Darkstar Fanboy

Ok, so it all started with GDC 2007. I had my floor pass, I wondered around a bit, checking out the "scenery" and also the cool projects on the expo floor. I remember seeing Project Darkstar's booth, a bunch of computers and guys in lab coats. I'd heard of it in passing, It was inevitable, I'm a java developer at a game company. To be honest I really wasn't expecting much from Sun, so I didn't even bother walking over to the booth.

Now GDC passes, and I'm back hard at work. Me and my fellow Java engineers from time to time like to talk (and complain) about a variety of tech topics. This weeks started heading toward the ongoing discussion of how much better a game server would be if written in Java. As we all know (or should know) Java has hit it's stride in performance, it's on par with anything C/C++ can dish out and in general is much quicker to develop, test, and debug. I'll wait to another post to rant on this topic, but suffice it to say we all agreed Java might be the future in game server tech if any game company would give it a chance.

So I'm a curious guy, and I realized I wasn't being true to myself. Here I am arguing for Java in the game industry and I hadn't even researched or looked at what was available. I decided to give Darkstar a chance, and read over some of the documentation. In my mind, I had assumed Sun had taken a standard App server and sort of optimized it for game services. A re-use of tired old tech, and I wasn't to enthused about the idea.

Boy was I wrong. Ok, let me say at the moment I'm still in my Darkstar Fanboy stage. You know what I'm talking about, you see them at conventions or waiting 2 weeks early for a movie. They're fun to make fun of yet often quite annoying in person because that's all they talk about. Yep, that's me at the moment. I'm sure it will wear off, but I'm guessing I can be annoying with my enthusiasm over Darkstar, hence the whole blog!

So I guess after all that talk I should at least explain why I like Darkstar.

• It's new - It's not a rehash of App server technology, yet it's built on well proven Enterprise methodologies
  
• It’s Java - proven, fast, rapid development.
  
• It’s simple - reducing code complexity and bugs.
  
• It’s reliable - built-in data integrity.
  
• It’s scalable - designed to scale according to user usage patterns, not forced by geographic boundaries.
  
• It’s fault tolerant - Individual machines can fail without impact on users.
  
• Extensible API allows integration of custom services.
  
• Transparent - All code is open sourced, meaning we have the power of the community and Sun supporting it.
  
• Versatile Clients - Simple client API supports heterogeneous clients. C/C++ support coming soon.
  
• Hot Server Patching - with Darkstar and Java, the server can be patched and easily diagnosed without bringing the system down.
  
• Shorter Time to Market - leveraging Darkstar and existing Java technology for rapid development will reduce server development time.
  
• Talent - untapped market of future Java server developers
  

Well that's it in a nutshell. In short Darkstar rocks.

Of course I've yet to see it in a production environment. We have a long way ahead of us before it's widely adopted, but I'm convinced it's one of the best solutions for developing large scale MMO's that's currently available. It offers features and ease of development that nothing on the market can provide.