Let's talk about ridiculous release delay.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

They both are delaying their release for a longass time though XD

[Rolina]

No, technically GSDS is still on schedule.  Until Jan 1st, 2011, it'll be on-schedule.

[Atrius (He/They)]

It's not like there ever was a scheduled date for v0.3 so it can't really be behind schedule.


These errors in the automatic repointing system baffle me more and more as I work on them.  Now it's writing data it should be putting in one location in a location that's reserved for different data.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Now that's rather.... odd, isn't it? You haven't gone and pressed multiple keys at once, have you?
When I was working on that Asteroids clone game, there was an error in the script that allows the ufo's to appear randomly, I tried everything that I could think of to fix it, turns out that the error was caused by a measly typo.... I felt like such an idiot after I'd figured that out.
Just goes to show that even people who know what they're doing will sometimes make mistakes.

So please, always check for typos... If you don't, they WILL turn around and bite you in the butt sooner or later XD

@Role: Jan 1st 2011? That's awfully long off, isn't it? I thought that it would be out sometime this year.

[Atrius (He/They)]

What it is, is that I'll write code that looks like:

writeByte(0,0x12)
writeByte(1,0x34)

And it will correctly write 0x12 at position 0, but it also writes it at position 1 instead of 0x34.  Then when I add another line of code "writeByte(3,0x56)" it correctly writes 0x34 at position 1, but also writes it at position 3.  Basically instead of writing the correct data at the current position, it copies what was last written to a different position, but somehow fixes it after the next chunk of data is written.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Woah, that IS srange! So lemme get this straight, it copies what you last wrote to a different position, but somehow fixes it after the next piece of data is written? Why that is is a complete mystery...

[Atrius (He/They)]

The only thing I think it could be is something in the functions for actually writing the data to the file (represented by writeByte(pos, value) in that description), but I've looked over them a dozen times, and can't find anything that could cause it.  They're extremely simple functions so it's unlikely I could be missing something.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Yeah, that's what I thought was causing it for a sec, but it doesn't look like that's the case, now does it? Man, this is wrecking my head as much as it must be wrecking yours, and it's not even my program XD

[Rolina]

What it is, is that I'll write code that looks like:

writeByte(0,0x12)
writeByte(1,0x34)

And it will correctly write 0x12 at position 0, but it also writes it at position 1 instead of 0x34.  Then when I add another line of code "writeByte(3,0x56)" it correctly writes 0x34 at position 1, but also writes it at position 3.  Basically instead of writing the correct data at the current position, it copies what was last written to a different position, but somehow fixes it after the next chunk of data is written.

Given how you wrote it... isn't that what you said to do?  It simply wrote it at the position you told it to do so.  I mean, from a layman's point of view, it's doing EXACTLY what you wrote.

Perhaps your having a blonde moment, not realizing that you're using the wrong command or something...


@ Long way off comment:  ...Yeah.  It is.  That's why I said that it'll start being 'delayed' when we hit that mark, because it'd no longer be due out this year.  As for the editor, the last update was valentines of LAST year, IIRC, so it's wait has been even longer than GSDS'.

[Aile~♥]

I think what he's trying to say is that instead of writing the Byte to 0,0x12 and 1,0x34, it's writing it to 0,0x12 and 1,0x12.

[Rolina]

Ah, is that it?  Strange, if it's not doing what he told it to, then it may be something else he coded that's causing the mix up.

[Salanewt]

Ah, is that it?  Strange, if it's not doing what he told it to, then it may be something else he coded that's causing the mix up.

Of course, it could also be something missing? By the way, I know that you are coding this in Game Maker (if I recall correctly), but is there another language that you are using?

writeByte(0,0x12)
writeByte(1,0x34)

Just to make sure, there are no "And then" related commands, right? It also looks like you are just relocating separate bytes... Wouldn't it be easier to relocate the whole part of what you want relocated, and then trying to write the bytes afterwards? Of course, we only know of such a tiny section, so you could probably already have what you need and we wouldn't know about it.

Anyway, best of luck for trying to code the editor.

Have a nice day.

[Rolina]

It could be that there's something in an earlier piece of code causing this.  Like... something that was made global that shouldn't have been for example.

[Atrius (He/They)]

That's not the actual code, Salanewt, it's just a sample to explain what's happening.

You're all listing possibilities I've already looked into, I wouldn't be a very good programmer if I didn't know how to debug.  Of course I've gone through the rest of the code looking for anything that could cause problems, and nothing's out of place so far.  As far as I can tell, the rest of the code is behaving exactly as it's supposed to, and there's nothing I'm aware of that should have any effect on this part of it.  As I said, they're very simple functions, you give them a location and a value, and they write it to the file no questions asked, at least that's what they're supposed to do.  Nothing else should have any effect on it, not that I'm not looking into that possibility anyway since nothing logical is left to check.

[Rolina]

So basically, you've checked all the usual suspects, but it's none of them?  Yeesh...  Watch it be the last thing you expect, y'know?  Or maybe something stupid like a typo that you've been overlooking that's causing stuff to work incorrectly...


Have you checked the actual decryption/reincryption section of the programming?

[Atrius (He/They)]

I would have to be extremely skilled to have created an error in them that causes what's happening to happen.

[Rolina]

Wait... what?  How does that logic work?

[Menaus]

I think he means that he would have to be so skilled in making code, that he makes things very complicated.

[Atrius (He/They)]

What they do is completely separate from the automatic repointing system.  The repointing system never actually deals with the data, it just manages the free space in the file.  Basically all it does is allocate space for other parts of the program to use as they want, or mark it as empty if they say they don't need it any more.

The only interaction the rest of the program has with it is through four simple functions:

free_space(pos, size)
find_space(size)
claim_space(pos,size)
get_free_amount()

[Rolina]

Jamie... you do know it's not a good idea to have that kind of an attitude with the boss guy?  You DO know that that, as in the attitude thing, is the primary reason I got demoted, right?