RantSpoon - Quake Live's John Carmack

As a web developer, I sometimes get the feeling that we're looked down upon by non-web programmers (such as C++ people). I think that people view the web as something simple, because the primary tag-based language, HTML, is fairly simple.

Well, if people haven't noticed...the web is extremely different from the state it once was back in the early '90s. HTML is not responsible for just how cool and complex the web has become - it is not an easy job. Worst of all, web developers/designers have to account for a variety of browsers that each seem to handle code their own way - it's the wild west out there folks!

Anyway, it was great to read this quote from John Carmack during an interview with GameSpy regarding Quake Live:

What went not-so smoothly was building the website functionality, and the backend server side. A lot of that was just ignorance on our part. There's a little bit of hubris there, when you're a hotshot game developer and think that the website development stuff can't be all that challenging. We were somewhat disabused of that notion. It's easy to get something working, but the compatibility problems were quite a bit of effort.

At least some non-web developers had a bit of insight into the complexity of creating web applications.

Check out Quake Live Beta when you get a chance!