   question on programming
Hi people, I have a question related to game programming I hope I can get some answers for please. A programmer friend of mine told me that adding additional programmers late in a game's development does not speed it up, instead it slows it down. The rationale behind this is because there are many codes developed by the time we are late into a game's development, new programmers entering at this point, may not be able to become familiar with the codes already built such that they wouldn't do anything that might break the code, create codes inconsistent with the existing ones, or develop codes in such a way that creates performance bottlenecks (eg. too much memory, cpu etc).   May I know if his opinion is accurate? I welcome and appreciate any feedback, thank you all in advance.
Generally, when a new programmer joins a project that's already in development, there is a period in which they will be learning how the game engine works, rather than creating new code. To speed up this learning process, one (or more) of the veteran programmers should spend time to walk the new programmer through the engine. As long as the new programmer understands the game engine (and has the skill to adapt), then the problems you mentioned should be minimal if at all. Also, I would like to mention that part of the issue can be on the part of the programmers who built the game engine in the first place. If they did not design it in a way that makes it difficult to "break the code" and also in a way that enforces certain design rules (as well as plenty of commenting), then part of the blame is on them, rather than the new programmer who doesn't fully understand the engine.;Your friend is correct. This is referred to as Brooks' Law.;  This problem can be eased or exacerbated depending on the quality of the new developers you bring in, If you bring in some green developers then besides the slow down from taking time from the current developers to get them up to speed, you probably will have issues with coding standards and areas where they are weak and cause code breaks that senior developers then have to track down. If they are veteran developers they probably will use less of your current developer time since they can get aquainted with the current development quicker and will cause less issues going forward.   