Data-oriented design: software engineering for limited resources and short schedules
- Downloads：8537
- Type：Epub+TxT+PDF+Mobi
- Create Date：2021-08-21 09:53:42
- Update Date：2025-09-06
- Status：finish
- Author：Richard Fabian
- ISBN：1916478700
- Environment：PC/Android/iPhone/iPad/Kindle
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Summary
The projects tackled by the software development industry have grown in scale and complexity。 Costs are increasing along with the number of developers。 Power bills for distributed projects have reached the point where optimisations pay literal dividends。 Over the last 10 years， a software development movement has gained traction， a movement founded in games development。 The limited resources and complexity of the software and hardware needed to ship modern game titles demanded a different approach。 Data-oriented design is inspired by high-performance computing techniques， database design， and functional programming values。 It provides a practical methodology that reduces complexity while improving performance of both your development team and your product。 Understand the goal， understand the data， understand the hardware， develop the solution。 This book presents foundations and principles helping to build a deeper understanding of data-oriented design。 It provides instruction on the thought processes involved when considering data as the primary detail of any project。
Reviews
Andrew
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I enjoyed this work about high performance computing。
Roman Kashitsyn
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I really wanted to like this book。 It has some very good ideas， like the connection between normalisation in relational databases and ECS。 However， the language is rather vague and hard to follow。 The book could be twice as short without losing anything of importance。I share the hope of the author that more books on the topic will follow。
Victor Debone
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This book contains unusual density of information （high）， and surprised me with an unapologetic style of getting to the core of things， not trying to getting you up to speed with long introductions or trying to appeal to a larger public。 I wish technical books were all like this。
Pablo Weremczuk
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The book gives a good idea about what's data-oriented design is about。 Still， falls short on giving good examples。 As an example， there is an example regarding "false sharing"， which is when you have two threads and they invalidate the cache of the other writing in close-enough memory addresses。 I found the example extremely convoluted and hard to follow， compared with other examples in a stack overflow。 Using plain C makes more sense than using C++ for examples。Still is the only book you have t The book gives a good idea about what's data-oriented design is about。 Still， falls short on giving good examples。 As an example， there is an example regarding "false sharing"， which is when you have two threads and they invalidate the cache of the other writing in close-enough memory addresses。 I found the example extremely convoluted and hard to follow， compared with other examples in a stack overflow。 Using plain C makes more sense than using C++ for examples。Still is the only book you have to explore this design philosophy， and is fairly good。 。。。more
Aaron
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There are a lot of good ideas in here， but they are not terribly well explained， especially to those outside of the game industry。 This topic is clearly relevant to a wider audience， but he is so focused on game developers that he fails to make the material very accessible to anyone else。 More details and better examples would go a long way。 Perhaps if the author spent less time attacking OO he would have had more energy to spend on the topic at hand。
Julian Schrittwieser
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Interesting view on data oriented design， but sometimes more subjective opinion than objective coverage of available methods。 Also somewhat restricted to games， other domains quite different requirements。
molty cheese
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ConfusingThe author likes to ramble on presented topics and sometimes segues into completely unrelated themes and not finishes his previous thoughts。 Because of this the book reads more like a thought dump rather than a structured source of knowledge。 While there are nice ideas in this book， I don't think it is worth deciphering them from the incoherent wall of text。 ConfusingThe author likes to ramble on presented topics and sometimes segues into completely unrelated themes and not finishes his previous thoughts。 Because of this the book reads more like a thought dump rather than a structured source of knowledge。 While there are nice ideas in this book， I don't think it is worth deciphering them from the incoherent wall of text。 。。。more
Ivane G。
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Passion motivated and well written book about software design paradigm that was was born [or reincarnated] within field it serves [ever-changing game design and development]。 Paradigm which [performance benefits aside] embraces change--be it design or implementation structure--and assumes knowing of [at least] something about actual problem of data transformation on an actual physical hardware。
Adelbert
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Very well written and codifies data-oriented design practices into an organized book。 If you enjoyed Mike Acton's CppCon'14 （https://youtu。be/rX0ItVEVjHc） you will enjoy this book。 Even if you are not a game or graphics dev， it is worth reading if only to get a glimpse into an infrequently discussed perspective on software engineering - hardware-aware programming - applicable no matter where in the proverbial stack you are。 To paraphrase Professor Alan Perlis， "a [philosophy] that doesn't affect Very well written and codifies data-oriented design practices into an organized book。 If you enjoyed Mike Acton's CppCon'14 （https://youtu。be/rX0ItVEVjHc） you will enjoy this book。 Even if you are not a game or graphics dev， it is worth reading if only to get a glimpse into an infrequently discussed perspective on software engineering - hardware-aware programming - applicable no matter where in the proverbial stack you are。 To paraphrase Professor Alan Perlis， "a [philosophy] that doesn't affect the way you think about programming， is not worth knowing，" and this book has definitely changed the way I think about programming。 。。。more
Rasmus Källqvist
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At the time of writing this is one of the few books on the topic， and it's an interesting one at that。 We're introduced to the idea of viewing the programs we're writing foremost as a sequence of data transformations， i。e。 a sequence of functions that take data and produces new data， and as such can design our systems not by modelling the domain in code but in looking at what data we need as input to produce the desired output， with as little transformations needed in-between。I think the book do At the time of writing this is one of the few books on the topic， and it's an interesting one at that。 We're introduced to the idea of viewing the programs we're writing foremost as a sequence of data transformations， i。e。 a sequence of functions that take data and produces new data， and as such can design our systems not by modelling the domain in code but in looking at what data we need as input to produce the desired output， with as little transformations needed in-between。I think the book does an excellent job at introducing this way of viewing software design， and the technique of using relational databases to build up a data oriented correspondence to object relations is great。My complaints are that there could be some more formalisms that more clearly outlines what data oriented design is actually supposed to be， rather than through examples， and to reduce the unneeded jabs at object oriented programming， and the overly focus on game programming。All in all， it's a worthwhile read， albeit feeling sometimes more like a handbook than an introduction to a paradigm。 Pick it up！ 。。。more
Stijn
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Not that this is a bad book， but if you’re not a game developer writing c++ counting your cache hits， this book isn’t for you。
Mikhail Filatov
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This book has very little to do with design and nothing with "limited resources and short schedules"。 It's a set of incoherent rumblings against OOP。 The only （probably） relevant one is about performance overhead of using virtual functions。 The author reveals to us in the second chapter a hidden gem -relational databases :）Really， he describes them with enthusiasm of Larry Ellison selling Oracle "2。0"。 Maybe SQL DBs are not used in game development， but otherwise they （and OO languages） are pret This book has very little to do with design and nothing with "limited resources and short schedules"。 It's a set of incoherent rumblings against OOP。 The only （probably） relevant one is about performance overhead of using virtual functions。 The author reveals to us in the second chapter a hidden gem -relational databases :）Really， he describes them with enthusiasm of Larry Ellison selling Oracle "2。0"。 Maybe SQL DBs are not used in game development， but otherwise they （and OO languages） are pretty much mainstream for the last 25+ years。There are some chapters about perf。 optimizations in game development， but as I'm not a game developer it's difficult for me to evaluate - and nothing in the title and subtitle of this book hints that it's for game developers only。 。。。more
Ruben
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Honestly the best and most necessary programming book I've read in recent memory。 I'd recommend it to any kind of programmer， but if you're into systems programming， embedded or game development I'd qualify it as a must-read。Does a great job at making you take a step back from practices that have established themselves in programming over the past few decades that we still blindly follow to our detriment。 Justifies its claims with very well written arguments and shows a different path that we sh Honestly the best and most necessary programming book I've read in recent memory。 I'd recommend it to any kind of programmer， but if you're into systems programming， embedded or game development I'd qualify it as a must-read。Does a great job at making you take a step back from practices that have established themselves in programming over the past few decades that we still blindly follow to our detriment。 Justifies its claims with very well written arguments and shows a different path that we should take when we sit down to solve our problems with code。 。。。more
John Roodt
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Understanding Unity’s move to DOTS & ECSI came across this book whilst browsing for some insight into Unity’s switch to DOTS （the Data Oriented Technology Stack） which includes ECS （the Entity Component System）。 I certainly have a far better idea as to what motivated them to make the switch， & now confident that this is the direction I should take too
Iman Jahandideh
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As an OO game programmer I was interested about the Data Oriented approach。 But the first question that I needed to be answered was "Why？" and in my opinion the book failed to answer this question。 I agree DO is more performant than OO but for other claims the author either didn't tried to give any explanations or his explanations and examples was very weak。A great part of the book was also devoted to "How"。 The main thing that peaked my interest was using databases for game。 But maybe since I d As an OO game programmer I was interested about the Data Oriented approach。 But the first question that I needed to be answered was "Why？" and in my opinion the book failed to answer this question。 I agree DO is more performant than OO but for other claims the author either didn't tried to give any explanations or his explanations and examples was very weak。A great part of the book was also devoted to "How"。 The main thing that peaked my interest was using databases for game。 But maybe since I didn't understand the "Why？" part， most of the approaches seem too short and too vague to give any new insights to the DOD。 。。。more
Ryan Riley
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Highly recommended for anyone working with data。
Isaac Serrano
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