Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Retrospective XI

Last year, I conducted a simple retrospective for 2018. Therefore, here is a retrospective for 2019.

2019 Achievements
  • Streamline Sega Master System retro game development using the devkitSMS
  • Win the Sega Master System annual coding competition with Platform Explorer
  • Apply devkitSMS programming skills to Mega Drive prototypes using the SGDK
  • Upgrade MonoGame version cross platform for future 3D graphics and shaders
  • Complete Linux installation process using virtual machine on Windows and Mac
  • Integrate new scripting languages including Python, Powershell and Terrarform
  • Expand cloud computing experience: Amazon Web services and Azure DevOps
  • Learn from Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers strategies at work
Note: winning the Sega Master System annual coding competition is a unique achievement!

2020 Objectives
  • Setup Sega dev + debugging environment for MegaDrive similar to Master System
  • Build MonoGame project cross platform containing 3D models and custom shaders
  • Integrate new software deployment techniques for containerization + orchestration
  • Continue AI and Machine Learning application to personal and professional projects

Personal
Earlier in 2019, I gave presentation on Game Development. I believe this provides excellent experience for Software Engineering in general because algorithms must be written efficiently to achieve consistent frame rates. Therefore, after working with Sega Master System would now like to experiment with the Mega Drive!


Professional
20 Predictions about Software Development trends in 2020 include: Infrastructure as all roads lead to Cloud, Containerization [Docker] + Orchestration [Kubernetes] and Microservices as REST APIs will be mainstream.

However, the big buzz continues to be centered around: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and how can Big Data be leveraged by companies to improve their customer experiences and gain competitive advantage.


Future
After giving the presentation earlier in 2019, I was advised afterwards about a new interesting development connecting Artificial Intelligence and Video Games now described as Reinforcement Learning in Video Games.

Therefore, this seems excellent motivation to investigate Machine Learning Software such as TensorFlow for various applications of ML such as Reinforcement Learning and see if this can be applied to Video Games J