This spring was different time for me. For years my B.Sc. degree has been missing just a few tiny bits. For example, I needed just a few course credits to fill up a second minor subject, which is “Software Business” offered in collaboration by local universities. This spring I took a mini course and wrote one report about things I found interesting in last GDC, which were enough to get the few missing points. Now, after 15 years, I unlocked the B.Sc. achievement.

I don’t actually think there will be much difference from having a degree or not. It has just been sort of nagging thing because it was just almost there, so maybe it was sort of mentally easier to get done with that than keep it lingering forever. So I don’t have any current plans to continue towards M.Sc., even if I’m actually already halfway there (basically only thesis missing and a few other bits).

But that’s not all of things making this spring different for me. I decided it was time for me to leave Secret Exit, the company I co-founded over 5 years ago. I’m planning to continue as an “indie developer”, but I don’t really have anything announce-worthy to say about that yet.

I have actually already mentioned about these things in Twitter and Google+ already a while ago, so this post is sort of old news, but I figured I could write an update here as well.

I’ve always thought that updating stuff to my homepage/blog feels a bit too much hassle, so I don’t want to do that very often. Strangely, even switching away from home-made kludges to WordPress didn’t help the feeling in a dramatic way, although it surely helped a little bit.

That’s why this page has always been subject to relatively long pauses without updates, even if I have felt like I’d like to share something. Thinking about alternative solutions, the social media websites, I’ve had a Facebook and Twitter account for quite a while now. I have always felt that Facebook suits best for personal friends and not for public stuff. Twitter is ok for public stuff, but the 140 char limit means that you’ll share only some tiny things, like a little anecdote or just a link to somewhere.

When Google+ came around, I started using it as well. By nature it is like a combination of good things from both Facebook and Twitter, and seems to fit my usage patterns quite well. It allows really easily to select per-post who I’m sharing it with. It doesn’t limit me to short posts when I want to say a little more. Each post is automatically a discussion thread, and since it isn’t hosted by me, I have less to worry about approving posts / preventing spam entries.

So I realized I tend to write there a bit more often – the smaller things, findings and even some more light-hearted observations go there. So, if you want to follow smaller updates from me, join Google+ if you aren’t yet there and add me to your circles. Today, I was originally going to write about my latest findings regarding prototyping with Processing (again), but decided I probably do that in my Google+ stream later and write this endorsement post here instead! ;-D

Update, early 2019:
Google+ is shutting down soon. I find it a bit unfortunate, as back in 2011 I felt it was better suited for public communication than some other alternatives. Also, as a generic principle, when some site or service is altered or discontinued, a graceful way would be to keep links working and data still readable. However, like almost always with site changes in the internet, also in this case the content is simply going to be deleted. I guess the end result will be that many links will cease to be working, which used to point to content in Google+.

Over the years I have been using several kinds of solutions to backup stuff. Here’s a description of the ones I can remember. Many of them focus on being low-cost, simple and straightforward, but are far from a perfect solution in many other ways.

(more…)

If software would be made bug-free, that would force prices to be so high that nobody could buy them. How so?

Well, let’s think about what it means to build bug-free software. There actually exists some software, which is built with goal of “zero-defects”. By that, I’m not referring to the constant hype from latest agile method cult who may have some extravagant claims. I mean software where it’s of utmost importance to really have no bugs, no matter the costs. A case where a single bug may mean loss of lives or failure of the whole project. This kind of software is built for space missions, nuclear facilities, and so on. And such a policy on quality is inherently very very expensive.

Imagine if Windows, for example, would have been built with such policy. It’s a really complex and huge piece of software compared to ones normally built with zero-defect policy. But, given the option, would you pay $19,900 of your operating system, if it would never crash? It’s quite a no-brainer that “everybody” would rather pick the same software for $199 and just put up with the few problems they encounter. (The price difference was picked by Stetson-Harrison method. It’s a guess to illustrate the point. The difference could be actually lot worse for niche market software which isn’t aimed for mass market.)