This was a response to a response to a post on MSDN. But it was still interesting. The original thread is at:
Tom Archers Blog. His explanation was interesting, though too political for my taste. Anyhow here’s my rant/response…

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I’ve been doing some research on video streaming technologies on the internet. In my searches I’ve come up with some very interesting tools. There is a new open source media player called VLC Media Player created by Video Lan. Yet another player ? What’s so special about that? Well this is more than a player. It is a player, streaming server, and converter for MPEG1,2,4,DivX. It takes inputs from files, DVD, acquisition devices, hardware encoders, and satellite boxes.
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Among the hundreds of options in MS Visual studio for C++ code generation is an option to select generation of native mode SIMD or SIMD2. How safe is this to use? I’ve had some trouble finding good descriptions of exactly what these do and what CPU’s are supported.
Back in the old days we only had to worry if the CPU had a x87 co-processor or not. For a while this issue went away. Intel pulled all the x87 functionality into the 486DX, Pentium and above processors. Now it seems the problem is back.

Here’s what I found:

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I’ve recently had need for a C++ library for encoding/decoding images. I did some research and found many options. I had a particular need to compress 16 bit grayscale (grayscale) images. Several formats say in documentation that they support it. The only format I could find that actually supported this is JPEG2000. Honestly I had never even heard of the format before about a year ago. But it is seems to be very slowly gaining in acceptance.

I first tried the Jasper library. Not sure if this is still being supported. But I’ve recently discovered OpenJPEG. It is fast, light, open source and seems to still be under active support/development. Check it out at OpenJPEG

I could go on all day about this one. I just had to start a thread on it. There is a proliferation of poor code in the world. I’ve recently had opportunity to see some potentially horrendous examples of code used in actual commercial products. (no names will be mentioned).

There are of course many ideas about how strictly managers should enforce coding standards. One extreme is that style is just a matter of taste and nothing matters except testable results. i.e. If the code passes unit tests and functional tests, then that’s good code.

Needless to say I disagree… I think style = maintainability. One day the person that created this code will be gone. Someone else will inherit it. The faster that person can look at and understand the flow of that code the better.

Here are some things I’ve seen in code I’ve inherited:

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I found this a fun subject from a very old article. The August 97 issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal has an article that discusses tips for interviewing C++ programmer candidates. We all want to show off how smart we are don’t we? We have all heard some of these trick questions in interviews. Usually I think it has more to do with the interviewer trying to show off how smart they are. hehe. but they are still interesting.
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I do Windows C++ development for the most part and typically use Visual Studio. I also have a minor fascination with version control systems. They are the backbone of any software development team. I’ve often found they really don’t get the attention they deserve, given their importance. I find that a little time wasted here and a little disorganization there really adds up to a lot in the scope of almost any project.

I’ve done a review of a several version control systems trying to find the best one for my needs.
My comments mostly apply to large multiple engineer projects, that have potentially many source and object modules.

NOTE: This document is not complete. I’ll try to keep filling it in as i progress.
Use the ‘more’ link below to get the rest of this!

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This really should be obvious but I will state it anyhow.

Any software downloaded from this site is to be considered shareware and is for educational purposes. Any of it may be distributed and executed free of charge if all of the included files remain unchanged and you make no profits from it. If there is profit to be made I see no reason why I should not be included (hehe).

Warning: Most of the software found here is BETA at best. I can’t be held responsible for possible damages. Use at your own risk. It is not guaranteed to be suitable for any purpose. blah. blah. blah.
That was simple now wasn’t it.