General

C++ Tools - CppDepend - 2017 update...

I’ve been trying various static analysis tools on the C++ code of The Server Framework. I’ve now been using Resharper C++ quite regularly for over a year and I still use the Gimpel PC-Lint Plus Beta on a regular basis. I haven’t used CppDepend as much, mainly because once I’d fixed the issues that it raised, and that I decided I needed to fix, I pretty much left it alone. This is possibly because I run it as an external tool and I run both Resharper and PC-Lint as fully integrated Visual Studio extensions.

C++ Tools - JetBrains ReSharper C++ - purchased...

I’ve been looking at Resharper C++ by JetBrains for a while now and the trial period has finally run out. I immediately bought a license which shows how my feelings have changed about the product during the trial. Initially I found that the tool got in my way too much, I still find it a little sluggish at times but I think that my initial tests were hurt by the fact that I was running multiple copies of Visual Studio (as is my way) with multiple large projects and generating code inspection reports in all of them at the same time… Well, that’s how I’d want to use it… Anyway, when limiting myself to one or two concurrent instances things were better.

C++ Tools - CppDepend

I’ve been trying various static analysis tools on the C++ code of The Server Framework. So far I’m using Resharper C++ and the Gimpel PC-Lint Plus Beta on a regular basis and I’ve now added CppDepend into the loop. Full disclosure. I have been given a CppDepend license. As I’ve said before, whilst CppDepend is easy to get hold of, easy to install and “just works” I don’t find it that useful.

C++ Tools - Some thoughts on JetBrains ReSharper C++

Following on from my rant about C++ tooling and its follow up. I’ve been looking at JetBrains ReSharper for C++. This isn’t a review, more just my initial thoughts. TL;DR I’d like to like it. It does some good things but it also gets in my way and slows me down. ReSharper is a Visual Studio add-in. In general I don’t like add-ins but this comes from my years working short contracts and multiple clients where it was easiest to be at home in a clean Visual Studio installation as no two clients would have the same add-ins installed.

London MMO Meetup - Christof Wegmann from Exit Games and Ben Hollis from King

I dragged myself into London last night for the London MMO Meetup. I had some clients that I wanted to chat to who were going and the programme looked good. This was the first “meetup” that I’d been to, it was good and the format worked well. We were hosted by King at their London office on Wardour Street. The office was great, the presentation space was good and they provided a nice spread of food and drink.

Living with Gimpel Lint is made so much easier with Visual Lint

I’ve been a big fan of Gimpel Lint for years. It’s a great static analysis tool for C++ and it can locate all kinds of issues or potential issues in the code. My problem with it has always been that it’s a bit of a pig to configure and run, more so if you’re used to working inside an IDE all the time. Several years back I had some custom Visual Studio menu items that I’d crufted up that ran Gimpel Lint on a file or a project and some more cruft that converted the output to something clickable in the IDE’s output pane.

Visual Studio 2013 Preview - isprint() incorrectly classifies ' ' as printable for 'C' locale.

It seems that `isprint() is broken. The following program demonstrates the problem. In VS20013 it prints “test failed” in all previous versions of visual studio it prints “test passed”. From this reference: http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/string/byte/isprint it seems that VS2013 is broken. I’ve opened a Microsoft Connect issue for this. #include <ctype.h> #include <iostream> int main() { int c = 9; if (isprint(c)) { std::cout << "test failed" << std::endl; } else { std::cout << "test passed" << std::endl; } return 1; }

Comments disabled for a while

Due to masses of attempted comment spam which was causing my hosting provider’s server some problems I’ve disabled comments for a while. Email me if you have something you’d like added and I’ll sort it out for you. Update - 13/5/13 - comments enabled again…

10 years of blogging...

On the 3rd of May 2003 I posted the first entry on this blog. I then proceeded to “back fill” the blog with various things that had either been posted before in other places or had been laying around waiting for me to have somewhere to put them. This is why although the blog began in 2003 the archives go back to 1992. Things have changed quite a lot since then, both in terms of blogging and my life.

Welcome to the new Rambling Comments

I’ve just finished upgrading the blog from Movable Type 2.64 to Movable Type 5.0.x. The main reason behind actually getting around to doing this (the ‘update blog’s MT version’ “todo item” has been on my list for several years!) is so that I can integrate Rambling Comments with my other technical blogs. At present it’s just The Server Framework blog, but I have two more micro blog sites due in 2011 for products that I’m working on and I wanted to be able to include the entries from these new blogs into the main Rambling Comments feed.