#056 - Maybe Programmers are Just Bad feat. Casey Muratori

Backend Banter

In today's episode, we welcome Casey Muratori, a seasoned programmer who specializes in game engine research and development who is currently working on a narrative game about organized crime in the 1930s in New York.

And oh boy, is this episode packed with valuable knowledge!

In this talk, we go over the differences between different job positions in the Game Development Industry and how it compares to the Web Development arena, as well as dive deep on the notions of technical knowledge, is it all useful or is some of it just a waste of time? We talk about bloated systems, how we already surpassed the tipping point of code written, so that new exploits will be appearing indefinitely. Casey gives us his opinions on what a programmer should ABSOLUTELY know to be the best at what they do, and a lot of other exciting and interesting topics.

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Computer, Enhance!: https://www.computerenhance.com/

Casey's Twitter/X: https://x.com/cmuratori

Timestamps:

00:28 Casey's Background

02:43 Game Developer vs Game Designer

09:08 What are the different ways people should think about careers that exist for game developers

14:33 Is all knowledge useful or is some of it a waste of time?

16:16 Computer, Enhance! and Casey's teaching methodologies

24:00 Devil's advocate about understanding at the hardware level

29:48 Software is getting slower, bloatier and less performant

35:42 What is the primary reason behind the rise of slow software

38:20 Top 3 concepts that people SHOULD know

43:43 Do you need to know both ARM and x86?

57:03 30 million line problem

01:08:29 Is there any way to mitigate these types of problems?

01:13:39 Where to find Casey

01:14:50 Which was the best part of Twin Peaks