Back Online...
I’ve been meaning to bring back this blog and articles for a while.
The new server is online, but I haven’t yet migrated the old content. More to come.
Blog
Why DVCS should change your workflow
I’ve used mercurial for a while – simply for the ease in building repositories and setting up servers. It’s a wonderful thing to not need to worry about extracting sources and creating patch files anymore. Other than building temporary working repositories, I’ve used DVCS almost identically to other central solutions. Indeed, one of the major gripes I hear when people adopt mercurial or git is that “it works just like svn, only there are extra steps”. It’s the extra step that adds value.
New Server...
Should be moved over now, but we’ll see how this goes.
Here, There, std::shared_ptr Everywhere!
In general, code bases using boost, or C++11, seem to gravitate toward shared_ptr “everywhere”, or developers avoid shared pointer altogether. When developers come from the Java/C# world, shared_ptr often stands in for garbage collection. Other develops will bash the performance hit of shared_ptr and rail against the use everywhere crowd. Neither of these is a good thing. Let’s tackle shared_ptr issues one at a time.
Performance #
Multiple old school C/C++ developers see a shared_ptr and immediately think – extra clock cycles! Compared to a stack based variable, this is true – dynamic memory allocation is an order of magnitude slower than simply reserving space on the stack. However, if the object will have a lifespan to justify being placed in dynamic memory, things get more interesting.
Back at TextUx.com
Sadly, I let this domain lapse many years ago, only to see it taken by a squatter wanting several thousand. I’d written it off as lost. After a fairly concentrated attempt to purge from the internet, the domain is now back. So, welcome back to “textux”. Kick your feetup and relax.
And F*#*# squatters.
Reposting Tutorials
Many years ago, I wrote a series of tutorials for SDL and SCons. Sadly, I let my previous domain lapse due to a serious lack of cash while finishing up college. Adding insult to injury, some vulture picked up the domain to resell me for a couple thousand dollars. I’ve noted that several people have mirrored these since then. In an effort to legitimize their posting, I’ll be attempting to pull them into wordpress here. It’s a bit tedious as they were done in hand edited HTML before. Hopefully I’ll have the motivation to go through and fix them up after I get them back online.
Yet Another Personal Blog?
Ugh, I promised I wouldn’t do this to myself.
Still, this site isn’t intended to explore my day to day frustrations and politics. No, this is intended to detail my professional and technological developments. Hopefully in a way people find interesting enough to follow.
So, who is this person you’ve discovered online? In general, I won’t talk too much about my professional career, but if you’re curious about my CV, you’ll find that here. While I care about privacy, the internet is an excellent means to do research and share ideas without paying thousands of dollars to a large university. (Been there, done that). Hopefully others will find some use for the “code toys” I work on and publish here.
T-7 Weeks
Looks like I have a job. I received the job offer on Tuesday, accepted on Wednesday, and start on Monday. So, why do I say T-7 weeks? Well, put simply, in my current living situation I can not really have access to a linux box. In 7 weeks, I will be moving into a place of my own, complete with a working network, and so forth. So, to be fair, it might be a bit more than that if I take into account cable setup, getting the lease signed, moving time… But basically, I need 3 paychecks to recover from the enormous financial toll moving with less than a weeks notice and no job prospects took. Oddly enough, now that it looks like I found something, I’m getting a lot of calls and emails about interviews. The job I’m taking is good all around: good location, good money, and really nice people. Only downside is that they are a Windows based shop. (But, that just really means more job security for me now that I think about it, especially if they ever decide to move platforms.)
Moving...
Family concerns have caused me to severely expediate plans on my leaving the dallas area. I went on vacation for 2 weeks to scope the Kansas City area out (don’t laugh, it’s a nice place), and then moved out on Tuesday. I have now arrived safely in Kansas City, and am getting ready to move into my temporary quarters. Internet access right now is spotty at best, but should be settled out in a week or so. It’s amazing how much junk you accumulate over the years… the only things that I really didn’t bring with me are: my books, my dog, and my bike. My brother is keeping the dog, my books will be shipped up when I get a real address, and my bike, an old-fashioned human powered kind, is yet to be figured out. As the bike was built for me, a 6′5″ guy, I’m not sure how easy it would be to sell, and getting a new one of the same caliber would be expensive, but not prohibitively so. Anyway, I’m now a degreed person officially on the job market. After spending 2 months tracking down brace problems and extra semicolans in high school students’ java code, looking at some real stuff will probably be interesting. In any case, most of my internet access time is currently on borrowed Windows computers, so I haven’t had any access to IRC or any form of IM. I hope everyone out there is doing well.
Good riddance...
… to school and all that. I’m finished for the semester and summer is here! Which means….. more time hacking on Specifix!
In any case, KDE 3.4 is packaged, built into the repository, and ready to go. (Or at least should be at the time of this entry.) Lo ts of bugfixes are included in this new release, so if you’re still running KDE 3.3.x you should download and try it out.