Random Musings
Tuesday, June 14, 2005 posted by Benjamin Pollack
REPLICATABLE HEISENBUGS
Tyler and I are getting into a routine whenever we have inexplicable crashes in our C++ code. First, check to see whether an instance variable is getting trampled. If it is, copy files modified since you last checked in somewhere else; blast the entire directory; do a fresh checkout from Subversion; and then copy the files back. Simply clicking "Clean Solution" is not sufficient. Any ideas on what's going on here? (And yes, we were smart enough to check for invisible files.)
GOOD CODE DESIGN
For the love of...something, if you're going to take the time to write classes, then please make at least some attempt to split your user interface code from your implementation code. This class I've been working on for the last two days is 4000+ lines long and is basically the entire program. I wish they'd just used procedural C instead; it'd be a lot easier to work with.
On a similar note, if you have two procedures literally named "Proc" and "Proc1", with no comments about what they do, you may need to get out more.
BROADWAY
Over the weekend, my family was in town, and we had a chance to see Wicked. Watching a Broadway show truly on Broadway, instead of on tour, is a truly awesome experience; I'm trying to figure out now which to go to next.
THE ZIEGFELD
I also saw a movie with a friend of mine at this theater called the Ziegfeld. The Ziegfeld is a digital movie theater that looks like a concert hall with a screen instead of a stage. The theater is truly beautiful, the seats are spacious and comfortable, and the sound system is awesome.
OUR WORK ENVIRONMENT
So I thought you all might like some photos of our corner of the office. Also, Tyler challenged me to make the final executable smaller than the total size of this website, including pictures, so I'm going to skew things in my favor.
All of us chilling in the main office. I think this was about two weeks ago when we were just getting started. New Jersey is out the window.
Michael working away on the e-commerce engine.
Yaron deep in thought about naming possibilities.
Tyler testing the latest security enhancements while listening to the company iTunes repository.
Tyler and Michael. To the back right you can see the main office.
Me working on making GPL code do what we want.