Author Archive

Exceptions vs. Error Return Codes

April 26th, 2019

I have been partly responsible for maintaining legacy source code. Almost all of the code is implemented in C and therefore does not use exceptions. Much of the error handling code follows the following pattern here implemented in C++ (imagine in this example, operator new returns 0 when no memory is available): int function() { […]

Write Less Code: C# Properties

February 15th, 2018
Posted in C# | No Comments

I inherited the responsibility of maintaining an internal development tool implemented in C#. I recently added new classes to extend the tool’s functionality. Several of the new classes uses several properties, and I found myself writing code similar to the following: class Shape { private int _width; private int _height; private bool _isVisible; public int […]

How to Install GCC 7 on CentOS 7

February 14th, 2018

Interested in keeping up with the latest C++ standard, I noticed that CentOS 7.4.1708 uses gcc version 4.8.5 20150623. This version of gcc defaults to ISO/IEC 14882:1998. Updated C++ standards have been released in 2003, 2011, 2014, and 2017. Although gcc developers are still implementing the 2017 standard, it is good to use a recent […]

Hello, Responsive Web Design

February 11th, 2018

This blog’s customized WordPress theme is finally updated with responsive web design elements. Reading a tutorial at w3schools.com, Responsive Web Design Introduction, encouraged me to implement responsive web design this week. The introduction is concise and actionable for someone with previous experience using HTML and CSS. Seeing their simple implementation using HTML div tags and […]

The Intelligent Investor

August 31st, 2017

Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor motivated changes to my personal investment operation. My copy of the book was published around 2006 and contains Jason Zweig’s commentary relating Graham’s observations about the stock market to the then recent dot-com crash. Having had some exposure to the dot-com crash and being an active participant in securities markets […]