Where's my daily "It" story?
I'll get to it. Free time has been a little scarce, but when I get into work, I'll grab one and post it.
Here's a quickie to tide you over until I find something more substantial.
It : "Why was this guy on the phone saying that he'd be surprised if that game even sold 5,000 copies? I figured you put in a few hours, you make a little art, and sell a couple hundred thousand copies. I mean, if that weren't true, nobody would have bought the porcupine thing; I mean the graphics were a total joke."
AI Guy : "Porcupine thing?"
It : "Yeah, that thing where there's a porcupine and a nuclear fox and they run around in these tubes."
AI Guy : "Nuclear fox?"
Me : "I... think you're referring to Sonic the Hedgehog."
AI Guy : "
Nuclear fox?"
Me : "I'll give him that one... He had two tails."
EDIT :
So here's one involving me (as the manager at that point), and a relatively junior coder who was hired to take on lighter, though more numerous, tasks.
It : "So what do you have him working on next?"
Me : "Well, the main thing I'm thinking for him next is to start architecting the trigger system."
It : "Triggers? I thought I said we weren't going to use triggers."
Me : "What? Why wouldn't we? We kind of need it for a number of things."
It : "But we had [AI Guy] working on pathfinding all this time, and now you want to use triggers instead?"
Me : "Not instead... This is mutually exclusive of pathfinding."
It : "Exactly. That's the problem. We have to mutually exclude pathfinding if you want to do this crap."
Jr. Coder : "That's not what this is about. This is in addition to [AI Guy]'s work. Initially, it's going to have more to do with the player or anybody else being in certain locations and 'triggering' actions in the world."
Me : "Exactly, for things like doors and elevators and so on."
It : "Well, those just plain work. Like the things at the supermarkets."
Jr. Coder : "How do you think they work in the first place?"
It : "You just go there and they open."
Jr. Coder : "I mean what do you think makes them open?"
It : "It just does."
Me : "Those doors aren't friggin' psychic! They have to have a sensor to detect that you're there."
It : "So just have the animators make some sensors. I don't see what's so difficult about that."
Jr. Coder : "Just having the object doesn't mean it does anything."
It : "Come on. Haven't you ever heard the phrase, 'If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck'? I thought you programmers were supposed to have some more brains than other workers."
Me : "That's what he's going to be doing! He's going to make sure it quacks like a duck. Artists can only make it look like a duck!"
It : "When did we start adding ducks into the game?"
Me : "RRRGHGHGH!!!"
Jr. Coder : "You have to deal with this all the time?"
Me : "Yep. Is it any wonder we can't ever get our 'ducks' in a row?"
It : "Ducks?"
Me : "Yes. Ducks. The ducks have to quack."
It : "Isn't that more of a sound issue? That would make it your job rather than his.*"
Jr. Coder : "....................."
Me : "I'll put it simply. There's work to be done on the code side that doesn't really block anybody else's work. He's going to be doing that."
It : "I'm going to have a talk with [AI Guy] and see what he thinks about all this trigger business."
Me : "Yes, you do that."
* : as I mentioned before, I was also doing sound effects and music for a good while there.
