Working with others is hard. But being able to work remotely and have all your files merged together nicely is really cool. I'm talking about source-control/versioning software, a tool that lets you maintain history of the changes to your files, as well as allowing everyone on the team to merge their changes to the project seamlessly. There are a couple different versioning tools out there, but the one I'm most familiar with and enjoy using is Subversion.
Since my team has decided we might consider selling our Tower Defense game at some point, we finally decided to remove its open source label and get smarter about how we secure our project. So I decided to set up my laptop as a Subversion (SVN) server; I know I should really use a spare server but I don't have one lying around. So I installed SVN server, got the repository and permissions set up, configured my router to forward the SVN port to a static internal IP address, and... VOILA! I had a working SVN repository accessible via the internet.
Unfortunately my upload speed, which measured .96Mbps on speedtest.net, was providing an abysmal 120kBps download rate for my team members trying to update their working copy of the project -- and let's not even mention the 2+ hours spent on the initial checkout! By comparison, downloads from our open source provider were roughly 1500kBps. I was a little perplexed as to WHY my 1 meg-per-second upload rate was so slow until I saw this forum post, specifically the comment by JC316. Megabits are eight times smaller than Megabytes, and when I did the math I realized that 120kBps (120,000 * 8 = 960,000 bits) is the same as .96Mbps (.96 * 1,000,000).
The reality is that my upload speed is just too slow. We don't have an office to work out of yet and I don't want to shell out $100+ per month for internet service just for a better upload rate. We're considering other closed-source SVN hosting services for now, but I have to wonder...
As an indie startup with team members working remotely over the internet, how do YOU collaborate?
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Phoenix Rising
You, my dear reader, deserve better than excuses. But I'm afraid that's all I have for not posting in such a long time... just one single excuse... life :) Things have been so busy, in fact, that I've barely had time to work on my game that I've alluded to in posts of olde. But if you somehow have my blog still on your "pages to check" list (or RSS reader for the web-savvy folk), I thank you for checking back. And I look forward to reviving this dormant space.
I have much to write about, having worked in XNA for about a year and a half at this point on a single game project. But I figure, as an old proverb states, that "even a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step."
Btw, while I was gone Blogger added some new features. Just for fun, check out this blog in some new dynamic views (requires IE8+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome, or Safari):
I have much to write about, having worked in XNA for about a year and a half at this point on a single game project. But I figure, as an old proverb states, that "even a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step."
Btw, while I was gone Blogger added some new features. Just for fun, check out this blog in some new dynamic views (requires IE8+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome, or Safari):
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