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Living Room / Re: Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by tinjaw on February 20, 2007, 01:04 PM »What technology is used.
The ultimate answer to "What technology should I use?" is "It depends." The traditional metaphor of a tradesman and his toolbox full of tools applies here. Many technologies overlap and many factors need to be considered. If the application in question is a full-featured multiplayer online game, then you will most likely decide on a beefy server-side application that talks to a database server and passes on various types of data to a client application that will both render the data and do some local computation/execution of code. The results will then be sent back to the server and the cycle will be repeated. So, what flavors are available?
On the server side your options are vast. Nearly all (contemporary mainstream) computer languages can interact with HTTP servers and database servers. In close to 100% of the cases the web server hands a chunk of data off to a computer program that gets more data from a database server. It then massages the data and sends a new or modified chunk of data back to the web server, and possibly to the database server as well. These computer programs can be written in Perl, Python, PHP, ASP, C/C++, Java, C#, or a variety of other languages.
On the client side you will need to execute code. Your first choice is to decide between three technology types: 1) (X)HTML + CSS + client-side scripting via Javascript/Actionscript/ECMAscript rendered by a web browser and its plug-ins/extensions, 2) web pages similar to #1, but also containing binary data that is executed by a player, like Flash, also in a web browser, or 3) a custom built stand-alone application that may, or may not, employ some, or none, of the technologies of #1 and #2 and is written by any of the same computer programming languages used on the server side (albeit unlikely PHP, ASP, or Perl will be used client-side, it is technically possible).
Weaved ever so tightly into these two choices are a myriad of other technologies: What operating system will be used on the server? What operating system will be required of the client? What web browsers should be targeted? Will the web server be Microsoft's IIS, Apache, or some other HTTP server? What database will be used? Will it be a RDMS or an OO database? What intermediate means will be used to communicate between your applications and the database? A proprietary means or something like ODBC, JDBC or the dozens of other common database libraries and standards? These decisions will determine whether you have Sun hardware running Linux with Apache, JBoss, MySQL, using Java for JSPs, EJBs, and other code, or, just as likely, AMD hardware running Microsoft Windows with IIS, Tomcat, Oracle, using C#, .NET, and ASP.
In either of these two scenarios you will need a computer you can fully control and upon which you may execute any code you choose. This may be a physical computer, or computers, you own and collocate at an local facility, a leased dedicated server, or Virtual Private Server (VPS) you rent monthly. However, you may choose to go with an architecture that is more lightweight and use IIS/Apache + PHP/Python/Perl + MySQL/Postgress/SQL Server on a traditional web hosting account. Both would allow you to host files that can be downloaded and executed on the client. These include multimedia files (avi, mpg, jpg, etc.), Flash/Shockwave files (.swf), Javascript/Actionscript/ECMAscript (.js, etc), or even stand-alone applications, that are possibly installed and configured, and run by the client (.exe, or other binary executables for Linux, MacOS, etc.)
Some groups of technologies are a more natural fit together than others. For example, if you are already familiar with Java you might choose to match Java, JSP, Java Faces, EJBs, Java applets, JDBC, and Apache + Tomcat. Or, equally likely, Microsoft shops will use Microsoft servers with Visual Studio development tools and .NET and ActiveX technologies. Either is perfectly viable and more a choice between left and right or up and down than right or wrong.
The key point to get from this is that you need to spend some time surveying all of the various tools available to you, determining where they are tuned to be used, and deciding if you have a personal affinity for any of them over others.
Next: Roll your own or just make a movie?
The ultimate answer to "What technology should I use?" is "It depends." The traditional metaphor of a tradesman and his toolbox full of tools applies here. Many technologies overlap and many factors need to be considered. If the application in question is a full-featured multiplayer online game, then you will most likely decide on a beefy server-side application that talks to a database server and passes on various types of data to a client application that will both render the data and do some local computation/execution of code. The results will then be sent back to the server and the cycle will be repeated. So, what flavors are available?
On the server side your options are vast. Nearly all (contemporary mainstream) computer languages can interact with HTTP servers and database servers. In close to 100% of the cases the web server hands a chunk of data off to a computer program that gets more data from a database server. It then massages the data and sends a new or modified chunk of data back to the web server, and possibly to the database server as well. These computer programs can be written in Perl, Python, PHP, ASP, C/C++, Java, C#, or a variety of other languages.
On the client side you will need to execute code. Your first choice is to decide between three technology types: 1) (X)HTML + CSS + client-side scripting via Javascript/Actionscript/ECMAscript rendered by a web browser and its plug-ins/extensions, 2) web pages similar to #1, but also containing binary data that is executed by a player, like Flash, also in a web browser, or 3) a custom built stand-alone application that may, or may not, employ some, or none, of the technologies of #1 and #2 and is written by any of the same computer programming languages used on the server side (albeit unlikely PHP, ASP, or Perl will be used client-side, it is technically possible).
Weaved ever so tightly into these two choices are a myriad of other technologies: What operating system will be used on the server? What operating system will be required of the client? What web browsers should be targeted? Will the web server be Microsoft's IIS, Apache, or some other HTTP server? What database will be used? Will it be a RDMS or an OO database? What intermediate means will be used to communicate between your applications and the database? A proprietary means or something like ODBC, JDBC or the dozens of other common database libraries and standards? These decisions will determine whether you have Sun hardware running Linux with Apache, JBoss, MySQL, using Java for JSPs, EJBs, and other code, or, just as likely, AMD hardware running Microsoft Windows with IIS, Tomcat, Oracle, using C#, .NET, and ASP.
In either of these two scenarios you will need a computer you can fully control and upon which you may execute any code you choose. This may be a physical computer, or computers, you own and collocate at an local facility, a leased dedicated server, or Virtual Private Server (VPS) you rent monthly. However, you may choose to go with an architecture that is more lightweight and use IIS/Apache + PHP/Python/Perl + MySQL/Postgress/SQL Server on a traditional web hosting account. Both would allow you to host files that can be downloaded and executed on the client. These include multimedia files (avi, mpg, jpg, etc.), Flash/Shockwave files (.swf), Javascript/Actionscript/ECMAscript (.js, etc), or even stand-alone applications, that are possibly installed and configured, and run by the client (.exe, or other binary executables for Linux, MacOS, etc.)
Some groups of technologies are a more natural fit together than others. For example, if you are already familiar with Java you might choose to match Java, JSP, Java Faces, EJBs, Java applets, JDBC, and Apache + Tomcat. Or, equally likely, Microsoft shops will use Microsoft servers with Visual Studio development tools and .NET and ActiveX technologies. Either is perfectly viable and more a choice between left and right or up and down than right or wrong.
The key point to get from this is that you need to spend some time surveying all of the various tools available to you, determining where they are tuned to be used, and deciding if you have a personal affinity for any of them over others.
Next: Roll your own or just make a movie?
I will ask you to please just answer my questions with a relevant reply and I will cheerfully attempt to help you. 
Thanks. I hope it attracts attention. It may seen cheesy and overblown to say that as the Internet improves, and society's use of it matures, the world will change forever, but it will elicit a "duh!" in 10 to 15 years in the future when it is a well understood fact of history. We are lucky to be at the cutting edge of a historical global change in how the World's population perceives itself and each individual is given the opportunity to participate in a way never yet seen and only infrequently imagined.
I hate having to deal with stuff like that. I wish you luck getting it back up and running soon.
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