Cool tech vs. boring details

Some of the stuff I’ve been working on last week:

• Fixed import progress bar for movies with no audio

• Fixed first context menu click not working on Windows

• Eye dropper backend on Windows

• Export Package actually works on Windows

• Compare Binary works on Windows

• Add checkbox to project wizard to always open it on startup

• F1 in bundled text editor goes to scripting docs for current word

• Fixed q/w/e/r keys in password fields and text areas toggling active Tool on Windows

• Fixed panes not repainting on Windows after some change is done via context menu on them

• …and so on.

Boring tiny little details.

This probably best summarizes where lion’s share of time goes when developing anything. I’m not working on some cool spherical harmonics lightmap compression. Or on cunning ways to encode shadow map information for better filtering. Or on using CUDA to compute something interesting.

In other words, I’m not working on cool technology. Instead I’m adding missing menu items. Fixing obscure corner cases. Fighting inconsistencies in operating system APIs. Spotting misplaced pixels. Adding missing keyboard shortcuts.

Nothing interesting to blog about!

But still, methinks the difference between software that is merely “good” and software that is “great” is in the details. And only in the details.

I’ll just take care of tons of more details. Maybe it will result in something good.