Well... here we go. The beginning of the end =)

THE END IS THE BEGINNING IS THE END

I decided to join up with gamedev.net because it's been an incredible resource (read "free") for quite some time, and felt it time to contribute.

This tale will mostly chronicle the development efforts of our side-scrolling 2D platform "Ascent".

Tee Dee Dee

I'm really starting to dig into TDD, or "Test-Driven Development", which emphasizes development by creating atomic tests before writing the production code it is supposed to test.

I'm having the usual "learning pains" as I go; however, I think I'm starting to nail it a bit.

WHERE IS THE DEATH STAR?

My current trouble is trying to keep track of where I'm at, and where I need to go. The solution to that was a bit hard to figure out.

Last night, it "came to me in a vision", of sorts... a vision of the "Death Star". I call it the "Death Star" because it feels like I'm building something that large atom by atom... and it is hard to see "what's done" and what isn't.

I call it "Mapping Out The Death Star". It's really just a whiteboard that shows where the development/testing cycle is at any one moment. I'm wondering if there are any commercial tools that make this sort of tracking easier.

The whiteboard was created in MS Word, then translated to HTML, because VS2005's HTML editor is a joke.

At any rate, hopefully I can start ripping through new tests and not chugging to a stop because I don't know where I'm at.

Maybe this whiteboard idea will be useful to you. Tell me what you think.

Some additional observations about TDD.


Peace,

Chad