Just another blog!

I've seen a lot of people (I'm looking at you Daniel Lemire ) praise newer languages like Go , which makes me sad as a C++ programmer. Well, that's until I realise that most of the features touted could be easily incorporated in C++ with just a bit of elbow grease. In this post, I'll show how to add an automated testing system using CTest.

I use Linux when I work from home, I'm forced to use a Mac at work (well, I boot up a virtual Linux OS), and I use Windows when I just want to goof around with my computer. So, while most of my work is done on Linux, it's imperative that my code work on all platforms; just because I could use any of the three. Traditionally, C required multiple versions of code, protected by #ifdefs. This often required multiple versions of code to be written, depending on the target system, target OS, and compiler being used. Clumsy and messy system. C++ too had similar shortcomings. When it came to writing multi-threaded code, I had to choose either Win32 or Posix, and once I made that choice, I was bound by it. Since those were the days when Ubuntu was driving me crazy, I chose Win32. Bad decision. Every single action that I attempted was compounded by the fact that Win32 is the worst API ever. How do I lock a mutex? Well, first I declare a handle, then declare a mutex, then define the...

Time for another software related post. People familiar with the GNU/Unix system would know that the standard way to install about any GNU software from code is to run the following commands configure make sudo make install These commands are from the GNU autotools environment. Knowing the GNU environment, these tools are what I used to compile most of the (relatively small) pieces of code I wrote. Until I discovered CMake. CMake, or Cross-platform Make is a tool that serves the same functionality as the GNU autotools (hereafter referred to as autohell). As the name suggests, CMake can be used to compile software across multiple platforms. Why am I encouraging CMake over autohell? Well, firstly, it’s not autohell! The GNU autotools are extremely useful when compiling on Linux. That’s what they are designed for. Cross compilation is extremely easy with the --host= flag. Unfortunately, when it comes to using them on Windows, the system just becomes a pain in the neck. P...

ERROR_SUCCESS. This macro would be familiar to all those who have done some programming in WIN32. It is the output of the GetLastError() function to check the thread's last error state when no error has occurred. Weird, isn't it? I mean, if it is a success, then why is it marked as an error in the macro? This is one example of a badly made API. APIs are considered bad when programming in them becomes non-intuitive. Software is said to be bad (or said to suck) when it seems counter-intuitive to the user. There is one very simple example of this. Start notepad. Type in any text. Click on close. The message that you see is: This makes no sense to me as a user. Of course, the programmer follows the approach that he creates a temporary file called Untitled , and in that file he allows the user to make all his changes. But how am I, as a user to understand that? A similar disconnect occurs even between two different programmers. That is why it takes a whole lot of effort to make ...