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() { […]
Lately, I have been involved with optimizing code to improve execution time. I am still becoming familiar with a large and complex software system that is used by a multitude of end-users. Because my knowledge of the system is limited and people are dependent on the system, the scope of my modifications is focused on […]
I have recently come across multiple sources that recommended writing less code or just enough code to get the job done. Fewer lines of source code mean fewer lines of code that needs to be documented, tested, and maintained. In a situation where lines of code is not being used as a performance metric, lines […]
A real-world discussion about trunk and branch management that I found through reddit.com is reprinted here: From: Rasmus Lerdorf Subject: PHP 6 Groups: php.internals Date: Thu Mar 11 12:22:48 2010 Ah, Jani went a little crazy today in his typical style to force a decision. The real decision is not whether to have a version […]
I recently finished reading Applied Software Project Management by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene. Stellman and Greene’s book has motivated me to read CMMI for Development, Version 1.2. Since CMMI is a model for process improvement, Stellman and Greene’s book has also encouraged me to get books on processes such as Rational Unified Process and […]