oh, and i'll add: there's nothing at all wrong with sql, but many folks these days choose to implement their complex data stuff in code and use a much simpler (e.g. nosql) store for the persistence layer. maybe this too could help with operation costs? idk.

If it makes you feel better about AWS - prices are pretty consistently going down.

Ye, I get emails pretty much weekly about price reductions. They are usually only a couple of % but for a big company they probably make quite a difference.

And it gives pretty good confidence that prices aren't going to be jacked up anytime soon.

when amazon starts pimping its cloud offerings with television commercials, we will know we've arrived at the bottom of the market.

I'm usually very much in the "lol IT books" camp, especially for programming since stuff outdates so quickly and yet I just got an order of three paperback books for about 150 Euro total. Two of them are on programming (same language) and one is a "concept book" (related to said language).

Hints:




Anyone willing to guess? I'll reveal this incredibly interesting info later :P
You can win no price except for a thumbsup.

Code Complete?

Edit: I missed "related to said language" so I assume my guess was wrong.

Stupid question.
MFC C++,
I have a few structs that are used everywhere in my program.
I would like to be able to add a function to the struct that clears/initliatzes all the variables.

Is this possible? I have seen something about adding functions to structs before but when I complied i get errors about the function already being defined. Yes, I could make them classes but I would imagine this would be possible as well especially since they are all just data...

Basically what would be ideal would be

I would love to avoid paying out the rear for server costs, but I would need to sit down and figure out if there was a way around it. I need to keep historical stats and a huge player database that is going to be hiding some sensitive info (to the game, not credit card info or anything).

Shouldn't be a problem, just a couple of tweaks to get it compiling:

edit: FYI, there is virtually no difference between structs and classes in C++ anymore. The only difference at all is that struct members are public by default and class members are private by default. So don't worry too much about it!

In c++ you can have functions in structs. I see in your code that you forgot return type, this might be the source of your problem. Try declaring it as

void Clear();

and then

void MyStruct::Clear()
{
}


benholio beat me to it..

You want a constructor. You might also want a clear if you are into recycling.

does anyone use a VPS as their actual computer? apparently its popular with day traders who need uptime 24/7. i coudlnt believe it, immediately security concerns popped into my head

was just wondering if anyone has experience with it

Security is not much of a problem (as long as its setup correctly), for me the bigger issue would be speed.

My guess would be that the day traders have some sort of web based portal setup which they can trade through which will be quite fast, but you try using a remote desktop and however fast your connection is, there is going to be lag.

yeah i'm sure a lot of "lone wolf" traders use remote desktop vps to a very stable connection in a datacentre, they likely really want the platform to be up and able to close out their positions automatically etc even if your own internet goes down. Can't see lag being much of an issue for day trading, most of them are probably not "scalping" as super-low timescales. like being disconnected while registered for a $5k husng, losing connection with a trade active is most undesirable!

A lot of internet marketers run VPS as main computers too, tho not their only ones. very handy to have multiple / throwaway IPs, and computer(s) that can keep running automation programs 24/7 like xrumer, senuke etc.

nothing you've indicated here screams out to me "this should be in a proper relational database". in fact, "huge player database" might be a plus for a nosql (or other persistence layer) solution.

i also thought the same thing

guy told me he is using teamviewer to control it. my experience was that it was always slow and laggy. pretty much the same with all VNC like softwares

i've found RDC to be pretty usable over a non-dog**** connection (i.e. home broadband to work through vpn tunnel).

I used to use tightvnc but over a lan - and it was almost indistinguishable from direct control. def way better than standard vnc. I used it for coding php.

Does anyone have first hand experience with this?

http://impactjs.com/

It looks pretty frikken amazing, but comes at a cost.

That does look interesting for a project I'm hoping to get going with next month.

So yes, if anyone knows if that's any good, I'd love to know. The licensing looks pretty reasonable to me.

I want to hear from Gullanian, surely construct2 would be the first port of call for a 2+2 programming reg wanting a html5 game creation suite?

Impact is very popular, has been around for a while and has had good feedback so it's probably a safe bet but I've never used it myself. However I haven't seen many games made in it though, if anyone comes across good examples beyond the ones on their website I'd like to see them! Imo that's the best way to judge a potential engine - see what people are making in it.

It seems quite well documented as well which is a rarity amongst most game engines.

For programmers Construct 2 might not be the most comfortable choice, even though we have a full Javascript SDK most development is based around the event system so that might feel un-natural at first for some programmers. Still it would be worth giving our free edition a try if you haven't already http://www.scirra.com/store/free-html5-game-engine

Because I'm shameless and have the opportunity to show it, you should check out this Construct 2 game that recently won our rotation based competition:

http://www.scirra.com/arcade/games/a...s/848/airscape

In my completely biased opinion it's one of the best HTML5 game I've seen yet. The author also recently wrote a tutorial on how he made the mechanics which is an interesting read:

http://www.scirra.com/tutorials/273/...sed-platformer

If you do try Construct 2 in your hunt for a HTML5 game engine I'd love your feedback (feel free to PM me) especially if your feedback is negative, we sometimes find it difficult to get programming types to try our engine so any feedback is appreciated!

I can't say that I even know what I'm talking about too much. Is impact and construct 2 even comparable? I just happened to see an Impact/Node.js tutorial somewhere and it looked pretty cool.

From what I think I know about it, you can publish a game with it similar to how couchdb can serve a couch app but you can also leverage components of it and use your own code (socket.io and node.js) to handle most of the logic similar to how couchdb can be used as just a datastore too while your web server handles the logic.

Is that the flow of how construct works too?

Edit:
I'm not going to make any html5 games yet but if I ever do I'll certainly look into construct. Also I've been pretty inactive on the forums lately, congrats on your success with scirra.com gullanian.

if anyone needs a vps, buyvm is gonna have more stock on March 23rd, 2012, 6AM GMT -8

it really is the best deal out there and they sell out of hundreds in minutes so i'd try to get one