1. Jeff Ward Lead Architect Orbus Gameworks Tools of the Trade

2. About Me

3. The Talk

5. Tools of the Trade

6. What Else?

7. Categories of Tools Development 3D Modeling packages IDEs Editors Debugging Process Collaboration

8. Debugging Tools (beyond printf) A standard debugging tool… Allows you to know the state of the game right now. Allows you to watch that state change. A good debugging tool… Allows you to know previous states Or at least how it got to its current state A really good debugging tool… Provides selective information Allows drill down Allows you to change the state manually

9. Debugging Tools

11. Unrelated

12. Metrics

13. The Problem Most debugging systems are still one offs. They are often stand alone

14. Process / Collaboration

15. Process The standardization of how things should be done.

16. Process Tools The art of automating process. Have the computer perform the simpler steps. Force people to follow your process. Make process easier for people to follow Create process that couldn’t exist before

17. Current State of Affairs

18. In addition Automated testing unit, functional, integration, acceptance, monkey Static code analysis Art review tools?

19. Integrated Process / Collaboration

20. Collaboration Tools All about helping people communicate

21. Process Tools + Collaboration Tools Process tools should foster collaboration Collaboration tools should foster good process. And neither should EVER hinder real communication.

22. Because I Told You To!

23. The Blame Game

24. Wiki-Talk

25. The Balance

26. Falling Flat

27. This is the LOLCats section of the talk.

28. One caveat Don’t bother for small projects.

29. So in conclusion All tools help solve problems They need to provide you with the information you need This includes more specific information when you ask for it. They need to improve process, but not take the place of real face-to-face collaboration Do the math. Many tools solve limited problems, and the tradeoff just isn’t worth it.

30. Questions? jeff@fuzzybinary.com www.fuzzybinary.com www.jeffongames.com www.orbusgameworks.com Done now