Me, earlier today.
In a fascinating study known as the Coding War Games, consultants Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister compared the work of more than 600 computer programmers at 92 companies. They found that people from the same companies performed at roughly the same level — but that there was an enormous performance gap between organizations. What distinguished programmers at the top-performing companies wasn’t greater experience or better pay. It was how much privacy, personal workspace and freedom from interruption they enjoyed. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said their workspace was sufficiently private compared with only 19 percent of the worst performers. Seventy-six percent of the worst programmers but only 38 percent of the best said that they were often interrupted needlessly.
— http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html
On Leaving…
It’s with a mixture of excitement and sadness that I’m writing to let the world at large know that as of February 1st, I’ll be leaving this crazy business of music to start a new endeavor. After more than eight years Sub Pop, I’ve decided to move on to take a new opportunity in the world of HTML5 gaming.
This decision was incredibly hard. More than just my employer, Sub Pop has been my family, and I’ve been privileged to continuously work with some of the best folks in any industry on some truly amazing records. The artists I’ve worked with directly have become some of my best friends, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to spend so much time working with them over the past eight years.
In the end, I need to take some risks and try something new. Building games has been a dream of mine since I started programming (at 9) and I think the time is right for HTML5 as a gaming platform. As a longtime engineer, I couldn’t be more excited; working on game development will put me right at the leading edge of what’s possible in the browser.
So, with all that said, I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be working with Massively Fun, a small start up with a really big vision for the future of gaming on the web. We’re up to some incredibly cool stuff, and you’re sure to hear more about it from me in not too long!
Gone were the fuzzy approximations of focus groups, the anecdotal fudging and smoke-blowing from the marketing department.
— James Marcus, Amazonia.
Current Status.
(If you can make it to five minutes, I have good faith you will make it to the end. And you will be rewarded.)
Well, there’s not much entertainment in a game of eating, so we decided to create enemies to inject a little excitement and tension.
— Toru Iwatani, Pac-Man creator
Current Status.
