Former Valve Developer: Steam Linux Project Was The Hardest

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Former Valve Developer: Steam Linux Project Was The Hardest

Getting games on Linux and improving OpenGL drivers was the hardest challenge one veteran game developer has come across...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Valve-Expat-Steam-Linux-Hard

[ElectricPrism]

This guy is a pioneer and has earned a place in history.

" I'm basically an artist who "paints" with code, and good debuggers are one of my brushes. Except, each "painting" involves a variable amount of mental and/or physical resources.

The funny thing is I relate so much. I think it may be because in my opinion most programmers have their programming skills mapped in their left brain over their language center.

I think occasionally for some the langauge center gets moved into the right brain and the advantages of right brain passion and creativity and oddity of words are part of the programming arsenol.

Linux for me has been one of the most difficult and fulfilling persuits, and being part of a movement whose effects on the world will last for hundreds of years.

If Linux & open source never happened we could very well have been living in "1984" - the open state of software is so critical to the healthy progression of the human race and to put equal opportunities in the hands of the less priviledged across the globe.

Well done sir.

[ElectricPrism]

This guy is a pioneer and has earned a place in history.

" I'm basically an artist who "paints" with code, and good debuggers are one of my brushes. Except, each "painting" involves a variable amount of mental and/or physical resources.

The funny thing is I relate so much. I think it may be because in my opinion most programmers have their programming skills mapped in their left brain over their language center.

I think occasionally for some the langauge center gets moved into the right brain and the advantages of right brain passion and creativity and oddity of words are part of the programming arsenol.

Linux for me has been one of the most difficult and fulfilling persuits, and being part of a movement whose effects on the world will last for hundreds of years.

If Linux & open source never happened we could very well have been living in "1984" - the open state of software is so critical to the healthy progression of the human race and to put equal opportunities in the hands of the less priviledged across the globe.

Well done sir.

[johnc]

I remember when Valve released a statement saying they got much better performance in L4D2 on Linux than Windows -- maxxed out the engine in fact -- and that was with a lot less effort than what they put into optimizing the Windows version.

[anarki2]

Vulkan lol. I'm sorry, not to offend anyone, but that's totally typical Linux. It's like we have an awful pile of buggy layers, so instead of fixing them, how about adding another layer? Yup, that will magically solve the underlying problems FURSURE.

Yeah, the guy's a pioneer and all, enjoy your NV-only, or AMD-only, or version x kernel-only, or version y xorg-only, or version z mesa-only or whatever games. Quite ridiculous

[ssokolow]

Vulkan lol. I'm sorry, not to offend anyone, but that's totally typical Linux. It's like we have an awful pile of buggy layers, so instead of fixing them, how about adding another layer? Yup, that will magically solve the underlying problems FURSURE.

Yeah, the guy's a pioneer and all, enjoy your NV-only, or AMD-only, or version x kernel-only, or version y xorg-only, or version z mesa-only or whatever games. Quite ridiculous

The whole point of Vulkan is to remove a layer. OpenGL is a big, complicated, high-level API while Vulkan is closer to what the driver translates to internally.

[darkbasic]

Vulkan lol. I'm sorry, not to offend anyone, but that's totally typical Linux. It's like we have an awful pile of buggy layers, so instead of fixing them, how about adding another layer? Yup, that will magically solve the underlying problems FURSURE.

Yeah, the guy's a pioneer and all, enjoy your NV-only, or AMD-only, or version x kernel-only, or version y xorg-only, or version z mesa-only or whatever games. Quite ridiculous

LOL, you don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about, don't you?

[dungeon]

Vulkan lol. I'm sorry, not to offend anyone, but that's totally typical Linux. It's like we have an awful pile of buggy layers, so instead of fixing them, how about adding another layer? Yup, that will magically solve the underlying problems FURSURE.

Yeah, the guy's a pioneer and all, enjoy your NV-only, or AMD-only, or version x kernel-only, or version y xorg-only, or version z mesa-only or whatever games. Quite ridiculous

I feel strong sense in you... about maybe 10 year ago some developer said to me "XAA is bad and our customers use composite thus EXA"

What to say, my story about LInux is that people randomly pushing things here and there even when things are BS really and i can't say different thing about Windows also

It is like - "lets push this stone to see what happens" Happy New Year

[edoantonioco]

Thanks to all the pain he had to go through, a lot of developers will have a better time on Linux

[pal666]

Vulkan lol. I'm sorry, not to offend anyone, but that's totally typical Linux. It's like we have an awful pile of buggy layers, so instead of fixing them, how about adding another layer?

idiot, vulkan removes layers, not adds. and it is not linux-specific ffs