Master thesis proposal

[Tuxide]

It sounds like what you're interested in involves distributed computing or applications that take advantage of multiple processors.  To my knowledge, PlaneShift doesn't do anything that takes advantage of multiple cores, and parallel computing is beyond anything I've ever looked into.  I know what serializable means and that's about it.  What kind of electives do you have in your concentration?

[jonny]

It sounds like what you're interested in involves distributed computing or applications that take advantage of multiple processors.  To my knowledge, PlaneShift doesn't do anything that takes advantage of multiple cores, and parallel computing is beyond anything I've ever looked into.  I know what serializable means and that's about it.

Yes, I have seen projects that scale very well (and are robust) with Erlang. I have tried to learn Erlang for some time, but without interesting projects, its just ends up playing with the language.
I have searched for projects where I could use Erlang, and it seems like PlaneShift is the most up-and-running game + it may handle lots of clients in the future.
If the server don't scale or an error in the server gets the whole server to halt or stop responding. Then I can probably make an thesis about these problems, and use PlaneShift as an example.

What kind of electives do you have in your concentration?

Do you mean what courses I can select during my master?
There is a mix of algorithms, parallel programming (SMP, threads, super computers etc.), programming technologies (Java EE, ORM, SOA, Unit testing ++) and programming methods (XP, UP, Test driven, Model driven..) subjects.

[Tuxide]

I mean classes that would count towards your concentration's elective requirement (assuming your university makes you take classes specific to your concentration).  For example, my concentration is artificial intelligence, so for me it would be classes like pattern recognition, image processing and analysis, data mining, multi-agent systems and swarm robotics, etc.  Most likely what you're doing is something that I don't know anything about though.

[jonny]

Here is a small update:

• I have not yet selected my thesis, the deadline is 15. September.
• There are supervisors that think it would be possible to select this project as basis for a thesis.
• If I select this thesis, I will begin the next semester (January 2010).

[jonny]

I have selected my master thesis, I and my super visor will make a more detailed description later, but the subject will be something about "Parallelism and effectiveness in game servers". I will official start next semester (January 2010).

Planned time usage for the thesis:
7. semester: None
8. semester: 10 ECST
9. semester: 20 ECST
10. semester: 30 ECST

Where 30 ECST is one full-time semester studies.

[Elvors]

I see two areas where Erlang can help PS:

1) Make the code base more robust against crashes (the keyword is "fault-tolerant"). E.g. this could prevent the server from crashing due to faulty database field contents.
This is more a programming-culture than hard-language-property thing; similar things could be done inside the current C++ codebase.
A comparative study of using Erlang's processes vs. C++'s exceptions could be interesting.

2) Use Erlang to distribute the server software across multiple machines. Erlang would scale far better than C++ with RPCs or something could, if only because moving an Erlang process to another machine is easier than moving a C++ object.

Note that Erlang is not at all suitable for sending data between server and client, that would open security holes. (Erlang is built for environments where all Erlang software runs on trusted machines, and where only trusted machines can open Erlang connections to each other. A PS client cannot be trusted.)

[gwencris02]

If I were one of the jurors or judges of your master thesis proposal, I would accept it. Because your academic paper was properly structured. Your master thesis proposal was organized also.