<Insert favorite curse here>

[Traveler]

I never thought this would happen to me, but it is with great regret, that I have to say that, with the current situation, I'm out of the competition.

Dont ask me how, as I know how stupid it is, but in short the story is that I have lost the usb-stick containing all of my sourcecode. While I really should have, no backups exist. Any code I could use is on the pc I can´t access. In short I have to start from scratch. Tbh, that is something I really dont feel like doing.

I know, it is incredibly stupid, and I absolutely hate myself for not being more careful, but unless through some miracle, I find the stick again, I´m out....

[jasonf]

I know how much pain it is to lose the source to a game, it's happened to me a few times.. mostly due to hard drive crashes and an inadequate backup regime.. each time, I say "I'll take regular backups" and each time, I don't bother.

How much work did you lose mate? Is it possible for you to get back on your feet? or had you done lots of work already? We've got next week, you're a good fast coder I think, you should be able to get back up and running. It would be a shame if you gave up at this early stage.. and who knows, you might find your memory stick and be able to re-use some of your previous code. All is not lost yet.

[Robert Kosek]

Sorry to hear that Traveler, that's never a good feeling. Been there done that, however, so I feel for you. I hope you find that memory stick!

[Legolas]

That's happened to me too, so I can figure how you are feeling
After a disastrous hard disk crash I have decided to do something to save my sources. I have found a little free tool that automatically makes encrypted backups on a remote server: Mozy. I'm using it now and works very well

[Sascha Willems]

Very sad to hear that and also sad to hear that this may stop you from taking part at this year's compo.

And something like that happened to me too, but that was a long time ago when backup mediums were very expensive and there were no CD-writers around.

But since buying my first CD-Writer I make regular backups at least 3 or 4 times a week (while working on something, not working means no need for backup). I usually pack the source of my current project (using 7z, which compresses much better than even rar) and then write it onto a multi-session disk. That's easy to do (5 mins at the end of the day) and CDs are very cheap. In addition to that I also backup to my USB-stick (one that I don't take around with me) each day. So therefore even with a harddisk-crash and problems with the USB-stick I won't loose much progress.

I think especially for people that do coding each day (no matter how huge the project is) it's crucial to have a good backup-strategy to avoid such things happen.

[3_of_8]

Good thing my source code is spread over all team members, on a file hosting server of one on my team members and uploaded to PGD. That's what I call redundancy.

[cairnswm]

Bad Luck T

Make something small instead!

I am also having a hard time getting my stuff done - Spent basically the whole weekend at work and will be doing overtime until wednesday to get the project done. Leaving 2 nights for the next stage.

Backups - something we all learn the hard way. At the moment I have my source on my work PC, on my home PC and on a portable harddrive that I use to move the source from home-work-home.

I hope you only lost this project and not everything from before.

[Luuk van Venrooij]

That truely S*CKS Traveler. I had a HD crash once. Luckely I could retrieve most of my data using the old harddisk in the freezer trick. After that I installed an extra disk to backup my entire systemdisk. Which I do about every 2 weeks. My projects and docs I also backup to an external usb HD and a 2 gb memory stick . Tripple safety first

[Huehnerschaender]

Alex, I am very sorry to hear that...


But it has one good thing.... you just reminded me that I really need a backup NOW!!! I did no single backup since the start of the compo...

Wish you the best for finding you USB stick Alex! I will start my CD burning software right now !

[WILL]

Hey Alex, man that sucks big time. :?

But believe me I know exactly what thats like! Just last year, I had sort of the same, but worse. [size=9px](well if you consider losing--due to hdd failure, not being misplaced-- an entire laptop worse )[/size] I lost everything on it man, and it sucked.

Luckily I had a partial backup of some of my more critical sources on my new MP3 Player at the time. So that saved me from losing all my stuff, but pictures from my ports visited in Northern Canada, the US and Mexico... (ok there was only like 3 pictures and it was of this massive flag they had, but man was that thing huge! )

Lets just put it this way... I was angry for a long long time.

Though as luck would have it... I also had original copies of the games I was working on [size=9px](now Cyber-Crisis, Subject 33 and converted source for a Artillery Game tutorial I've collecting dust now)[/size], but these were year(s) old versions still using either DelphiX or in such an aged state the beef of what I had done was long gone.

Long story made short I bucked up and started again [size=9px](helps that I was sailing and had a ton of free time at one of my ports--really boring town(more like a small hamlet really) in Northern BC, Canada)[/size] but this time I got it done and it worked even BETTER than it was when I did it the first time. I think it was because I had a better understanding of the code and lessons learned poped up when I was coding it the 2nd time around.

Case in point. You can quit now... or you can start at it again (I don't think you'll lose many points in Stage 2 they are pretty easy things to accomplish) and even if you lose some points by being late, get an even better job done with your knowledge of how things went together from last time.


Oh and just so you know... I coded it almost 3 times faster the 2nd time around. There is a reason why they say "Knowledge is power", my friend.