Hajime Sorayama

How can it be that I’ve been oblivious to this artist for so long, while his influence on some of my favorite supplements for one of my favorite RPGs is so obvious? In any case, I’m catching up. So far I find these works equal parts sleak, outdated and uncomfortably objectifying. Which is probably the point.

We need to talk about interactors

A really great article, but be warned: it is very dense. And the best thing, to me, is not really that it’s about interactors (the pattern), but that the very acurate points raised could be applied to a lot of over-used and under-understood patterns, first amond them my nemesis, the service objects. This article is about the misuse of interactors, but also about the problems that come with any similar misuse: the bad incentives it gives, the accidental blurring of the lines between OO and other programming paradigms, the wrong precedents it sets in the minds of beginners. Very wise stuff.

Red Fang

This band kept popping up in my recommandations but for some reason I didn’t pay attention to them… Well, my mistake: they’re great. A bit of The Sword and a bit of The Damned Things, including the absurdness of their music videos. Like a laid-back (but still ballsy) version of Mastodon, these guys are obviously nerdy metal dads. How could I not relate?

What’s the Next GOTO?

I loved this presentation – it’s everything I like: a fascinating history of programming that leads to challenging thoughts, packaged in a passionate, accessible and funny delivery. Very highly recommended. I only wish that Cantrell had had the time to cover the NULL issue that’s teased in the presentation…

wizards-castle

For some reason, I keep stumbling upon rewrites of old, text-based adventure games. I never played these games, having been raised on the next generation of such delights, on a different hardware, but I’m really curious about them, and really want to look at their modern re-implementation. I expect clever code and nostalgia-inducing gameplay.