Recognizing Constraints An Article by Jeremy Wagner css-tricks.com Super Nintendo games were the flavor of the decade when I was younger, and there’s no better example of building incredible things within comparably meager constraints. Developers on SNES titles were limited to, among other things: 16-bit color. 8 channel stereo output. Cartridges with storage capacities measured in megabits, not megabytes. Limited 3D rendering capabilities on select titles which embedded a special chip in the cartridge. Despite these constraints, game developers cranked out incredible and memorable titles that will endure beyond our lifetimes. Yet, the constraints SNES developers faced were static. You had a single platform with a single set of capabilities. If you could stay within those capabilities and maximize their potential, your game could be played—and adored—by anyone with an SNES console. PC games, on the other hand, had to be developed within a more flexible set of constraints. I remember one of my first PC games had its range of system requirements displayed on the side of the box: Have at least a 386 processor—but Pentium is preferred. Ad Lib or PC speaker supported—but Sound Blaster is best. Show up to the party with at least 4 megabytes of RAM—but more is better. constraints
53. Main Gateways Problem: Any part of town—large or small—which is to be identified by its inhabitants as a precinct of some kind, will be reinforced, helped in its distinctness, marked, and made more vivid, if the paths which enter it are marked by gateways where they cross the boundary. Solution: Mark every boundary in the city which has important human meaning—the boundary of a building cluster, a neighborhood, a precinct—by great gateways where the major entering paths cross the boundary. Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein & Sara Ishikawa, A Pattern Language 112. Entrance Transition