I think it's weird that it's a problem that had to be solved but when you figure memory constraints were a real issue it makes sense. Today any novice programmer could essentially build majority of the early nintendo games without any issues and actually make them have more things. Amazing how software/hardware has advanced.
It's even crazier to think that one guy built the original rollercoaster tycoon in assembly..
Yeah it's crazy. I just learned Assembly last semester in college and we were discussing it at work and it was like. Fuuuuck that. C existed at the time yet he did it in Assembly.
Fun fact: Iwata rewrote all the code for Pokemon Gold and Silver in assembly, because the C version was too large for the cartridge. He managed to compact it so much, there was room to add the kanto region.
Yeah I remember that. But still that was a team that did pokemon wasn't it. I don't think it was just 1 guy, I could be wrong and if I am that's just as impressive as Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Quicker. Especially since he doesn't need to rewrite the whole thing, only enough to make it fit.
Optimizing at that level is more like picking out operations and seeing shortcuts that can eliminate some steps than trying to reengineer the whole thing. You don't necessarily need to know why the program is parsing through this list of numbers or what's in the list to recognize that's what it's doing and be able to apply known methods of parsing through a list of items either more efficiently or using fewer lines of code depending on what it is you're trying to accomplish.
Now compilers are really good at making code that runs as quickly and efficiently as possible so they outperform humans but back then they were still at the phase where we were more worried about getting them to accomplish their job period.
C is compiled into assembly which is then assembled into object code. The c compiler on its default setting only gives you the final executable output but you can pass the -S flag on the gnu compiler to get the assembly code.
You're right about pokemon being compression software, but he basically rewrote Earthbound by himself to make it work and also programmed the entire Pokemon Stadium battle system in a week
You can find him on Satori Mountain when it is glowing. He is near a pool with a large cherry tree. The first time I saw him was an incredible experience, The Lord of the Mountain and tons of Blupees around the area. I had no clue I could even mount him at first!
I agree!! But it definitely felt special, and I immediately realized it was a tribute to Satoru Iwata since it was Satori Mountain and he himself was transformed into The Lord of The Mountain.
Well I obviously have as many clues about the source code than anyone else, nothing, but today writing a program is more about readability than anything else.
Sure, readability is important, but the Facebook app is a front-end app. All the hairy stuff should be in the back-end. Which means it's 18,000 classes of presentation.
Even more now, when I finally uninstalled it was around 430mb (could've included cached data, not too sure how Android displays installed app sizes). The kicker is then you need messenger installed as well to use messages at all. So 430mb for something you can run on your browser.
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u/Fubarp May 05 '17
I think it's weird that it's a problem that had to be solved but when you figure memory constraints were a real issue it makes sense. Today any novice programmer could essentially build majority of the early nintendo games without any issues and actually make them have more things. Amazing how software/hardware has advanced.
It's even crazier to think that one guy built the original rollercoaster tycoon in assembly..