Clearly the author knows nothing about enterprise software.

1) This is easy to install. Enterprise software should take at least 6 months to deploy and employ 50+ people for that purpose

2) This is free/open. Enterprise software needs to be at least $1,000 per seat per year

(I like the rules-based implementation though)

The title is supposed to be a jab at enterprise software. It's a joke :)

DISCLAIMER: I'm the author of that post, I didn't submit it to Hacker News though!

  It's a joke :)

Likewise my comment :-)

Reading comprehension is hard ;) I think I hit reply on the wrong button. D'oh.

My bad :)

"Enterprise software needs to be at least $1,000 per seat per year"

Enterprise software needs to be at least $1,000 per alien per shot.

FTFY.

Edit: Other reasons why its not enterprisie enough:

1) It does not run in a server cluster.

2) It does not run using a oracle tripple-redundant database.

3) It does not have a recovery plan in case the city is nuked to ensure that the game can continue playing from just where you left off by restoring from backups.

4) It does not have an audit trail so that any time the spaceship shoots an alien we can point to which accountant did it.

Each game rule also is missing a corresponding 50 page spec document that, considering a Senior Space Invaders Functional Analyst's bill rate, cost $30K to write and revise.

3) Have you ever actually seen a recovery plan work like that?

Having a plan and having it work are two different universes. (Maybe the space invaders are defending the universe where the plan actually works?)

touche. At least we have a plan though.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not.

Well, the game exists (there's a link to download the jar) but the premise is a joke

... unless your comment was also a clever joke >_>

Yes this is very fortunate for a current product we have in development, but do the authors have information about what additional frameworks are available? It is important for our legacy application that a FORTRAN physics engine be able to be integrated, is this possible?

This is interesting, I love the idea of "rules engine" style development. It's basically just an external DSL for whatever you're doing.

I've been enamored by Cucumber in the Ruby testing world, but it is a bit too.... helpful (verbose / client oriented) for my tastes.

Interesting note: I'm using Cucumber on a side project. Did a lot of early development with no tests, then started tacking on Test::Unit/Shoulda and Cucumber tests.

In the process of writing Cucumber features and scenarios I realized that a feature I'd planned to write didn't have any good reasoning behind it -- I couldn't write a "As a ... I want to ... so that I can ..." section, so I was forced to rethink the feature.

That really sold me.

I do that exercise too, but as user stories before hand, instead of during development. But most of my work is for 3rd parties (doing contracting), so I'm limited in the ability to let my imagination run with new features, since they have to pay for it.

Wait, this article thinks that Enterprise-y game development is a GOOD thing?

I think it's a slightly self deprecating jab at what is really a good idea. The Drools rule engine mentioned is, without a doubt, aimed at an enterprise audience. http://www.jboss.org/drools

   Drools 5 introduces the Business Logic integration Platform which provides a unified and integrated platform for Rules, Workflow and Event Processing. It's been designed from the ground up so that each aspect is a first class citizen, with no compromises.

Yeah, at first I thought it would have been implemented using J2EE pattern-compliant servlets, JSP, and some combination of EJB/Hibernate/JPA mess.

I'm glad the author didn't go that far.

No, I'm not one of those EJB guys, I'm not a fan of shoehorning technologies that don't belong to software that doesn't need it. I went to rule engines because I thought it really provided some value. I elaborate on this on a comment back at the blog http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/space-invaders-enterprise-e....

DISCLAIMER: I'm the author of that post.