Re: [Rails-devel] Simultaneous loading of a game

[Jim B. <jim...@ya...>]

Chris,

Thanks for the followup-

 > Yeah, we tried that, but renaming the file doesn't "touch" the  
timestamp in Linux.

Bummer.

I always open the file and write it back (to coerce the update), and  
the move file is being saved at the same time anyway- but that's a  
good point, because-

 > Good system though.  What I'm hoping is that eventually we can get  
it to push updates to the other players' clients, so we can play near- 
realtime online.

One major disadvantage of the approach I'm using, vs yours, is that  
the update of the 'rails save file' and the 'current player token'  
file is not atomic- a player can do one, but forget the other, etc.   
Or, a player might save his move, but before he sends email and  
updates the token, he begins to reconsider.  Not a good situation- as  
someone else might now be assume the move is played (given the  
notification of the saved move, in the dropbox).

We did it the other way- the same file- with Steam, for a while, when  
using VASSAL.  But, people were always screwing up the turn-order and  
making mistakes- which is why we started keeping them separate.

VASSAL didn't maintain turn-order at all, though- players did.  Rails,  
by contrast, maintains turn-order properly.  So, maybe this isn't  
really a problem, anymore- and I should try it your way, again.  :-)

  - jim