finished _Masters of Doom_

This book was amazing, and I ended up reading it in maybe 3-4 sittings,
which is usually difficult for me. The book is a non-fiction account of
the lives of the Two Johns, John Romero and John Carmack, legendary
game writers. Carmack probably has some form of aspbergers, and in
return for much strained social interaction he has god-like focus
power, enabling him to hack hard on new graphics technology. He
believes in FOSS and releases his game engines under GPL. Romero,
meanwhile, is a hard-core gamer who enjoys the limelight, as well as
being a great programmer and game designer. Their opposite
personalities form a balanced team, of course until someone messes up
and the team splits.

The work ethic in this book is inspiring. They have a vision of
creating new worlds, and they pursue it relentlessly with long, self-
imposed death-marches. 16-hour days, 7-day weeks. Carmack pushes the
state-of-the-art forward and Romero designs and plays hard. It made me
want to get to work on something awesome immediately. Romero's
screaming enthusiasm is unmatchable.

The book contains interesting lessons on team dynamics, as well. When
the teams are no longer completely dedicated to a given goal, tensions
rise. Some are resentful that they cannot work on what they want to,
others are resentful that their coworkers aren't working as hard as
they should. When they lost trust, they could no longer play and enjoy
their jobs; someone who normally wanted to play would accuse someone
else of playing around, and the cycle continued until everyone was on
a no-fun, silent death-march. I find a similarity between that and the
best friends who split after becoming roommates.

Romero's failed company enforces the advice given in "The Mythical
Man-Month"- more people makes a project later. The whole book contains
excellent case studies in team work and software development.

Also, the book catches up the reader on major technological, business,
and political developments in video games for about a 20-year period,
which is very neat. After finishing, I could go to Wikipedia and pick
up where it left off; Carmack/id release 4 game engines GPL and
currently license a fifth that looks absolutely life-like. He is also
inducted in a hall of fame, his rocket company wins some awards, and he
leaves id to work on the Oculus Rift. I think Romero is still designing
games, but no update in a while.