C / C++ / C# Sitemap - Page 3 2013-06-19
Another Job Statistics View
Back in July last year, when I was first started writing for the About C, C++ website I did a survey of programming jobs in the top five US cities and London
A Different Way to Write C++
There have been many attempts in the past to write program generators. Much of the problem with this approach is that specifying the problem in a way that can
The Most Uptodate C++ Compiler?
It's not free but at $50 for any platform, Unix, Windows, Linux it will hardly break the bank and that includes unlimited free email support. Comeau Computing
C++09 - Marching Slowly towards a Draft Version
C++09 (the next version) continues its slow progress towards its release. First though, a draft for public review is the target this year. The ISO C++
Simplifying Win 32 C++ Development with WFC
Developer Sam Blackburn reckoned he needed simpler access to the Windows NT API- the MFC classes were biased towards the Windows GUI, so he wrote his own
C++ Programming Problem plus UK only Competition
Here is a short C++ application. Will it compile? If it runs, what will it output? #include #include using namespace
Latest C++ Tutorial Published
As promised the latest C++ tutorial on advanced pointers has been published. This uses a class to implement a linked list of elements using pointers. The
C++ Programming Puzzle Answer
This was a trick question. It compiled ok but didn't link or run. The reason? An ambiguity in C++ syntax. The line string a(Hello World) ; is an
What is Silverlight?
For years, web page animation has been restricted to animated gifs or the admittedly excellent vector graphic Flash. Now Microsoft is going to take Flash on
Open Source Virtualization Software
VirtualBox is a general-purpose Enterprise and Open Source virtualizer for x86 hardware written by the German software house innotek GmbH. It implements full
Programming Challenges - a New Contest!
As well as the programming puzzles which always get comments, I thought it might be fun to have programming challenges. These are programming competitions,
My Mailbox is groaning, under the weight
Thanks for all the entries for the Programming Challenge 1, please keep them coming- there's still 29 days to go! I've not looked at them all yet, but so far
More on The Challenge
My last blog entry about Programming Challenge 1 obviously struck a chord as I've now had a few entries that use a non brute force approach. There is almost
Ten Programming Contests (On the Web)
Email Address for the Programming Challenge cplus.guide@about.com. Still no C# entries! With the programming challenge fresh in my mind, I decided to
Hi-Res Timing in C
To help with timing your entries for the Programming Challenge, I've written some functions that use the high performance counter in Windows. I've done this
Timing C++ and C# Programs
As promised, the C++ and C# How Do I time my Program have now been published with instructions on how to use them and source code to download. For the
C++ Documents Preserved by the Software Preservation Group
In December 1984 issue of Bell Labs News, an article described the new language C++ and talked to its inventor Bjarne Stroustrup. You can read a copy of this
About MySQL and SQL Server Databases
I've recently had to use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition at work and am very impressed with its capability, which puts it against MySQL at least in terms
Free Evening Seminar on Software Frameworks in C#/C++, London June 26th
If you are a manager or quant developer (A programmer who knows financial mathematics such as are used in derivatives) in London, you can enjoy a free evening
A C# Programming Problem for C and C++ Programmers!
C# developers should know this already but it does highlight that you should never take a similar programming language for granted. C# syntax is very much
Programming Challenge 1
Please be patient while I get through this. So much for careful planning - I'm now working my way through about 40 entries, That means adding timing code,
Programming Challenge 2 Correction
Challenge 2 entries are now coming in and as one person has pointed out the text file description as given was slightly wrong. (Thanks Sidharth!). I have
Programming Challenge 1 Results
Thank you to all 33 entrants, 23 of whom got the correct answer. Interestingly, the slowest correct answer took 350 million times as long to run as the
Results and a new Challenge!
The final results, entrants and the source code for the ten fastest entries are now up on site. I've updated the Programming Challenge 1 webpage. The faster
Searching for the Perfect Programmable Device
Though most of the development I do is on desktop, I've always fancied a small cheap programmable device with a decent size touch screen and Wifi, programmable
New Article - Long Password Generator in C#
A few years ago I came up with an idea to easily generate very long passwords in a way that was easy to remember, so if the password was lost it could be
Truly Random Numbers in C++
Random numbers in applications are often not really generated randomly. Instead they are generated by a mathematical operation and depending upon the cycle
Definition of Recursion- See Recursion!
Programming Challenge 2 comes to an end in a few days and I mentioned that one answer to it had something in common with challenge 1. The common element is
Another Programmable Mobile Device, but...
A couple of weeks ago I commented on small cheap programmable devices. One reader (thanks Chip Unicorn) mentioned the Nokia N800, an Internet tablet. Nokia
A new Month and New Challenges
There was a late rush of entrants for programming Challenge 2 which finished yesterday so there are now 20 or 21 entrants. The results will be published
Programming Challenge 2 Preliminary Results
I have now run the 20 entries and the success rate this time was much higher! Congrats to Faisal Yousuf for very fast code. In fact there has only been 4
Starting Them Young- C# for Sharp kids!
Microsoft are encouraging young children- no age given but I'd guess maybe 10 years or or higher, to have a go at learning programming in C# through a free
Discover new code with Sourceforge
I am constantly amazed at the quality, variety, and number of open source projects found at Sourceforge.net and having a browse is a great way to fire
An Ongoing Challenge!
Apologies for the delay with this. There is a moral involved! No matter how often you test your code, if you make a change you have to retest again. Something
A C Programming Puzzle
This function PrintBinary() prints the int x out in binary format (11000 etc) in a field of width d, with leading zeroes on the left and terminating 'B' on
Ongoing Programming Challenge One - First Results
I've posted the first weekly results for the Rock, Scissors and Paper challenge. Serbian developer Darko sent in a C# bot that has to be the smallest possible
Week Two Results
Congrats to Darko Veljkovic whose C# Bot has taken King of the Hill in the Rock, Scissors and Paper challenge in week 2. His bot has increased in size to
A non-recursive PrintBinary() function
The recent C programming puzzle used recursion. So did the first and second programming challenges. I detect a pattern! It's a technique that can be useful
Next C Tutorial Published
The promised C tutorial on low level operations, manipulating bits with the binary form of and, or and xor (&, | and ^) is now live. If you are into C++,
A change to the Rock, Scissors and Paper Bot
The Rock, Scissors and Paper Leaderboard #1 player, Darko Veljkovic from Serbia has requested an additional parameter to one of the bot functions.
Week Three Match Results
Congratulations to Darko Veljkovic for staying top in week three, even with two new bots in the contest from China and Portugal. You can see the full results
A C++ Programming Puzzle
Not all default constructors are created equally! Here we have two classes a and b, both with two strings s1 and s2, and each class has a default constructor.
Space Trader in C#
Back in 1984, one of the earliest 3D games was Elite which I played on a BBC microcomputer. As it was running on a 1 Mhz 6502 CPU with less than 64Kb of
New C++ Tutorial + Answer to the C++ Programming Problem
This asked which of the two default constructor styles (initializer or defaulted parameters) was preferable. It really depends on whether you want to
Latest Rock, Scissors and Paper Results
Sadly, programming challenge three was a total wash-out and no one entered. The lesson has been learnt - I think the acronym KISS* is appropriate and
Programming Challenge Four Updated
Thanks to the three developers who spotted that there was a bug in the Programming Challenge Four dll. This was in the file game.c in the DoMove() function
Advanced Compiler Technology for C++
If you write compilers (and I did for a while in the 1980s- a simple compiled Game playing Basic for CBM-64 and Atari ST) one of the major problems is code
WinMerge - Open Source Diff Utility
One of the most useful tools a developer can have is a diff utility. Some IDEs come with one- eg Windiff in Visual C++ 6.0, but that is fairly rudimentary,
Answers to the C# Programming Puzzle
The value of t3.z was 8 and t2.z was 9. Although t2 was passed by value, it is an object, ie a reference object and the assignment t.z = 9 altered the value
Imagine Cup 2008 - Enter Now!
If you're a student at high school or college, consider having a go at the Imagine Cup in 2008. Over 100,000 students from over 100 countries entered last
Obscure C# Programming Feature : ??
All three languages C, C++ and C# support the conditional operator ?: which returns one of two values according to the value of a boolean expression.
Playing Rock, Scissors and Paper for real money!
If you are in Toronto, Canada next month on the 13th and fancy a go at $7,000 prize, consider entering the real world Rock, Scissors and Paper contest. Not
Latest C# Tutorial Published - Value and Reference Types
This is the the latest C# tutorial on value types and reference types. There are many similarities to C++ and anyone with experience of that should pick it
Modding Commercial Games With the Publisher's Blessing
Opening up Computer Games to developers is not exactly a big trend but increasingly, some computer games are becoming more open and easier to modify. I'm not
Week Six Results, Rock, Scissors and Paper
If it's Sunday, it's battle day and I'd like a minor change added to C# bots. Please add the line public const int botnum=x; in the class bot,
Programming Challenge Five- Solve a Crossword!
Programming Challenge 5 has now been published. This runs through the month of October and asks you to write a program in C, C++ or C# to fit 14 words into a
Portable Puzzle Collection with C Source
Just added to the C Code Library is a collection of 27 puzzles by developer Simon Tatham, all with C source code. What makes these interesting, as well as their
Microsoft Robotics Studio
Microsoft have recently released the version 1.5 of their Robotics Studio. This uses a Visual Programming Language to control robots. Unlike Visual C++,
New C Tutorial Posted- Strings and Text Handling
The latest C tutorial on strings and text handling is now live with the longest example program yet- 140 lines long! This tutorial will also work in
A C/C++ Puzzle
Sometimes you can get problems with the simplest of applications . A novice programmer wrote this to try something out. He got different results to what he
Wiki on a Stick - Portable Cross-Platform Documentation
Since Wikis first appeared a few years back they have proved very useful, not just on the web in the 2 million plus articles wikipedia but as a means of
Week Seven, Rock Scissors and Paper Challenge Results
After seven weeks of the Rock, Scissors and Paper programming challenge we have a new leader on the scoreboard, though by the slim margin of just 5 points.
Answer to C/C++ Puzzle
This was a bit of a fun puzzle and included four misdirections included to throw you off the scent. Yes it compiled, and ran without any crashes. It output
Professional XNA Game Programming
I've always had an interest in games development, though my actual involvement within the industry ended about 15 years ago. This is a bit like someone who
What have a House and Software Design in common?
In the world of architecture, there is a tradition of designing buildings from templates. In the UK for example, a 3 bedroom semi-detached house has more or
Week Eight, Rock Scissors and Paper Challenge Results
Iliatsi managed to stay top dog for just one week before being knocked off by the latest version of Lacky. This is turning into a bit of an arms race. We
Rock Scissors and Paper Contest- A Request!
Could all existing players (plus any new ones) please email me your current bot source code again. Due to a mix up with recovery of a backup disk, the sources
A Very Simple C++ Programming Problem
So you're a novice developer and you know that string is in the std namespace and cout comes from the library because you've been following
Answer to C++ Problem
To make it compile (on Microsoft compilers anyway) you just have to add this line. #include But from one of the comments posted on the
Microsoft releasing .NET Libraries Source Code With VS 2008
I remember that Borland used to do this with their IDEs, they included the source code for the system and VCL code to give you a better chance when chasing
13 Videos on C++ Programming
Back in 1999 the UM-ATLAS Collaboratory Project, the University of Michigan Media Union, and CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics set up a
Week 8 (Redone) Results for Rock, Scissors and Paper
After last week's problems, thanks to everyone who submitted new bots and welcome to Swede olof Hjalmarsson who managed 4th place on his first outing. Iliatsi
Another C++ Programming Problem
Sometimes things give the oddest answer and figuring out is well sort of fun! Take this example. #include #include using
Linux Tools and Utilities
My background in programming has almost always been on Windows or Dos before it, apart from a two year period when I programmed in Ada on VAX/VMS. I have
Answer to C++ Programming Problem
The answer was a mistyped period which should have been a comma. There was also an implicit conversion of this parameter to an int. The substr() function
Programming Challenge Six - Search a Linked List Fast
The latest Programming Challenge Six has been posted. Nothing too complex this month- all you have to do is write a function that retrieves an int value from a
Want to Develop for Microsoft Casual Games?
Imagine writing a game that could be played by up to 300 million people and getting paid for it! Well it's never that easy but Microsoft Casual Games offers
OpenID - The future of the Web?
OpenID is an increasingly popular decentralized sign in system for websites. It allows signing in without requiring the traditional username and password.
A New Take on Cross Platform Development
If you're considering cross platform development, you might find Ultimate++ of interest. Ultimate++ is a C++ cross-platform rapid application development
New C++ Tutorial Posted on Strings
Just live is the latest C++ tutorial on strings. This covers initializing strings, interacting with C Strings and using virtually all of the functions
Adobe (Open) Source Libraries and Declarative Programming
One way of classifying Software development is to divide it into Declarative Programming and Imperative Programming. The code we write in C, C++ and C# falls
Stony Brook Algorithm Repository
Steven S. Skiena is a professor at the Computer Science Department of Stony Brook University in New York as well as being the author of several books on
The Power to Emulate
The vast increase in processing power over the last twenty years has followed Moores Law of doubling in processing speed every 18 months. This means that
Week 10 Rock, Scissors and Paper Contest
Our long term winner Lacky has resumed top spot though the margin is still wafer thin between first and second place and also between third and fourth. The
A Poker Playing Project
I quite like playing Texas Holdem Poker though with a preference to face to face rather than online. Half the fun is trying to fool the other players with
Game Development - Past and Future Directions
The name Tim Sweeney of Epic Games will be known to quite a few gamers. Since 1991 Epic have published Epic Pinball, Jill of the Jungle, the well loved Unreal
Object Oriented Programming with ANSI-C- Free E-Book
Professor Axel-Tobias Schreiner teaches computer science classes classes at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is the publisher of several books on Unix,
Fancy Trying a New Language? D
Wll not quite that new, it's been worked on since 1999 but version 1.0 was released this year. It's called D because it is the successor to C and C++. The
A Convenient Way to Find Information about Error Messages
An interesting and novel website for developers; http://bug.gd lets you enter error messages and then search the website for similar similar errors. If you
An Unusual .NET Language- LOLCode
As it's the weekend, this is slightly off-topic for C, C++ and C# but worthy of a brief mention. LOLCode is a new programming language that is being
Week 11 Results Posted for Rock, Scissors and Paper
A dramatic week with last week's top dog Lacky upgraded yet still hurled down to 4th place, while the also upgraded bot Iliatsi jumped two places to capture the
A Free Downloadable Text E-Book on Algorithms
I've just added the book Algorithms to the Free downloadable E-Book collection. This is by Sanjoy Dasgupta, University of California - San Diego, Christos
Silverlight Revisited...
Back in May I mentioned about Silverlight, Microsoft's Flash Killer technology. Version 1.0 was only of interest to web designers but version 1.1 promises the
Programming Challenge 7 Posted
As it's the end of the month you have a few hours to get your entries in for Programming Challenge 5 and start thinking about 6 which is the linked list
A Simple C++ Programming Problem
Will the following application print out #include int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
Answer to the C++ Programming Problem
As of yesterday I am officially without a job after almost seven years at the same company. Thankfully though it's only until Monday when I start working for
Rock Scissors and Paper Week 12 Results
First though, Programming Challenge Five had no entries. Clearly a far too tough contest so I'll try and tame them a bit. Challenge Six by contrast which is now
Data Mining For Terrorists with Hancock
In the UK the name Hancock is synonymous with one of the better known comedians who died nearly 40 years ago. Now though the name is better known in financial
Android - Open Platform for Mobile Devices
Yesterday Google announced the development of Android, an open platform for mobile devices. Other partners in the Open Handset Alliance include T-Mobile, HTC,
A C/C++ Programming Funny
I saw something similar to this on another site and I'll publish their url on Saturday when I reveal the answer. Compile this on Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and
Making a Secure Hash of Things!
Talking of programming competitions, the U.S. Government is looking for a new secure hash algorithm. The popular SHA-1 algorithm was found to have a
Programming Funny Answer and Improving C Programming with CIL
The problem was shown in section 16.3 of the CIL online documentation. The answer, as was correctly spotted by one of the comments is that the expression is
Rocket Commander Tutorial
Not so long ago I reviewed the book Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows, which included a decent computer game Rocket Commander. Even
NetFlix Competition still Running
I mentioned the Netflix competition a year ago and it's still running. In fact, it runs for another 4 years and there is still a large amount of cash
Google Android Can be Programmed in C/C++ (Sort Of!)
I spotted this on an Australian website and thought that with all the publicity about Android- Google having just released an SDK for their forthcoming open
Bullet - 3D Open Source C++ Physics Library
A physics library lets you develop applications with objects that interact according to the laws of physics. Things bounce off each other and behave just as
Choosing a Good Editing Font
After a compiler, possibly the most important tools for any developer is the editor. Everyone has their own preferences on this, people work differently so
Box 2D - Online C++ Physics Engine Demo
Box 2D - Online C++ Physics Engine Demo
Cyclone - A Safe Dialect of C
It's time for yet another version of C and I'm sure there are plenty more out there. I'll collect all of these covered so far (D etc) on one web page. The
A Free SDK for Writing High Speed Add-ins in Excel
Back ten years ago I started working in the UK finance industry and still haven't managed to escape. This isn't the type of finance involving loans and
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Has Arrived!
And just as importantly so have the Express Editions of Visual C# and Visual C++ 2008! You can download them from the link below. Note you have the option of
Playing With Visual C# 2008 Express Edition
So I downloaded Visual C# 2005 Express Edition just to have a play- next week I'll do the same with Visual C++ 2005. The help is optional but to not download it
A Free GDK with Visual C++ 2008 Express
I'm relieved to see that Microsoft haven't completely lost the plot with C++ and games creation, although my feeling is that it is still second class compared
A Free Desktop Recording Application
One of the best ways to show off and demonstrate your software is to record it in use with a screen capture program. One such example is the well known
Creating an Artificial Brain in Software
Well I'm back from a great weekend, and due to an upgraded Rock, Scissors and Paper bot having slight teething problems have delayed the week 15 contest for
A Tiny, Fast C Compiler (With Source)
Just how big do you think the source code for a C-99 compatible compiler? Believe it or not, just over 1.6MB! There's also a version of this for Windows
The Year 2038 Bug
It's barely 8 years since we had the millennium bug so don't say you didn't get enough warning! A lot of systems in the world may have date rollover troubles in
An Addon for Windows Explorer
I am a fan of small utilities and when I changed jobs recently and had to document everything I'd written in 7 years, it took 48 pages, many of which were on
Programming Challenge 6 is Now Closed
I've been hit by the triple whammy of marking all the entries for Challenge 6, getting the Challenge 7 Chess boards file created and receiving three new RSP
Programming Challenge Six Marked
Programming Challenge 6 has now been marked and congratulations to N.Navaneetha Krishnan for his fastest entry. This was the challenge to retrieve items
A Free C++ Multi Threading Library from Intel!
An outfit called Intel who like making stickers saying Intel Inside and are of course famous for making CPUs and other hardware chips have open sourced their
Learning C# in Second Life
You have to admire Microsoft's efforts to spread the word about C#. Mind you I'd love to know their opinion on the future of C++ and VB.net. Certainly C++ and
Free E-Book - Handbook of Applied Cryptography
I've just added a free E-Book to the E-Books collection page. This is the Handbook of Applied Cryptography, a classic in its time which has recently been made
Sun to sponsor Open Source Projects for $1Million a year
Ah, you might say but isn't Sun the home of Java and not somewhere that reputable C/C++ developers often visit? That's somewhat true- though the Sun
Microsoft Volta- Experimental and Electrifying...
Continuing on the theme of something that isn't Java from yesterday, Microsoft have taken a step in Google's footsteps with Volta. The best way to describe
Intel's Year of Threading Programming Problems
Running from September 2007 until the end of September 2008 Intel have their own Programming Challenge with 12 programming tasks, one per month that can be
Installing Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition
I've started working with Visual C++ 2008 C++ and C# 2008 Express Editions so will try and include all the new features in future tutorials. From what I've seen
An Example of Extension Methods in C# 3.0
Having whet your appetite mentioning the C# 3.0 extension methods yesterday, here's that example of adding ToHexString() to the int class. One thing to note
Amazon is Betaing an Online Database Service
Yes that Amazon, the online book and sells mostly everything else store have been making some interesting computing services available on the web for a while.
Win a 3 month Game Development Internship (In London, England)
With the recent release of the free XNA Game Studio 2.0, Microsoft are keen to promote it and XNA development in general and so in conjunction with a couple
A Better C/C++ String Library
I suspect this is aimed at C developers primarily but it gets its name from claiming to be better than the char handling in C and the C++ std::string type.
Game Playing (or Coding) in the Christmas Break
I'm a keen game player and Christmas is a great time to play computer games. Occasionally I lift my head from the keyboard and peer out on to the web in search
Microsoft's Version of Sourceforge - Codeplex
I'm very keen on Open Source projects, no matter by who or for what purpose. I use and work on Windows XP in my daytime job but I also do a fair bit of web
Cilk - Multi-Threaded ANSI C
I am pleased to report yet another discovery on my semi-mythical quest to enumerate all possible variations on the C language. This is the multi-threaded C
Welcome New Scientist Readers!
A big welcome to the readers of the British New Scientist magazine who have read the article about Rock, Scissors and Paper that mentioned our RSP Challenge and
Attributes in C#
One of the things I like about C# is the attributes that you can apply to methods and classes. It's quite a powerful feature, and one that will get a tutorial
Nintendo Writing an Operating System?
Nintendo is famous for their NES, SNES, GameBoy and of course Wii game consoles. But now it looks as if they are working on an operating system architecture
Interested in C# Development on the Mac?
This topic on C, C++ and C# tends to be biased towards Windows and to a lesser extent Linux. That happens because it's what I mainly use and I have never
Week 19 - Rock, Scissors and Paper Results
I will be resting tomorrow and boxing day though probably planning what to do next after the Rock, Paper and Scissors Challenge comes to an end. Despite the two
Do You Use Do While?
I started my programming career with Pascal before moving onto C++ and I think Pascal's repeat...until structure which is the equivalent of do...while in C/C++
Programming Challenge 7 - One Day Left! Plus Challenge 8
As it's near the end of the month and I have been working on the Poker Harness (not quite ready yet- but soon!) I thought why not set the scoring of poker
Week 20 Results now Published
Iliatsi is back on top after a week or two in lower positions. Lacky, despite supplying an updated bot this week seems to be heading south for the winter. I've
JSC - Recompiling C# to JavaScript
Yes that is space invaders, written in C#, running in my browser. It's one of many demos for the JSC Reompiler. Interestingly this doesn't use C# code (some
Ten Years of GnuPG!
Just before Christmas, GnuPG celebrated its tenth birthday. GnuPG is short for GNU Privacy Guard and is a PGP replacement that lets you encrypt email and other
Personal Rant about Game Development
I saw a press release last week about a project supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The project is the result of a £1.2
Checking Diagonals...
In marking Programming Challenge 7, I had to write code to determine if a King (of either color) was in check. It's not the hardest problem but it does involve
A Better Type of Captcha?
Occasionally I do website development- either in PHP or ASP.NET. Now one of the techniques used to stop people logging in with web bots is a Captcha, typically
Programming Challenge 7 Preliminary Results Posted
We had five entrants for this. One had an exception in his code but since sent a working version. Congratulations to Robert C Cartaino who scored highest with
MPI- Message Passing Interface
MPI (Message Passing Interface) is a communications protocol that allows two computers to robustly communicate via messaging and is used in clustering. It was
Too Old To Enter!
Have you ever seen a competition and thought you'd like to enter, then you discover that you're too old. Well thanks to Google, the same is now true for one
Programming Puzzle - Any language with Pointers
A colleague asked this one and eventually gave me a rather novel solution to it. You're given a pointer to a single linked list and told that code that
SimCity now GPL'd as Micropolis
Will Wright's classic game and one of the first Software Toys is almost 20 years old, it first appeared in 1989 and I played it on the Atari ST the year after
RSP Week 22 Delayed Plus Programming Puzzle Answer
With another new bot this week from Thomas Vervest my match running software has become a bit creaky and is undergoing refactoring, so results will be delayed
A New Search Engine is Born!
Usually most Internet things use weird or proprietary computer languages, mostly scripted like php, jsp or even C# but there was a time about ten-fifteen years
C and C++ are not the same Language...
Typically, I learnt C and C++ in the wrong order. I seemed to bypass C and learnt C++ first. Mind you before that I'd also learnt Basic, Fortran, Pascal, 6502,
Sun Buys MySQL for $1Billion
With 50,000 copies downloaded daily, MySQL has nothing to prove and is probably the most popular open source application. In the acronym LAMP or WAMP, the M is
Takeoff with Microsoft ESP
Not to be confused with the extended Stack Pointer register (!) in the 80x86 family of CPUs (I know they have different names but to me they are just more
Rock, Scissors and Paper is Back with Results
Frustratingly though, I didn't get the refactoring finished so this is still running it the old fashioned way. The new way that I want to do is with each bot a
The Interview Paradox
If you have been a developer for more than a few years, there will come a time when you change jobs and you face the dreaded technical interview. The really bad
Academics up in arms about University Computer Science Courses
Two academics (Dr. Robert B.K. Dewar and Dr. Edmond Schonberg) at New York University have spoken out about the increased use of Java as a first language. The
CMPH - C Minimal Perfect Hashing Library
Coincidentally, following yesterday's entry about the state of computer science education, I came across an excellent Sourceforge project CMPH (C Minimal
Free Feature Pack (Beta) for Microsoft Visual C++ 2008
If you have Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 (in Visual Studio 2008) then you might be interested in the free download from Microsoft that provides an
System.Data.SQLite - SQLite in .NET
Occasionally I find what I consider real gems on the web and this is one. It is a complete open source drop-in replacement for the original sqlite3.dll and you
Source Code Conversion of Quake III Arena for .NET
I've played Quake versions II, III and IV and love all three games. In fact just a month ago it was the 10th anniversary of Quake II's release. The source code
VNC - Making Remote Computing Possible
Invented in the UK at Olivetti Research Lab which was acquired by AT&T in 1999 (and then closed down in 2002), VNC is short for Virtual Network Computing and
Nokia to Acquire TrollTech- the QT Company
Following on from the recent Sun buying MySQL announcement, today came the announcement that Finnish company Nokia will make a public voluntary tender offer to
(UK) Design a System for a Charity- Win £15,000
I'm not the luckiest when it comes to competitions- though my wife did win a 7 MP digital camera recently (a month after we'd bought a similar model!) and I
Programming Challenge Eight Closing and Nine Starts Tomorrow
We've a couple of entries to mark so I'll have those done over the weekend. As I won't be marking until then, I'll allow late entries until Sunday morning.
What is a QR Code?
The image to the right is actually the url of this site- http://cplus.about.com displayed in a two dimensional barcode, called a QR Code. QR is short for Quick
Hooray for Open Source!
I use open source a lot. That's not to say I'm against commercial software, having spent eight out of the last ten years working in a software house it would be
Thinking About the Future + RSP Weekly Results
In the software business, change comes if not exactly at a glacial pace but at a somewhat slow rate. A bit like the ticking of a clock. You have to really look
POCO 1.3.2 Just Launched
POCO is a free cross platform library of C++ libraries for networking with very comprehensive documentation. Version 1.3.2 was just released yesterday. I've
An Operating System in C# (Eventually)
With over 70 million active websites (according to the Web server survey by Netcraft.com) in use there is a massive amount of material posted each day. Some of
TrueCrypt Version 5.0 Released
By coincidence, a new version of the free open source TrueCrypt which I mentioned last Saturday has just been released. Version 5.0 came out a couple of days
Eating your own Dog-Food!
This is a phrase made popular by Microsoft developers who developed operating systems like Windows NT using versions of their own software. The idea being that
Mercurial - a Distributed Version Control System
I've raved about Subversion in the past having worked closely with it for over nine months. One alternative is Mercurial which is a distributed version control
A Way of Compressing a URL
One website I use a lot is tinyurl.com. It lets you plug in a long url like
Keeping Documentation Uptodate
It's only human nature but unless you work in the kind of place which is strict about keeping documentation uptodate, it is almost inevitable that any non
A New .NET Language - Cobra
At the moment, new languages are springing up out of the woodwork with a particular bent away from imperative languages like C, C++ or C# towards more
How small can a working application be?
This applies only to C/C++ developers. You can't ( I believe) shrink .NET code. I was looking at a website today where every program is 256 bytes or smaller.
Debugging Servers
A lot of software is built on the client/server model with one or more clients talking to a single server. At work, all of the software I work on is done this
A Little Bit of Maths
Over the years I've met a number of developers who have little or no maths beyond high school level. Not all programmers went to University, some, especially
Answer to the Average Speed Problem + RSP Results
Such a simple problem but as some of you spotted, it's a trick question. The road is two miles long so at 30 mph it will take two minutes to travel one mile. To
Are you a Developer or a Programmer?
A British computer columnist Dick Pountain recently complained in a magazine article that people were increasingly referring to programmers as developers which
Microsoft Releases File Format Documentation
Published less than a week ago, Microsoft has released full technical details of the formats of MS Word, Ms Excel, and Powerpoint file formats as well as
TntNet - Write Web Applications in C++
At some point or other I think nearly every major programming language has 'powered the web', i.e. acted as the server language that outputs html to your
Using Excel/Spreadsheet to help with the job.
The everyday tools I use include compilers, IDEs, version control software, database clients, and text editors (wordpad and/or notepad++). But I'd also add
AMD Open Sources their Performance Library
They've called it Framewave, and hosted it on Sourceforge.net and are sponsoring its ongoing development. This is for C and C++ developers writing software for
A bit of Phun for the weekend!
It's alright talking about what physics engines can do for you but seeing one in action is a bit different. The Phun engine was devised by MSC student Emil
The Rock, Scissors and Paper Random Paradox
Some of the entries, particularly those in the top 10 or so have taken a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears etc to craft and the developers should rightly be
The Monty Hall Problem - Seems Easy but...
Talking of paradoxes reminded me of the Month Hall Paradox which still baffles a lot of people. Let me quote. A thoroughly honest game-show host has placed a
Freeciv - Open Source Civilization
I've long been a fan of the Civilization series of computer games, originally by Microprose. I even had the honor of working at Microprose Manchester (in the
Monty Hall Problem Answer
As was correctly spotted (and thank you for the C# demo program Robert Cartaino- visible in the comments). As Robert said the answer is that you have twice the
The Battle for Internet Development Continues!
How about this? A major game (Quake I) written in C/C++ has been compiled using a special compiler and runs in the Flash player! Adobe engineers have done this
Interpreters are Still Used Today- e.g. CINT
I learnt to write computer programs with a Basic Interpreter in 1976/1977 just a year or two before the Apple II, CBM Pets and Tandy TRS-80 appeared. My first
It's that Time Of Year Again- Google Summer of Code
From this Monday March 3 until March 12, Google will be accepting applications from mentoring organizations and then from March 24 to March 31 from students for
Monty Hall Problem Revisited
As you'll see from the comments, there are still some who think that staying with your first choice or choosing to switch to the other door means that the
The Easiest Way to Break into Games Development
In the last week or so, Microsoft made available the first of several user written games available on the Xbox 360. It's like the early 1980s again when games
Programming Challenge 10 Now Live
I'll have nine marked in a day or two but challenge ten is now live and is about a form of steganography. When people mention steganography (Greek for hidden
Why You Should Learn C, C++ and C#
I have to admit that I like C# a lot. Microsoft have implemented the IDE in Visual C# 2005, 2008 etc very nicely and Intellisense works very well. The .NET FCL
Dmalloc - Debug Malloc Library
One of the pleasures I gt is turning up useful software, especially free/open source. And some of it is nicely matured and very handy. A case in point- Dmalloc
A Hard Problem- Measuring Language Popularity
Some problems are fairly easy but one that is quite difficult is how to measure the relativity popularity of programming languages. Oh you could search Google
Paste C/C++ and run it online
As well as the C/C++ interpreters I've mentioned in the past there is another way to compile and run a C or C++ program. Just visit the website codepad.org,
Microsoft Research Singularity Project is Hiring
There's nothing quite like an exciting 'out there' name for your project to attract interest. Singularity is one such name and applies to Microsoft Research's
The Game of Empire
As an example of a long lived and popular game/genre it's hard to beat Empire. I came across this from a friend at University in 1982 and a printout of the
Programming Challenge Nine Marked
Well done to everyone who entered- all got the correct answer and special congratulations to Robert C Cartaino with the fastest time. One question,
Responding to The Challenge!
Robert C Cartaino (Challenge 9 winner and comment poster from the previous entry) posted a challenge to work out what would be output from some code. Here is my
Silverlight 2.0 Tools Beta 1 Is Out
Silverlight is Microsoft's Flash killer technology for the web. Version 1.0 is already out but it's version 2.0 that is eagerly awaited because it will support
Memory Concepts in Modern Computers
I've been having an email correspondence with a reader on the subject of writing to memory. He wanted to know how he can write a value at an address that he
Use of Bug Tracking Systems
I've probably not mentioned these before because no one likes to be reminded of their bugs. Whether there is just one of you or a thousand in your team, you
The Final Rock, Scissors and Paper Week's Results
I think this contest had more or less run its course so a big thank you to all 18 participants and congratulations to Tsitsimpis Ilias for his bot Iliatsi which
About Databases, SQL and Transactions...
While I've been working towards completing my long overdue C# tutorial on strings, I've taken time out to write the odd article on aspects of programming. For
XBMC - Google Summer of Code 2008 C++ Project
I've mentioned the Google Summer of Code before - the annual internship for students, sponsored by Google to help develop open source projects. One such project
C-Jump - The Board Game!
I'm on holiday (Spring Break, or as we British people call it Easter) until Tuesday so in the holiday spirit, here's something a little different. Want to teach
A New IDE for Linux - MonoDevelop hits 1.0
Generally I try to be Operating System agnostic- all three languages C, C++ and C# are available on Windows, Linux and Mac-OS, as well as others like
TOR - Anonymity on the Net
While some people are suspicious of anyone making themselves anonymous when surfing the web, there are plenty of people who have a legitimate reason for doing
My Comments on Comments in Programs
Traditionally there are two schools of thought with comments. You need them because your code is way too clever and hard to read or understand.You don't need
Is it Me or My Code?
Sometimes, usually at times when I am busiest problems occur that half convince me that I've woken up in a parallel universe where everything seems the same
Writing Games for a Living
I don't write games now full-time now, but I used to. However today I got a 6 month contract job offer as a C++ game developer in London from two different
SQL Problem Resolved and a new PC!
As one commenter correctly guessed, it was corruption in the SQL text but I think it occurred in Outlook not Excel. For some as yet undiscovered reason, some of
C# Tutorial Will Appear Later this week
Remember when you are getting estimates from developers for when their work will be completed, always multiply their estimate's length by two and add three.
Google Supporting KML with C++ Library
KML is the geographic data file format (and XML grammar) used on Google Earth and Google Maps. If you are comfortable with XML, you'll have no problems with
Mobile Linux - The LiMo Foundation
I think the name LiMo is a bit naff (English word meaning silly!) given how many people drive around in Limos but if you'll excuse the pun, I think this one has
A Tale of a Bug!
Although I'm a PC person (as in generic PC) I also own a Wii console. Now Nintendo have gone to a lot of effort to stop people being able to run their own
Programming Challenge 11 is now live
A card puzzle game I've owned and played for many years is Set invented by a geneticist Marsha Falco in 1991. You have to identify matching sets of three cards
Pandora - Portable Linux Games Console Coming Soon
Well my quest for a low cost portable Linux box (as opposed to the desktop PC which I now have) continues, and Open Pandora looks a very interesting open
Programming Challenge Ten Results In
Congratulations to Sameerkumar Namdeo (India) whose code managed to beat the others for hiding and then extracting a text string from a complete book in under
Free C# Game Programming Webcasts
DigiPen Institute of Technology, a company that started out 20 years ago in computer animation now teaches degree courses in Redmond Washington. They have also
C/C++ Programming Puzzle
It's been a while, so just to refresh you; what will this output? #include int fx(int * p) { return (*p += 1) ; } int main() {
Another Entry to full time job Programming
In the past I've described the traditional career paths in the article programming as a career. I was reading the sourceforge project of the month entries and
Answer to the C Problem
If you read the comments you'll notice that each compiler does its own thing. As I understand it, that's because although printf outputs the parameters from
Installing Microsoft Visual C#/C++ 2008 Express Editions
If you're tempted to dip a toe in the water with programming on Windows I can recommend both Visual C++ 2008 and Visual C# 2008 Express Editions. They are both
Programming Challenge 12 Posted
This one is a bit early for a change and doesn't start until May 1. You have to process a file containing a map of ten points with every location in the file
Writing Multi-Player Games in C# for Money
Traygames.com is a commercial firm that has developed a platform for quickly running multi-player games. Their entire back-end infrastructure, client,
So I'm changing jobs...
Though it's at the same desk, in the same company working for the same boss! My current position is a consultant in an investment bank developing software for
N-Gage 2.0 C++ Games Platform Launch
Nokia's original N-Gage shown in the photo, came out over four years ago and was a dedicated games console and mobile phone that aimed to rival the Nintendo
Wykobi - C++ Computational Geometry Library
A graphics library lets you draw shapes etc, perhaps animate them. The GDI+ in Windows for example. A computational geometry library though is a bit of a
Computer Generated Art- Filigrams
Thirty years ago at University I acquired a collection of ASCII art (Star Trek, bunnies etc) that was an early form of computer art. We could only print them
Developing an Online Game - One Small Step
As well as writing here and holding down a full-time job I also do other computer related activities, often including websites. The danger is that when you do
Some Thoughts on Outsourcing Development Jobs
A company I used to work for didn't outsource as such. They opened up an office in Shanghai and recruited developers there. Given that they could get 4-5
Using The Programming Tools That You're Given
I think writing software is getting harder, or at least there's a steeper learning curve than there used to be. When I learnt 6502 Assembler, all I had to
Game Development Notes
This is the first of a series of occasional notes on the development of an online multi-player game. I did a lot of coding for this online game (that I
Code and Data Rot
By now I guess most people are familiar with web rot. This is the phenomenon where an old website that hasn't been maintained is full of broken links or links
Recommending a Book on Assembly Language!
Have I gone soft in the head? Why would I suggest a book on Assembly Language to high level developers? Because It covers a lot of common ground about Linux
Starting ASP.NET Development
Today I sat down to learn what for me is a new technology- asp.net. I learnt html in a night class back in 1999. By coincidence I got a dotcom job as a
A Free E-Book on Learning C++
Herbert Schildt is a well known author who seems to have been around for ever. The first book I bought on C++ in 1991 was written by him. Now you can read his
Managing Very Big Quantities of Data in C++
If you consider just how much data is held by Google; not just for their search engine with billions of web-pages but Google Earth, Maps, Orkut etc it is truly
Is it Worth Making Code Run Faster?
Back in my halcyon youth as as a game programmer in Z80 and 6502, I reckoned that my old CBM-64 with an 8 bit CPU clocked at 1 MHz could execute instructions in
Programming Challenge 12 now Live.
This challenge is about writing a program to find the shortest path between ten points in a data file designated by the characters A- J. This is what a very
Downloaded the New MFC 2008 Feature Pack Yet?
Back in January I commented about the available Betas and the full version of the MFC Feature Pack is now out as a free download for Visual C++ 2008 (The full
Programming Challenge 11 Results Posted
If there is a problem with a programming challenge entry I try and fix it. Not to make it run faster but just to make it compile and run. Usually this is only
Inkscape - Open Source Vector Drawing Program
Although not at version 1.0 yet, Inkscape is a quality vector drawing program not unlike Illustrator. I'm pretty dire in the artistic stakes, more technical
Back to the C Tutorial
With the publication of the C# strings tutorial last week, I'm now back onto C again and this tutorial will be about files; both text files and random access
My Progress With ASP.NET
It's not that it is intrinsically difficult, I think I was just trying to run before I could walk. I've just spent three days last week taking an existing
XNA Version 3.0 Technology preview Now Available
This is not the full version but an early beta and if you want to start programming games (including multi-player) for the Zune media player you'll want to try
Hungarian Notation or What?
In case you didn't know it, Hungarian names are apparently given in the order family names first then personal name. This was the reason given for Hungarian
Warning! Silverlight 2.0 Beta or Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta?
When you have two overlapping technologies, in this case Silverlight and Visual Studio, both with betas there is the risk that things won't work together. It's
Starting Some New Tutorials
I've been asked if I would write some additional programming tutorials for people who are totally new to programming and on both Linux and Windows. These will
Ever Heard of Cuda?
No it's not a misspelling of a certain Caribbean island! A few years back it was discovered that graphics processing chips (GPUs) could be used to offset much
Using Eclipse For C/C++ Development
One thing that C and C++ are not short of is IDEs. Eclipse which started life as a Java IDE has the CDT (The C/C++ Development Tools) project which is now up to
C# Programming Puzzle by Robert C. Cartaino
A regular entrant in the programming challenges (and winner) Robert C. Cartaino has sent in this puzzle. In C#, the value of any type can be treated as an
C, C++ and C# in the UK Job Market
I've mentioned jobs in the past but recently came across an excellent UK job tracking website that gets data from agencies and employers and shows
Answer to C# Programming Problem (by Robert C. Cartaino)
The output is: False True Why? When comparing two objects, the equality operator (==) checks to see if the objects are exactly the same object
DreamSpark - Getting Microsoft Professional Tools For Free
I don't mean by downloading from dodgy websites or P2P networks but obtaining the software legally and legitimately. If you are a student in the United States,
Internet Problem Solving Contest Tomorrow! (May 24)
Sorry this is a bit short notice but I only found out today. If you run a programming contest please write and tell me (so long as C, C++ or C# can be used).
Programming Challenge 13 for June 2008 Now Live
Yes I know there's just under a week to go for Challenge 12 (is anyone going to enter that?) so hopefully you'll find this challenge, less er challenging. I saw
Latest C Tutorial Published - Random Access Files
Back nearly twenty years ago before databases (or even networks for PCs) were used much, if you wanted to have file access you used either text files or random
Free SQL Server - Not Microsoft's Though!
I suspect the name is probably a bit unfortunate given the huge ranks of lawyers that Microsoft can afford but if you're interested in having a look at a SQL
Game Enough to Win a Few $1000?
There's less than three weeks to go as Microsoft and Dr Dobb's magazine are offering several thousand bucks in prizes for the best modifications of the Dr.
Nathan's Zombie Simulator in C#
A 21 year old programmer who hosts the blog Wr3cktangle has published the source to his Zombie Simulator. It's a simple simulator, a variant on the
Programming Challenge 12 Marked
Congratulations to Jared Cox with a lightning fast time of 0.166 seconds and the lowest score. (The total of ten different routes). There were four entries in
Sysinternals Utilities Now Available Online
One of my favorite set of free developer utilities on Windows is the sysinternals.com collection. Whether it's filemon to see what's writing to a file, regmon
A New type of Visual C++?
Developer John Torjo has just released eGUI, short for Easy GUI. This is a C++ library that masks the complexity of Windows GUI programming. It completely hides
Crawling up the ASP.NET Learning Curve
Coming from a background where I've developed websites using the original asp and have written a fair number of php websites, the realization about the use of
An Embeddable Web Server written in C
With all this talk of ASP.NET, it's easy to forget that C and C++ developers can also interact with the web as well. I recently came across SHTTPD which is a
What to Expect in the Forthcoming Months
Regular readers of About C, C++ and C# will know that I jump from low level C to ASP.NET, C# etc. Unusually for me, I'm trying to plan ahead so the following
Are there many WPF applications out there?
WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) first emerged with Vista and is now on XP if you have the .NET 3.0 framework installed. If you want the .NET 3.0 framework
Can You Write a VPN?
True story. I got emailed the other day and asked if I could help someone Write a VPN for his son. Of the many varied things I've written, sadly a Virtual
A Free E-Book on Parallelism
My background was computer science and though I graduated nearly 30 years ago, I still retain an interest. Many graduate level publications in the field are an
An Open Source alternative to MS Word - AbiWord
Now in its 8th or 9th year Abiword has grown in stature as a Microsoft Word look alike (well until Office 2007 came along!). Mostly written in C++ with a
Has WPF Really Taken Off?
With my games programming experience (technically about as useful these days as a apprentice stage coach builder!), I can understand the technical enthusiasm
C++ Timing Code For Linux
Dennis Muhlestein who was one of the Programming Challenge 12 entrants has created a Linux version of the Timing code I wrote for some of the Programming
C++ Advanced Data Structures - B+ Tree.
One of the things I've always liked about programming is advanced data structures. Just think of the problems that face Google and other search engines; coping
Game Contest! Win Dollars with Your XNA Game Submission
No prizes though for guessing which gigantic software corporation that is into C# is sponsoring this contest. Up to $75K is up for grabs with $40K to first
A free Graphics E-Book by Michael Abrash
Anyone in game or just PC programming from the late 80s on should recognize the name of Michael Abrash. As well as working on the original Quake (optimizing it)
C Programming Puzzle - Count Down!
This is C only, not in C++ as you could probably solve this with templates! Write a small program in C to count down from 50 to 1 using printf to output each
Mega Collaborative Game Development
Slightly off-topic for once but it's about software development (and games). As part of three contests they've been running for the last few months, Acclaim is
My Answer to the C Programming Puzzle
As I'm writing this there have more comments than entries in some programming challenges! Here is my answer which I see others have also done. The conditional
Another C# Puzzle from Robert C Cartaino
C# allows conditional compilation so #define Debug class program { static void Main() { #if Debug
Yet Another C Puzzle!
it's just a phase I'm going through- normal service will resume shortly! Ralph Lakes sent me this one and I must admit it fooled me for a minute. Can you see
Change to Programming Challenge 13
Apologies to those who have already entered, you can resubmit entries if you want. The change is that hits on a ship can now return the type of ship hit and
Nokia's Big Giveaway (and purchase!)
I know I harp on about non computer devices, but while it's now estimated that there are a billion PCs of all sorts in the world, there are probably 4 billion
TADS- Writing Interactive Fiction Games
Interactive Fiction is the modern name for Adventure Games. These were a single player text game where you typed in instructions like Go North. The computer
Reviewing a Java Games Book!
No don't panic, I haven't defected to the darker side (depends how you like coffee of course!) but occasionally I get sent books to review. I know, it's an
ASP.NET Development Continued
As I've blogged before I'm engaged in a non work project (a website) and learning ASP.NET 3.5 to do it. My web development in the past included original asp
Programming Challenge 14 Posted
Thanks to all who entered Challenge 13 which is being marked now and I'll hopefully publish the results tomorrow or Wednesday. The next challenge is a very
Apologies With Programming Challenge 14
Due to a technical problem the numbers.txt file has not yet been published. This is highly unusual event and I can only apologize for this. It should appear
Being Stylish in C++ - The Google Way
You might heard of a outfit called Google who run a popular search engine. They also develop a considerable amount of software for their own use and much of it
A Day of Open Source Releases
Both Microsoft and Google have released open source versions of internal tools. Google's release is Ratproxy, a cross-platform tool for helping identify
Programming Challenge 15 Posted
Yes this one is definitely a bit early; it doesn't start until August but I wanted to make sure there weren't any gotchas or things I've overlooked. If I've
Grace - Writing C++ In a more Modern Way
I can't see C++ purists really taking to this but those who have been learning other languages first then C++ might consider it. Grace is an attempt to hide
C++ Programming Puzzle
Here's some source code for a class to manage planets in an astronomy program. A planet is created with co-ordinates (assume those are correct- the values are
A Truly Open Cell Phone - Cell Phone
OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner is a cell phone that was launched last week though availability is still pretty limited. Whether it sets the world on fire or not (and
Answer to C++ Programming Puzzle
The answer is there are at least four. The first one is quite subtle: You can overwrite the private variable like this! *Earth.GetPlanetName() = 0; That's
Sometimes Assembler Is Ok
I've said it before that for most programming you don't need assembler. The disadvantages of using it are: that it's less portable, slower to write, and is
11th ICFP Programming Contest
Yes it's that time of year again. Organized by the Portland State University and the Univerity of Chicago, this time you have to write software to move a Mars
Deploying SQL Server Databases - The Hard Way
With my ASP.NET development, I've come up against a similar problem that I had in my last job when I worked on SQL Server Express 2005. Deploying the contents
Google Open Sources Their C++ Unit Testing Framework
The Google C++ Testing Framework known also as Google Test, based on xUnit has been used by many of the Google C++ developers to help in unit testing their C++
ASC - Multi-Platform Open Source Battle Isle Type Game
Back in the early 90s, Blue Byte (later famous for their The Settlers games) had a series of successes with their Battle Isle games. These were a traditional
Google Code Jam Starts Today- Win $10,000
Google Code Jam is a programming competition which both professional and student programmers can enter. The problems you have to solve are complex algorithmic
C++ Programming Tutorial on Random Access Files Published
The latest C++ programming tutorial has just been published. This looks at random access files and how to work with them. It includes three longer examples and
A New Way to Make Money Programming in C
It's difficult to have escaped the buzz about the recent iPhone 3G launch and its sales in excess of 1 million. What makes this a compelling platform (apart
Taking Better Photos With your Canon Camera
No you're not on the wrong topic, this is about C, C++ and C#! The Canon Hackers Development Kit (CHDK) is an open source application written in C that provides
I am an Enterprise Developer!
It sounds like a Star Trek job title. You work on the software for the Enterprise? No way!. Actually if I did I don't know if I would dare admit it. There are
ASP.NET Development Continued
I spent a large chunk of the weekend advancing the ASP.NET application. It's starting to settle down but still has some very rough parts. I feel the way
A Cross Platform GUI Toolkit - Agar
Once you consider developing cross platform GUI application development then life gets more interesting. You can play it safe and go down the QT route or
PowerShell in ASP.NET
The power of .NET is that it is language agnostic. There are over twenty different programming languages implemented on it with more no doubt in the pipeline.
PDFsharp - PDF Generator for .NET
Over the last few years before moving to .NET I spent considerable time investigating PDF libraries on Win 32 both free and commercial. Getting text flowing
The 10 Commandments of Henry Spencer on C Programming
In between writing code and tutorials I prowl the length and breadth (virtually speaking) of the web looking for interesting stuff to link to, to write about or
A Fascinating Java Project- PC Emulation!
No, I'm not losing my marbles and yes I think it's relevant to C,C++ and C#! The project I'm referring to is an Oxford University project JPC which completely
ASP.NET - My Adventure Continues
The design of a website; the look and feel rather than its functionality depends upon a great many things and I'm not a great designer. If I'm looking for a
A C++ Programming Puzzle
My thanks to Cristian García-Ramírez who sent in this C++ programming problem. Without compiling or running it, can you say what happens when you run this code?
Very Fast Open Source Messaging
One of the bits of computing that you don't often hear about is messaging unless you work for a big company. Yes it's another Enterprise software thing. The
Answer to C++ Programming Problem
As usual, the problem was spotted by observant readers. I tried this code on two different c++ compilers and both compiled it without error or warning. The
Programming Challenge 14 Still Being Marked
There were 13 entries; thanks to everyone who entered. I'm working my way through these and will hopefully have them marked by later tonight or at latest
Challenge 14 Is Not Fully Marked Yet
The answer was four- well done to Makis who correctly identified the logic in the puzzle. Four is the only number that describes its length (as a word) in
Sometimes Programming Makes You Too Clever (Another Puzzle!)
Challenge 14 is now marked- there's a link below. Congratulations to Makis for his stunningly fast multi-threaded multiply. When I design software, I try and
The Answer to the Puzzle
The digits were 0,1,2,3,4,5 and 0,1,2,6,7,8 as was correctly spotted. But how does that handle the ninth, nineteenth and 29th? That's the lateral thinking bit-
Distributed Compiling of C/C++ On Linux for Free!
Because of the complexity of C++, compilations can take a long time. A major deficiency is the partition of compilation units which came straight from C with
Free Database Models!
If you work professionally the odds are that you will need to write code that uses a database. In big firms particularly you probably won't have any control of
An Interesting C Program and Puzzle
I'm not sure if this will correctly format so I've also provided it as a download. It's a great example of how not to write a program and I found it on
Microsoft Releases SP1 for .NET/Visual Studio 2008
Nine months after the original release Microsoft have brought out service packs for the .NET framework and for Visual Studio 2008. The framework update is not
Answer to C Programming Puzzle
That was too easy perhaps (malempati sussed what it did) though no one actually gave me the answer I was looking for. It's a recursive program as best I can
The Disruptive Nature of Open Source- Asterisk
You would think that private branch exchange (PBX) software to manage telephones which many companies use, is not the type of thing that would make a success in
Have You got a Cuda System?
I know that it sounds like I've got a cold. Back in May I mentioned about CUDA which is a free download from Nvidia- no point unless you've got an 8 series or
Buying an iPhone and learning Objective-C/C++
I've made the decision to not only buy a 3G iPhone, but a Mac Mini as well so I can try my hand at developing for it. Why? Well I'd been considering getting an