Coding a Private Server in DM?

ID:151845
 
Jan 4 2009, 5:31 pm
*I'm not sure if this kind of post is allowed on the DEV Forums, but I'll post anyways.

Overall question: Is this possible?



So, we all know DM does support MySQL, and that it can be fullscreen.
But would coding a private server be possible? DM was one of my first programming languages, and I feel that I know it extremely well, but how could something like this work?

Let's assume the development of a typical private server is like so:

- Socket System
- Packet System
- Map Generation (via Game Files)
- Includes
- SQL
- Debug

You could do all of this in DM, correct?
Given, the socket system would be really hard to make, but COULD be done.

Comments / Opinions?
Jan 4 2009, 9:43 pm
BYOND does not offer any way to create sockets (and send packets) unless you provide that functionality via a DLL.
Jan 4 2009, 9:51 pm
Kirone wrote:
- Socket System

You would have to use a DLL file, since this is not natively supported by BYOND.

- Packet System

You would have to use a DLL file, since this is not natively supported by BYOND.

- Map Generation (via Game Files)

OK.

- Includes

?

- SQL

You would need to use the libmysql.dll file, although the implementation is already built-in and you can use the Dantom.DB library to finalize it.

- Debug

?

You could do all of this in DM, correct?

No.

Given, the socket system would be really hard to make, but COULD be done.

It might be possible to accomplish this, but it would rely on such a lot of custom-built DLLs that you might as well program the server in C++ to begin with.
Jan 4 2009, 10:04 pm
In response to Slurm
But it does technically offer you a method of using sockets using world.Export() and world/Topic(). You can even transfer files using Import(). But as for actual packets, it would probably take a DLL, yeah.
Jan 5 2009, 10:39 am
In response to Nadrew
Nadrew wrote:
But it does technically offer you a method of using sockets using world.Export() and world/Topic(). You can even transfer files using Import(). But as for actual packets, it would probably take a DLL, yeah.

So, if the socket system can be used without a DLL, it would still take a crapload of coding ... decrypted to imitate the DLL, right?
And for packet sending, couldn't we make a seperate program (to run with Dream Daemon) to do that for us?

It probably sounds like I'm talking out of my ass, I'm new to the whole "private server development" scene, and I've only learned some C# from my classes.

So, overall, it's not possible?
Jan 5 2009, 10:58 am
In response to Kirone
You'd just implement a DLL in your language of choice that handles the sockets and packet sending stuff, then have a mini-stack in DM and a polling mechanism call()ing the DLL to check for new data received. It'd be faster than Topic and offer you more control, I'd suspect.