
How Much of a Genius-Level Move Was Using Binary Space Partitioning in Doom? - janvdberg
https://twobithistory.org/2019/11/06/doom-bsp.html
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random314
While I am sure Carmack is a great programmer, this constant hacker hero
worship is grating. The post is fawning over Carmack for using BSP trees but
barely gives enough credit to the inventor of BSP. The same thing happened
where Carmack was credited with inventing the sqrt fn, until it turned out
that he did not.

We could use less hero worship on hn.

~~~
blt
Did you read the article?

> _Carmack was not the first person to think of using BSP trees in a real-time
> graphics simulation. Of course, it’s one thing to anticipate that BSP trees
> might be used this way and another thing to actually do it. But even in the
> implementation Carmack may have had more guidance than is commonly assumed._

~~~
random314
I did and this article is somewhat balanced. However, one can ask - Why didn't
the author try to figure out how the original research was done instead of
putting in so much effort in to figuring out how Carmack used the research.
Why ask the question, how impressive is Carmack for using cutting edge
research in a game - Einstein VS Simpson scale, instead of asking a similar
question about the inventors of the data structure.

From the pov of computer history, is it more important to document Carmacks
use of an algorithm or the invention of the algorithm itself? Would this
article have made it to the front page if Carmacks name wasn't attached?

