Slashdot Mirror

fashla writes "Several somber and soul searching threads have been recently posted to the USENET newsgroup comp.lang.c++ such as "C++ is Dead" and "A Dying Era". The reason for this reflective mood is the sudden demise of the magazine C/C++ Users Journal (CUJ) http://www.cuj.com/ that had been published by CMP Media. Participating in the posts have been such C++ luminaries such as Bjarne Stroustrup and P.J. Plauger. While some contributers think that CUJ's demise is due to the general trend away from print, others think something else is afoot..."

paulydavis writes "The c/c++ users journal has an article about porting windows applications to Linux using Winelib. The article is a good tutorial on how to obtain winelib and how to use such things as the winebuild and the winemaker tool."

paulydavis writes "The c/c++ users journal has an article about porting windows applications to Linux using Winelib. The article is a good tutorial on how to obtain winelib and how to use such things as the winebuild and the winemaker tool."

An anonymous reader writes "The computer system that launches the Space Shuttle is an old, but important, computer system. It is built from mid 70's technology and features SSI chips like 7400's...which are getting hard to find. It has 64k of memory and no room to repair any software bugs. NASA started the CLCS project in 1996 which uses state of the art computer languages, OO methodologies, and hardware. Everything that you could actually hire people off the street for. However, NASA is in a budget crunch with the Space Station cost overruns. It is looking to trim costs to keep the Space Station going. There are stories about CLCS getting cancelled here and these guys say its already cancelled."

rrwood asks: "The company at which I work is about to overhaul an existing application. Strangely enough, we're primarily Macintosh-based, but are casting an eye towards cross-platform development (i.e. Windows, though I'm hopeful that an X/Linux-based version is also a possibility). Given that the app is to be a fairly rich GUI front end that talks to a database backend, I'd be interested in hearing any recommendations or advice anyone out there has to offer." Read on for more information on the toolkits currently under consideration (feel free to offer more suggestions), but we are talking toolkits here. The topic of cross-platform languages got a rather thourough treatment in a previous article.

"It's pretty much a necessity for the solution technology to include a RAD tool.

With respect to using a portable C++ core and platform-specific GUI layer (or even portable GUI layer-- keep reading), there are a few toolkits around that seem promising:

• GLUI, an OpenGL-based GUI
• Whisper, a Mac/Windows application framework
• WxWindows, a framework which supports Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, and Unix with GTK/Motif/Lesstif, and MacOS
• YAAF, Yet Another Application Framework, offering suport for Macintosh OS, Windows 95 and Windows NT, and X Windows
• CPLAT, a framework for developing MacOS and Windows (Linux soon) applications
• Ardi's Carbonless Copies technology, which is a portable rewrite of much of the MacOS API

Additionally, these URLS have a lot of info on Platform Independent GUIs:

• GUI Toolkit/Framework Page
• PIGUI FAQ Page
• C++ User's Journal PIGUI Page"

A name that all the book reviewers know SEGV has sent in a review of Scott Meyers' CD work Effective C++ CD. This is a stray from our normal book reviews, but figured people would appreciate seeing Scott Meyers' newest effort. Effective C++ CD author Scott Meyers pages publisher Addison Wesley rating 10 reviewer SEGV ISBN 0-201-60615-1 summary More than the sum of its hardcopy contents, this electronic resource earns a place on the programmer's bookshelf.

What to Expect?

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Subtitled "85 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs," I knew this CD was an electronic version of Scott Meyers' already-published books, which I had previously reviewed for Slashdot:

• Effective C++ Second Edition
• More Effective C++

So I knew a priori that the content was excellent, but how would it be packaged and presented? Would it be Windows-only, forcing me to use it only at work as I run Linux at home? Would it be awkward to read onscreen? Would it be easily searchable? Could I annotate and print portions of it?

A Pleasant Surprise

I was pleasantly surprised when the package contained only a CDROM with these instructions printed on it:

To start, open INDEX.HTM
System requirements: Netscape Navigator 4.0+ (on Unix, Mac, or Win32) or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0+ (on Win32 only).

So far so good! I had no problems using the CD with Communicator 4.5 on NT 4.0, and Communicator 4.04 on Debian GNU/Linux 2.0. Pretty much any modern browser with Java and JavaScript support should work. If you experience browser problems, the publisher provides helpful advice.

Initial Impressions

The CD has a nice look and feel to it. A navigation area is always present, acting as a control and providing a colour indication of where you are in the CD.

The text is decent to read and is true HTML, not merely raw text. It seems Meyers is conscious of the fact that an electronic version must add value to complement a printed version, otherwise it is not useful for its target audience.

Overall, I'd say this offering is a well though out and put together product, and not just a cheap knock-off.

Content

The CD (which itself has a printing number) contains the latest printings of the two books. It also boasts five magazine articles chosen by Meyers to augment the material in the books:

• "Exception Handling: A False Sense of Security" by Tom Cargill, from C++ Report Nov-Dec 1994.
• "Coping With Exceptions" by Jack W. Reeves, from C++ Report Mar 1996.
• "Exception-Safe Generic Containers" by Herb Sutter, from C++ Report Sep 1997, Nov-Dec 1997.
• "Counting Objects in C++" by Scott Meyers, from C/C++ Users Journal Apr 1998.
• "A First Look at C++ Program Analyzers" by Scott Meyers and Martin Klaus, from Dr. Dobb's Journal Feb 1997.

The first three are highly recommended for anyone dealing with exceptions. And of course, since any function may throw an exception, that means anyone writing C++! The object counting article elaborates on an idea from Effective C++ Item 14, illustrating some subtle language issues along the way. The final article outlines the state of the art in commercial static C++ analysis tools in September 1996.

Hyperlinks

The CD has links everywhere. Let me repeat: everywhere. In addition to hyperlinking existing references, Meyers added many cross references to the books and articles to further solidify the material.

Links to the internet at large are redirected through Addison Wesley Longman's online site so that they may stay current. And every single paragraph on the CD is anchored and hyperlinked, to facilitate electronic referencing and bookmarking.

Search Facilities

The CD provides two alternatives to your browser's "find in page" search facility. The first is a comprehensive merged index of the two books. The second is a search applet, modified from the Design Patterns CD search applet. It displays the resulting hits, with their enclosing paragraph for context if you select it. I found it easy to scan through hits until I found an interesting paragraph, then to jump to that document.

Although the search applet is aware of the entire CD, it appears that it can search only for one keyword. I'd really prefer more sophisticated search string options, such as multiple keywords, boolean operations, and perhaps even full regular expressions.

Configuration Facilities

For a set of web pages, the CD is impressively configurable. You can choose between five navigation area sizes, and five image sizes. You can view the books by item, by chapter, or in their entirety. And of course you can change text size in your browser.

Performance and Licensing

To implement the configurability options, there are actually five copies of each image and three copies of each book on the CD. Still, the total data size is a mere 16MB, which easily fits on a hard drive for greater performance and frees a CDROM drive for other use. This is also important because, given technology, actually altering the HTML files is really the only viable way of annotating the CD.

The CD comes with a single user license. You must contact the publisher for additional network license options. The short story is: you can make the CD available on a non-internet-accessible server to as many users as you have licenses, and you can purchase additional network licenses more cheaply the more you buy.

Summary

I've been using the CD both at work and at home for a couple of weeks, and I continue to find it a valuable resource. It easily subs in for my absent printed books, although of course I can't use it without a computer. The articles are useful, and the index and search applet allow me to quickly find what I am looking for.

Really, I have only three complaints:

• the search applet is somewhat limited
• there could be more magazine articles
• Scott's author photo is starting to look less like Eddie Van Halen and more like Gene Simmons

However, I don't think any of those detracts from the CD enough to reduce its 10/10 rating. In the worst case, since the CD is composed of text HTML files, you could apply other search utilities (eg, grep) to it.

The CD's online site has a demo, which I recommend trying if you want to get a feel for the CD before you purchase it. In addition to the general look and feel, navigation area, and search applet, it includes all of the magazine articles and a few of the books' items.

I'm happy with the CD, and recommend it as a professional resource.

To pick this up and help Slashdot, head over to Computer Literacy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Effective C++ Second Edition
More Effective C++
Magazine Articles
Search the CD