I am facing a problem which seems to have few, and especially simple solutions.
To get to the point; I have written a client application on Windows using C++.
This client application takes input from the user, and is supposed to send this
information to a server, which find users who’s inputs match each other – like matchmaking.
How can I (an indie developer) with most ease solve this problem, IF and only if I
cannot host the server application myself, and do not want to spend money on renting
a whole virtual private server?
Most preferred, I want to write this server using sockets in PHP and just rent a
web-server with unlimited bandwidth, but it seems to have far too many restrictions,
related to timeouts (PHP’s set_time_limit, Apache’s timeout value and the internal OS
timeout value).
So to sum up the question, and in a generic form; How can I as an indie developer create
a server application which do not require using my own bandwidth and without expensive purchases for items such as a virtual private server.
You can just code your server application in PHP as a webservice.
In your client application, instead of connecting through sockets and a using a home-made protocol, you just have to use the HTTP REST webservice you created. It seems to me even easier than coding a whole server.
Maybe you absolutely want to use socket on your server, but you didn’t specify that in your question.