4k Madness

The submission deadline for Urbansquall's 4k game competition is right around the corner. Mine is in - I'll post a link to it here in the next few days.

The 4k limitation really keeps you on your toes. It doesn't foster great coding practices, but it does force a lot of creative engineering. Most programmers I know - including me - don't think about our code in terms of minimizing file size. We usually consider the size associated with a framework we're using, or (especially) visual assets. But I don't refine my code with the level of granularity required by a 4k limitation.

And let's face it - there's not much reason to. Bandwidth is less and less of a limitation, and the extra 12 bytes you may generate by declaring a new variable don't mean much of anything in a real world app. Neither does the 100-byte cost you incur from using some utility class.

But the artificial limitation is still worthwhile. It forces you to examine how you code. Even if you'd never pull some of the ridiculous stunts you might when facing a 4k limitation, you're forced to learn at least a couple valuable new approaches. The process refines you.