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From: Nathan V. Y. <nat...@gm...> - 2010-01-08 07:12:20
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I'm a very visual/spatial person so I find making diagrams and graphs and charts really helps me conceptualize what we're doing in the design phase, particularly when it comes to system logic, etc. Adam and I have found the following tools to be very useful: PTC's MathCAD 14 - Does calculations the way a person would. Hard to explain in just text, but imagine writing down an equation symbolically and having the program keep track of the variables for you as you go. Symbolic solving, advanced calculus, graphing, et cetera. I've been using this a lot for running through sample algorithms (What percent chance to hit would a level 3 warrior have with x amount of skill? How does that curve change with respect to total skill?). Windows-only, but it may or may not run on wine for you linux users. 30-day free trial available at http://www.ptc.com/community/free-downloads.htm R - a language/environment for doing graphics and calculations. Adam's been using this since it's more grassroots-unix-opensource and he does most of his work on Gentoo. http://www.r-project.org/ Dia - one of the better diagramming/drawing programs I've seen. Free and open-source; crossplatform. I use this a lot for making flowcharts outlining the logic of the systems we're rewriting. http://live.gnome.org/Dia As far as actual coding goes, any text editor will do, but I've been using Notepad++ ( http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm ) and Adam recently converted to emacs. I`ll be posting some diagrams and mathcad files early next week. |