I had a rough weekend and had to take care of few stuff, so I couldn't really get started on the file system. It is supposed to be easy and I believe it will. It's just that I'm confused about some stuff, and really didn't get the chance to ask about today.
The stuff that I read about the file system from the Game Engine Architecture book, and the Windows System Programming book made me not sure about how far I should go with the design of this file system for this particular assignment. I mean I don't know exactly what game programmers might need so that I can provide for them efficiently. Things like:
- Will they ever need to read text or characters for files? or all the need is just to read the files as binary.
- Shall I consider make the my file system I/O functions asynchronous so that a call to them doesn't block the game?
- Do I count on Windows to buffer the read/write I/O for me, or disable the buffering whenever I create a file handle, and do buffering on my own internally?
I started practicing a bit after I finished reading by coding some simple programs. Following prof. Ed's advice to make baby steps, prototyping to learn, and to use the tracer bullets concept to explore the unknown aspect of software design. In order to force myself that anything I write at this stage will be thrown away, I used a completely different IDE, namely Qt Creator. I used it several times before but I haven't used it for a while. I have to say after months of coding inside Visual Studio alone. Qt Creator is absolutely amazing, and fun to use.
I hope I could get it done soon, I'm waiting for the Unit Tests through, as they will clear out a lot of stuff.
The Math Engine seems to be a lot of work, but at the same time seems that it will be extremely fun. We'll see! :)
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