Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Often, it comes down to what we are measuring. What is important? Of course,
one thought process is that we are measuring
widgets,
not time. Therefore the wid-
get measurement should be in the position of importance. In the above example, the
reason for this way of thinking may be that it seems more intuitive to think in terms
of “widgets per hour� because we are expecting that lying around nearby is a mea-
surement of how much we are
paying
our widget-making pair. After all, if we are
paying them the same amount (per hour), and all widgets have the same value, then
it isn't a stretch to determine that Chuck is more productive (per hour) than is
Ralph. Notice how we didn't even bother to compare how much we are paying Chuck
or Ralph
per widget?
It's always in terms of widgets
per hour
and dollars
per hour
.
Even when money is not involved, time seems to get the back seat. Giving an-
other, more personal, example… When I entered into the agreement to write this
book, I gave my publisher a wild guess as to an expected number of pages (at the
time of this writing, we have penciled in a figure of 500). In turn, we also agreed that
I would have the topic completed within six months. Only after that point did I
come to the startling realization that I would have to write about 20 pages per week.
I even subdivided it further to about three pages per day. Notice that my thought
process was in
pages
over
time
. At no time did I bother to think in terms of how
long it would take me to write a single page. Why is that?
Again, it comes back to what is important. In the case of writing the topic, I was
not calculating how many pages I
could
write per day. I was determining how many
I
needed
to write per day. There's a subtle difference there. In my case, I realized that
I needed to work the topic writing around the rest of my life. I could tell myself, “I
need to manage to work in my three pages today.� However, while this approach
makes for a great mental bookmark, it doesn't do me much good for making deci-
sions. For that, I
do
need to start to calculate things in terms where
time
is the
important factor.
Putting Time at the Top
For instance, if I were to try to decide what my plans for the evening were on any
given night, I would look at the available time. Let's say that after getting home
from my “day job� of doing AI consulting, I determined that I had five hours into
which to work all of my evening routine. Dinner would take one hour to cook and
eat. Spending some time with the wife and kids would take another hour. That
brings me down to three hours available for that evening. The question then arises,
“Can I afford to watch a one-hour TV show and still get my three pages in?�
The only way I can answer this question is to know how much time it would
take me to write those three pages—which is directly related to the value of
time per
page.
I am able to assign time expenditures to dinner, time with the family, and
even to the TV show that I am pondering. The only thing I don't know is the time
