, Unreal, Gamemaker and Godot. If you are unfamiliar with all four choices you won't have a handle on which to pick. What kind of game and your experience will determine what is the right choice. You might for instance decide you are a beginner and want to use Gamemaker because it looks the easiest. The choice has already slipped into the first category. Maybe your game can be made in Gamemaker but maybe it can't. You have to realise the risk of being wrong and do the best you can to minimise that risk. (Even if it is a hobby it doesn't feel great to waste a lot of time trying to learn something which doesn't turn out to be too useful).

Gregor Hophe works for Amazon and previously worked for Google. His choices carry a lot more weight than what you might do in a hobby project, but that is exactly why we can learn a lot from him. In his blog he compares the second area to options which is that you can buy stock later at a certain price. There is a neat formula for this but you don't need to go that far. Just taking a moment to categorise what needs to be done and how much you know about it can do a world of good. You can’t do anything about what you don’t know you don’t know.

So whether your problem is a programming one, trying out a new hobby or perhaps even just planning a trip to somewhere new, take a moment to examine what you know and what you don’t. It is fun to ride the waterfall right up to when you crash into the rocks of wrong assumptions. 

Gregor Hophe's blog about options is here:

https://architectelevator.com/architecture/architecture-options/

Until next time.