Brian Hammond
Who is Brian Hammond?
I am a wannabe game developer currently working for myself as Fictorial. Until Fictorial becomes the next great game dev shop, I tend to lead iOS development projects for others so I can pay the bills. I am pretty decent with a 3D modeler. I dabble in graphic design and illustration. I like to play bass and listen to Les Baxter. I am an early adopter and don’t mind getting my hands dirty by helping fixing bugs in open source projects (and creating a few of my own). I have watched Jeopardy religiously for over 20 years and sure would love a chance to slap that smirk off of Alex’s face.
Where and when did you start programming?
Home (New York); around 1994. My first game was a version of Yahtzee in QBASIC. I had played Gorillas and wanted to know how it worked. I remember coding a particle system when you got a Yahtzee. Ah, who doesn’t love blocky text-mode particle systems? I got into formal computer science after watching Toy Story; I had to understand how they did it. A couple of years ago, I earned a Masters in CS, and published a paper in Germany (ICME 2008) on mixing augmented reality with virtual billiards of all things.
You favorite Languages/Frameworks? And why?
The most fun I’ve had coding was probably with Steve Dekorte’s Io but I am most productive in Python and Objective-C. As far as frameworks are concerned, Cocoa is a complete joy to work with even thought it’s a little long in the tooth.
What does your typical day look like?
I tend to start mid-morning since I am by no means a “morning person.” I work for 6 or 7 hours, play with my baby daughter, then go back to work until about 3AM. Then I read Hacker News and call it a day.
What do you do in your free time?
Read, code, and run (more like gasp for air on a road).
Current favorite apps?
Reeder, Bebot.
What OS do you prefer?
Mac OS X for “desktop”, and Linux for any server-side work.
Small picture for your Workplace?
Name something that has inspired you recently?
As corny as this is, the full moon the other night was incredibly low in the sky, really HUGE, and inspiring.
That, and VimGolf of course!
What do you prefer (and why)? Freelance work or full time employment?
The jury is still out! Freelancing is great for the freedom but finding work is hard for a non-self-marketing savvy geek like me. Full-time employment is steady but my experience was as a blub programmer at IBM and Yahoo! and well, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
What are your personal projects and goals for 2011?
Make worthy games; learn how to self-promote better; stop reinventing the wheel and use Unity3D instead; and finally launch PlayRelay.io.
