The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Development work for a change

Mark hired me to do some work on Seminole, his embedded web server. I'm finding it a difficult thing to work on—not because the code is bad, but because the code is in a language I'm not comfortable programming in (C++) in an environment I'm not used to (embedded programming) and I'm weak in reading and understanding the code of others.

It could be worse though—I could be making performance enhancements to osCommerce.

It's also got me thinking about the whole development process. On how we write code, edit code, compile code and store code. About multiple development branches (Seminole currently has 21 compilation targets and 34 compile time selectable options). And language design, because I think that how we develop code influences computer language design.

Update on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

Mark had some comments about this entry:

  • You misspelled “language” twice on your blog post. [Fixed. This is something that happens too often, actually. —Editor]
  • You may want to mention I didn't choose C++ either. It chose me when Seminole was “accidentally” created. [True—but that's a story for Mark to tell, not I —Editor]
  • There are way more than 21 compilation targets. What you see is the “in tree” reference portability layers. I have a few customers who have created their own.
  • You may want to go to a Barnes & Noble and check out a book from O'Reilly (no animal on the cover though) called Beautiful Code. I just bought it but haven't had a chance to read through.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

Obligatory Contact Info

Obligatory Feeds

Obligatory Links

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.

Copyright © 1999-2024 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.