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SpacetimeDB

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Re: SpacetimeDB

#141

Post by bobnamob »

hdjrudni wrote: post #118
Jarwain wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres discussion distinguishing hard real-time (what you describe), firm real-time (infrequent deadline misses are problematic but managable), and soft real-time (missing deadlines aren't a big deal). Node does a pretty hood job with soft real-time.

Ya'all are very strict in your definitions then. My definition is "does it feel laggy" or "do I have to walk away and come back when this thing is done". Basically like 24 FPS or higher is real-time. Even that'd be laggy for a game but not unplayable. I choose this specifically because that's what movies typically use and they're very watchable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computing

Hard real time (or just "real time" in firmware/hardware contexts) is effectively a term of art. One that's been increasingly watered down by the rest of the industry.

Strict definitions matter when system failure == pacemaker missing a beat or train signalling system drives a freight train into the back of 400 passengers.

Re: SpacetimeDB

#143

Post by 1oooqooq »

ffsm8 wrote: post #58
barrell wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When node first came out, it was pretty revolutionary. Being able to almost instantly start a JavaScript thread from a single file that could support realtime experiences (a la socket.io et al) without a build step felt pretty paradigm shifting

> could support realtime experiences Node supports realtime applications? Really? Isn't it garbage collected? Or does the term mean something different in nodejs? I've only come to know the term in the context of time guarantees (i.e. if it's scheduled to run in x, it is guaranteed to run at that time) and that shouldn't apply to nodejs I think? When you schedule something there, I believe it'll run on the first free…

you're making the common mistake of assuming js devs know anything about core concepts.

they are vibe coding since the beginning.

Re: SpacetimeDB

#144

Post by meheleventyone »

aeturnum wrote: post #66
duxup wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of the "needs visionaries?, stuff has a pretty high chance of having not much real value. That's not a judgment on SpacetimeDB, but it is kinda how it plays out with these kinds of things.

IMO it's more that there is value...but the chance that any random developer (i.e. me) is going to be able to realize it is much lower. Your instincts about how do to things will be predictably wrong in this new, different paradigm. You generally want a guide or you risk foot-gun'ing any project through misunderstanding.

Could also be marketing hype! The MMO space tends to be full of this, most famously in the VC funded arena with Improbable. This also suffers from the same problem that Improbable did that there are just not that many people making MMOs but maybe it'll find a niche elsewhere.

I've been making multiplayer games professionally for twenty years from fast-paced shooters to spaceship MMOs and to me this isn't really crazy. If you wanted to make a comparison it's like having SQLite in memory but with the added infrastructure to support networking to clients and persisting state to disk. Obviously there is more work involved than that but conceptually thats where things are at. How nice it is to actually develop a game with is a pretty open question, and almost certainly the most important one when evaluating this sort of product, but you'd be surprised at the range of stacks in existence.

Re: SpacetimeDB

#145

Post by Tomuus »

anentropic wrote: post #27
pmx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they've been inspired by crypto for the way they handle billing. They sell you "Energy" which you use by running on their infra. Seems like a needless abstraction to me.

Doesn't Snowflake do something similar though?

And Vercel's "compute units"

Re: SpacetimeDB

#146

Post by cess11 »

barrell wrote: post #48
theLiminator wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Node What's your reasoning behind this? Just being able to run the same code on frontend and backend?

When node first came out, it was pretty revolutionary. Being able to almost instantly start a JavaScript thread from a single file that could support realtime experiences (a la socket.io et al) without a build step felt pretty paradigm shifting

How would that differ from PHP?

Re: SpacetimeDB

#147

Post by cess11 »

gafferongames wrote: post #112
Aeolun wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they are dogfooding their own database. If they’re making a MMO game with it presumably the game has latency masking netcode, even if it isn’t in part of the database.

[flagged]

"Tyler was a Sr. Data Science Engineer at MZ (the company behind Game of War and Mobile Strike). Prior to working at MZ he was an engineer at Apple. Tyler holds a Masters in Distributed Systems and Machine Learning from Johns Hopkins University."

"Alessandro was a Sr. Software Engineer at Bloomberg, LP where he worked on high throughput distributed pricing systems. He holds a Computer Science and a Biomedical Engineering degree from Johns Hopkins University."

Looks like they've built stuff before.

I don't like this database product because it lacks SDK:s in languages I would touch without getting paid, but I think the idea is sound and rather attractive. For many years I've used Picolisp in a similar way, it bundles an object database with a logic engine and a small Lisp-like programming language, which makes it easy to throw in some data and relations and slap on a web page with standard library widgets.

The BEAM is similar, you push some modules into it and store stuff in ETS and don't bother with RDBMS until you need it. If your data is small or trivially shardable you can get persistence too, with Mnesia.

I'm not so sure they'll be making a lot from that game of theirs, but if their database turns out to be robust it could become competitive with things like Supabase/Firebase and such, because there will be modules for serving web and auth and dashboards and whatnot you can just push in there and you're good to go. One-click-install for applications, similar to cPanel and Wordpress rigs, but less messy on the ops side.

Re: SpacetimeDB

#148

Post by Aeolun »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #138
gafferongames wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This guy is blunt... but he's correct. This company focused all it's effort in reinventing the part of multi-player games that did not need reinventing. 40 engineers for 5 years. I'm guessing at least 20 million dollars spent. 1 million trailer views... Let's say 100k wishlists, 10,000 sales at 30 LTV. 300k in revenue This company will need to pivot if the game is not successful. I would say the db could be pivoted f…

Being correct doesn’t mean you get to be an asshole about it.

At least, not if you want me to not call you out on it.

I get the sentiment, I really do, but being misguided isn’t a crime that’s worth being treated like shit for. Especially when you are trying to learn.

Re: SpacetimeDB

#149

Post by hansworst »

bobnamob wrote: post #141
hdjrudni wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya'all are very strict in your definitions then. My definition is "does it feel laggy" or "do I have to walk away and come back when this thing is done". Basically like 24 FPS or higher is real-time. Even that'd be laggy for a game but not unplayable. I choose this specifically because that's what movies typically use and they're very watchable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computing Hard real time (or just "real time" in firmware/hardware contexts) is effectively a term of art. One that's been increasingly watered down by the rest of the industry. Strict definitions matter when system failure == pacemaker missing a beat or train signalling system drives a freight train into the back of 400 passengers.

But in gaming, real time means something different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_in_games#Real-time

Context matters.

Re: SpacetimeDB

#150

Post by meheleventyone »

hansworst wrote: post #149
bobnamob wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computing Hard real time (or just "real time" in firmware/hardware contexts) is effectively a term of art. One that's been increasingly watered down by the rest of the industry. Strict definitions matter when system failure == pacemaker missing a beat or train signalling system drives a freight train into the back of 400 passengers.

But in gaming, real time means something different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_in_games#Real-time Context matters.

In game development we still care about the distinction between soft and hard realtime. Almost all games are soft realtime, even if the gameplay itself is turned based as we're processing user input, updating UI, animating things and so on.
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