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Do you put code in your engine/game you don't fully understand?

Mustafa Al-Sibai · 2014-12-30T09:01:38

Hello all, First I would like to apologize if I posted this in the wrong section of the forums. So as the title suggest, do you copy code from the internet and put it in your game/engine without fully understanding it? I am having trouble understand an algorithm and I have been trying to understand for a week now with no luck. so today I gave up and just copied the code from the internet and put it in my engine. But I feel really bad and its really annoying me that I don't understand it. Anyways, I just want to know how do you deal with it?

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by FantasyVII December 26, 2014 10:44 AM

23 comments, last by bioglaze 9 years, 4 months ago

Tutorial Doctor

2,574

December 27, 2014 03:10 AM

I have been doing a lot of code porting lately, and I can understand the issues of just copying and pasting code in that you don't understand.

I look for code that has no dependencies first, where all of the code is self-contained.

This is one of the issues I find working with an API or Library created by someone else, you don't really know their mindset.

I have been thinking creating a website where nothing but algorithms are posted (and explained), which can work independent of the syntax of the particular language you are using.

Even if you find code that works, is it the code that is most efficient for what you are doing? I think there is a website with various algorithms for game development. I will post when I find it.

First, understand what it is you want to do, and then find code that is adaptable to that.

Edit: The key word is Chrestomathie

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/656764-anyone-know-of-any-game-programming-chrestomathies/

They call me the Tutorial Doctor.

Trevor Williams

161

December 27, 2014 03:11 AM

I'd never include code I don't understand. If you don't understand your own code - and it's yours once you put it in your project - your making it harder for you to use your own code, to change it, etc. Also, you could include a bug (or create one through interactions of your original code with this code) you'll never be able to fix because you don't know what's going on.

"You all look like lions to me. Lets be rabbits again."

Request for Comments => https://github.com/ts-williams

JohnnyCode

1,084

December 28, 2014 01:10 AM

So as the title suggest, do you copy code from the internet and put it in your game/engine without fully understanding it?

Sometimes. Less and less as time goes on. I do always go back, however, and work on that code later, to gain an eventual understanding.

Unbelievable. I have never done it, not becouse there were worms of doubt in my head, it was just becouse it was not doable for me. And when I got to point of understanding spectated solution I wrote it and applyed myself into my project (one example that strikes my head was decoding ogg audio files)

Fredericvo

1,765

December 29, 2014 09:34 AM

At the very least in my engine "DDSTextureLoader.cpp" is integrated as is and I don't fully understand some of its macro voodoo but I do understand the crux of the texture creation part where the pixels are mapped from memory into the buffer.