Reading Material: The Infinite Version
Submitted by John on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 14:52
Read a great post this week by Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror (incidentally a really entertaining blog, even if you're not interested in programming) about version numbers and their growing irrelevance. He holds up Google Chrome (which happens to be my browser of choice) as a prime example of this: while most programs are defined by version number, like Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 3, Chrome has essentially abandoned major releases in favor of gradual, minute improvements, which are pushed out in the background via auto-update. As Jeff puts it:
…as a regular user of Chrome, I no longer think of myself as using a specific version of Chrome, I just … use Chrome.
This is exactly the paradigm I'm hoping we can achieve with Metropolis; Although clearly this is tricky in the face of a large amount of user-created content, Chrome demonstrates pretty well that even something with many independent extensions can do it. In any case the post is well worth a read, check it out here.
In other news, continuing apologies for the long hiatus, regular updates will hopefully be resuming soon!
2 reponses to "Reading Material: The Infinite Version"
1. Don't worry about a thing,
Don't worry about a thing, John. Take your time and we'll catch you up when we're ready to resume normal operation!
2. Well, eventually this game
Well, eventually this game could be referred to as simply "Metropolis" but in the early stages of this game it would most likely be called "Metropolis Project Alpha," "Metropolis Project Beta 1," "Metropolis Project Beta 2 (phase 2)," and "Metropolis Project Release Candidate (phase 3, 4, or 5)" until it is simply Metropolis Project. Think of early Indie games such as Synekism and Minecraft. Eventually, they will be at points where no one really pays attention to the version number. Simutrans is Simutrans and people don't really pay attention to the version number unless they create custom content or test nightlies.
"Words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality."
Always do your best and you will always be better than the best in my eyes.
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