Phlip wrote:
> John D. Gwinner wrote:
> 
> 
>>Well, I just missed the deadline - when I started to type this, there were
>>22 mins to go or so, but at line 440 out of 571 to go ... obviously, it's
>>not going to make it.
> 
> 
> The lesson is everyone attempting to enter the competition should have
> rendered a submission quality image each weekend, from the start of the
> contest until now. Then if you can't render your best version, you can
> submit the second best.
> 
> Frequent releases also teach how long a render takes.
> 
> This is a "best practice" in software engineering.
> 
Yeah yeah yeah, but the real world is messy.  I did a lot of due 
diligence full blown testing myself, along with clever speed testing, 
and built a lot into my code to facilitate that,... but I still got a 
big surprise during the final push at the end.  I, myself, was forced to 
enter a set of renders that I did in just the spirit you describe.  But 
they look embarassing to me now. They could have been improved 
dramatically with just a few "plan B" tweaks, once it was obvious that a 
technique I was depending on wouldn't work, but instead I had to watch, 
helplessly, as the clock ticked down, just as John did.