Hey Robert, Love your online stuff.. read it all. Still got it bookmarked in hopes of using some of it for some game ideas.
That said, I think the Ruby language is quite a bit more difficult at least in syntax than Java is. If you already know the Java language, why learn another language for the server component? Unless you have lots of time or it's a requirement, I would stick with Java over Ruby. I am probably one of the few that look at Rails as more difficult than Java. For me, having taken a stab at Ruby for a short bit, the language syntax reminds me of Perl.. which is God awful. It's more difficult to read and even with the Rails framework, you still have to learn the basic concepts of MVC design, ORM, and such. If you haven't seen JEE 6 with EJB 3.1 and the Jersey REST stuff, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. It's quite amazing how fast it is to develop with. I installed GlassFish v3 and had a simplified RESTful API with back end ejb -> mysql ORM mapping in an hours time. I do know a lot about the REST server side, but the EJB stuff was fairly new to me and the most difficult part was figuring out how to connect GlassFish to mySql and accessing that via the EJB context. There has been a vast number of improvements especially in the area of developer productivity with JEE6 that I think compares favorably with anything RoR offers, and you get a lot more to boot.. not having to learn a new language, more frameworks and so forth. If you've got time, and want to pick up another language, go for it. For me, I can do more in Java than I can with Rails, and for me it's quite a bit faster too. I am one of the few that argues against going to RoR, Python or PhP for server solutions, although I am going to pick up on python as it's a very interesting language and is used quite a bit in scripting and other solutions. I used to be in the camp for learning everything new under the sun.. but now that Java is more than fast enough to handle heavy loads on the server side, handle any sort of Desktop application you can imagine (ooh..with the exception of high-end games and high-end low latency music apps), and you can use the same language for Android mobile too, I personally say stick with the one language you know already, learn some more of it (server side in the OPs case) and keep it all one language. Like I said, JEE6 comes bundled with Jersey, making it only a couple lines of code with no xml configuration to get a RESTful service in place, and a few entity pojos with annotations to have the ORM done as well. It's impressively easy to work with now. No matter what solution he goes with, he's still stuck figuring out how to host it. If he went RoR, JEE6, PhP, python, etc.. he still has to figure out where to host it, how to get it working for his game, etc. On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Robert Green <[email protected]> wrote: > I'll mention it once more because it seems to be overlooked but for > any kind of turn-based game, I have to recommend: > > Server side: > Ruby on Rails as the platform > Phusion Passenger on Apache as the deployment manager > REST as the method > JSON as the high level protocol > > This is free, VERY easy to work with and will be able to work with > most design requirements. Android ships with JSON parsers and RoR has > built in ORM->JSON support, so it'll effectively dump the results of > queries directly into JSON without you having to add any code. > > I recommend using Aptana Studio with RADRails as the dev environment. > You can start up a local Mongrel server and test directly against it > with your device via WiFi, then just copy the rails app to your server > to move it into production. > > I use these technologies extensively. Try the full version of Wixel > if you want to see how it works for online play. It has been 99.999% > reliable and has handled peaks in traffic just fine. > > On Jan 19, 5:15 pm, polyclefsoftware <[email protected]> wrote: > > A couple of months ago I started looking into options for converting > > some of my single-player turn-based games into online multiplayer > > versions...it's the number one request I get from end users. I > > investigated SmartFoxServer since they do have support for Android. I > > set up a test server and worked through some of the tutorials. It > > actually worked quite well, but of course there is the cost of the > > server software in addition to the cost and logistics of hosting (as > > Kevin just mentioned). > > > > A friend of mine mentioned the possibility of using Google App Engine > > as a possible server solution. It makes a lot of sense (at least on > > paper), since GAE: > > > > 1) Is free (up to a limit, a very high limit) > > 2) Scales very nicely > > 3) Uses a Google account for authentication, so ideally authentication > > from an Android phone should be seamless, right? > > > > Well, I've spent a fair amount of time getting the authentication > > working (search this forum if you're going this route). Our first GAE/ > > Android online multiplayer game is coming together, but we're still > > working through some issues. I think the bottom line is that if you're > > not knowledgeable about how to implement server/client applications, > > you're going to have to learn quite a bit, no matter what solution you > > implement. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Android Developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<android-developers%[email protected]> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en >
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