Order of static and global variables initialization is a well-known uncontrolled phenomena. There is no way you can change it, variables will be initialized in an order the compiler is the sole to decide. The singleton fixes this problem by postponing the initialization at the first time the object is used. But then creation time is unknown and multi-threading issues may appear. This article propose a simple technique to force order of initialization.
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Console has recently pushed a new paradigm in the hand of game programmers. Multi-thread programming is now in our everyday life. The transformation of a sequential game engine into a multi-threaded engine is far from being trivial, and no references exists on this particular topic. Even if multithread programming is far from being new, few books are focused on concept and theory. Books about API are good, but they don’t teach you the good way to use the APIs from a design point of view. This book introduces theory and then apply it with code samples. Everything is programmed in java, but it applies to C++ as well.

The first chapters introduce abstract theoretical concepts, such as memory models. The next chapters cover concrete datas structures that help understanding concepts exposed earlier. The approaches and concepts used will help the reader to understand the phase one must follow to transform a sequential algorithm into a multi-threaded one. Most of the book is oriented around collection, but the result is good: each collection touches a new problem and exposes a new solution. Going from lock-based to lock-free algorithm, the process shows step by step transformations of collections such as set, list, hash map. To finish, work distribution and transactional memory are explained. Those chapters also introduce concepts that may appear in future architectures. The book closes with a huge appendix that exposes platform specific knowledge that one must know to address unexplained behaviors.

Elegantly written, this book is a bible, the code provided is clear, and the difficulty increases smoothly chapter after chapter. This book must be putted into every game programmer’s hands. But if they do not have any multiprocessor knowledge, the dive may be hard to stand.

Amazon
Elsevier

At GDC 08, I had the chance to present the motion engine we developed at 10Tacle Studios Belgium. It was a great adventure and the results are really due to a fantastic team of programmers and game designers. Unfortunately, we did not survived to the 10Tacle financial storm. I really miss the mood we had in our office. This team was a family for a lot of us, with its good and bad days. But today, we need to walk forward.

The slides of this presentation were available on 10Tacle website, but everything vanished. I think it’s time to provide them again, as there’s not much chance to see Totems any time soon

So from now on, the slides will be available from Fishing Cactus website

http://www.fishingcactus.com/blog/gdc-sess.rar

If you want to listen to my not-so-bad-English-with-a-French-accent, you can buy the talk audio here (Thanks to Julien Delezenne for the link )

Enjoy!

One of the first step a company must take is defining a coding standard, and possibly the last. The web and books are full of coding conventions, but you might want to specializes it.

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