[GD-Windows] Process communication

[David H. <da...@em...>]

Very soon I'm going to be moving our currently very messy data storage
scheme consisting of hundreds of seperate sound/texture/binary files into a
properly managed data solution (ugh I've already started talking MS
techno-babble - I'll be using words like "leverage" and calling all our
projects solutions soon).

So...
    Our shiny new system needs to be client server based. All
artists/content providers compile their data into a single large database
residing on a seperate machine (or locally for debug purposes). Obviously to
manage all this more than blind file sharing is needed - I don't want to
have to wait 10 minutes whilst artist A copies his data over and keeps the
file locked. I need to send my data to a server application that controls
database access in a fair/interleaved monolithic timely safe fashion. The
server needs to be able to defrag the database in its spare time and clients
need to be able to browse it quickly, detemine changes and synchronise data
that has changed locally.

    The data storage format has to be understandable by the game and cross
platform so SQL or whatever probably isn't on the cards (I think?).

    I want this to run on win 98 machines up - but I suppose at a pinch we
could set the bar at ME/NT.

    What mechanisms should I be looking at in Windows for remote
inter-object communication?


David Hunt (Empire Interactive)