Year: 2008

Thou shalt not ignore warnings

Here is a quote from a wise comment in the discussion of the “Linux system programming” book review:

Build your code with -Wall -Werror (or your compiler’s equivalent). Once you clean up all the crud, that pops up, crank it up with -W -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith. Once there — add -Wreturn-type -Wcast-qual -Wswitch -Wshadow -Wcast-align and tighten up by removing the no in -Wno-unused-parameter. The -Wwrite-strings is essential, if you wish your code to be compiled with a C++ compiler some day (hint: the correct type for static strings is ” const char *”).
For truly clean code, add -Wchar-subscripts -Winline -Wnested-externs -Wredundant-decls.
The people, who wrote and maintain the compiler, are, most likely, several levels above you in understanding programming in general and C-programming in particular. Ignoring the advice their code generates is foolish on your part…
As a minimum, solved warnings will make your code more readable by reducing/eliminating the “Why is he doing this?” questions. More often than not, they point out bugs you would otherwise spend hours chasing with a debugger later.
And they make your code more portable. But if you don’t understand, why a warning is generated — ask around. Don’t just “shut it up”. For example, initializing a variable at declaration is usually a no-no. If the compiler thinks, the variable may be used before being initialized, scrutinize your program’s flow. If you can’t figure out, it may some times be better to disable this one warning temporarily with -Wno-uninitialized to move on, instead of shutting it up for ever by a bogus “= 0” or some such…

Rally 2008 : Cyprus Rally in, WRC out

Homeboy Media News lets us know that the Cyprus Rally is back this year ( official web site confirms the news). The even will take place between Friday, May 16th and Sunday, May 18th.

Takis Kyriakides, Cyprus Rally Head of the Course, said “the new route will incorporate old tracks, which have been kept in fine condition through re-grading operations and regular maintenance, and the new ones designed and constructed this year”.

However, the event will not be a part of the World Rally Championship (WRC) as it used to be during the last few years. There was a chance that Cyprus would come back to WRC schedule this year, but it just didn’t happen. Next year maybe.

The Simpsons Movie

Are you a fan of Simpsons?  If so, this ,”The Simpsons Movie” is the absolute must see for you.  But then again you probably already watched it. Me, on the other hand, is not a big fan.  I like to watch an episode of Simpsons now and then, but I am getting tired of them pretty soon.  And that is probably the reason for it taking almost a week for me to watch the whole movie.

Normally, I allocate time for movie watching in such a way that I won’t be interrupted. But during the last week I simply didn’t have that luxury, even though the movie was already rented.  So, I decided that technically this movie is not a film (it’s an animation), so the normal guidelines can be bent a little bit.  I saw the whole thing in about three or four sessions, with a little bit of overlap to get me back to where I stopped the previous time.

I have to say that this movie is nice. It is not disconnected from the cartoon series.  It’s just longer and has a bigger story, but overall it looks and feels like the usual Simpsons.  The animation is the same, the humor is the same, and the sound might be slightly better than the TV version (I don’t have anything at hand to confirm it).  So, what’s more there to say?  It’s the Simpsons. If you like them, watch it. If not, then not.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

PrimeTel submarine fiber landing station

(Can you pack any more technology terms into that title?)

Apparently, PrimeTel is working hard on improving broadband connectivity on the island of Cyprus.  In this blog post, Vladimir Ivaschenko links to this article, which explains:

PrimeTel is building a new, independent, privately owned Submarine landing station in Yeroskipos, Cyprus as per the global specifications of Reliance Globalcom. It aims to gain access to new international cables and capacity, and has secured 5Gbps of capacity globally with an option for further upgrades in the future. The project is expected to be completed by 2009.

This sounds very cool, and I hope that the project will be completed on time and that we all, broadband users, will benefit from it. (Not that it will stop any of the local forums whining about Cyprus connectivity options or anything.)

Mibbit – IRC the easy way

IRC is one of the best things that happened in the world of online communications ever.  But, it’s a pity that most non-technical users have no idea of its existence.  Getting on IRC usually required downloading and installing a client software, and then going through a list of networks, picking a server, a nickname, and finding a channel to connect to.  While not exactly rocket science, it was more than enough to seriously decrease the user base.

Via this Web Worker Daily post I learned about a great tool – Mibbit.  It is a web-based interface to IRC.  It is straight forward, easy to use, and doesn’t require one to know much about IRC.  No installation or registration is needed – you can jump straight into it.

In fact, even many technical people who use IRC will find Mibbit useful.  It adds some useful pieces of functionality which many traditional IRC clients miss (unless, of course they support plugins).  Two things that I was glad to see were Paste Bin support, which is a quick way to send around pieces of text, often with syntax highlight, and editing capabilities; and integrated translations.  You can pick the language you want your messages to be translated to, as well as the language you want other people’s messages to be translated to.  Of course, the translations are done automatically, so they aren’t of the best quality, but at least you’ll get a slight idea of what those other people are talking about. In case you don’t speak a common language, that is.

I also liked the interface of Mibbit.  It is clean, simple, and fast.  You can participate in multiple discussions, which will appear as tabs, which you can switch between.  Updates are fast and the whole thing feels very much like a desktop application.

Thanks to Web Worker Daily for bringing attention to this service, and, of course, to Mibbit developers for making a useful tool.

P.S.: If you are trying to get a hold of me on IRC, my contact page has all the information that you need.