Life and Coding
Wow it’s been a long time since I posted last. Anyway I found this very indepth article on creating tools to assist in debugging memory usage problems in c++. I’ve always been interested in the behind the scene’s working of memory analysers and this is a great read.
Monitoring Memory Usage - Gamasutra
Now if my other projects ever slow down I might just get a chance to play with some of these things.
Recently this article from Mark Roulo from way back in 2001 made the rounds on reddit. He talks about how difficult c++ is as a language and why it should never be used for a large project. He goes into great detail about his interview questions designed to frustrate the most seasoned of C++ developers and spends a lot of time berating the use of pointers in C++.
I have a real problem with kind of article. They focus way to much on the c side of c++ and not the ++ part. There’s a reason why I have several Scott Meyers books on my reading list. Real C++ developers should never be relying on such antiquated techniques as manipulating a char* string directly. If a large c++ project has a tech lead who is not familiar with and not promoting stl and boost I would be terrified, even though I have worked on such projects in the past.
When I was the architect behind a major drawing application, doing a complete refactoring of our legacy codebase it was a real eye opener to see just how much these libraries simplify C++ software development. It really lets you focus on the software development part of coding and not the bashing your head against the wall, I hate Bjorn Stroustroup kind of software development.
but anyway I feel for any C++ tech / architectural lead should be familiar with these libraries at a minimum:
Plus there are many more libraries I would be lost without such as Xerces, Cairo, Unittest++ and many others. C++ is a powerfull language and part of the reason I love using it so much, but you have to be carefull. Remeber shared_ptr is your best friend!