Gabriel Dechichi

Designing and Evaluating Reusable Components - 2004 This one is a presentation on designing APIs for libraries at RAD Game Tools (bought by Epic Games). Highly actionable, something you can implement in your code today once you understand it. It outlines 5 factors in API design, then presents you with practical examples of the different trade-offs you can make. It ends with a pretty solid list of dos and don'ts. [Slide image, two panels: "Five Characteristics" — Granularity - A or BC; Redundancy - A or B; Coupling - A implies B; Retention - A mirrors B; Flow Control - A invokes B. "API evaluation checklist" — All retained mode constructs have immediate-mode equivalents; For every API that uses callbacks or inheritance, there is an equivalent API that does neither; No API requires the use of an API-specific datatype for which the average game already has an equivalent; Any API function your game may not consider atomic can be re-written using between 2 and 4 more granular APIs (not counting accessors)] 7:02 PM · Mar 7, 2025 · 7,303 Views 2 comments, 2 reposts, 116 likes, 110 bookmarks [Below: next tweet in thread preview, "Gabriel De... 16h ... The Only Unbreakable Law"]

The Only Unbreakable Law This one starts by trying to answer the question of whether there are any actual laws in Software Architecture, and proceeds to outlines principles that are the closest we have so far. I won't spoil the conclusions, but it will make you seriously question software practices you see in companies today. [Video thumbnail: man in a "Star Code Galaxy" t-shirt next to a diagram of a tree/hierarchy structure] 7:02 PM · Mar 7, 2025 · 7,098 Views 2 comments, 1 repost, 89 likes, 58 bookmarks