June 12, 2008
For this edition of my series Brain Giblets, I'd like to share a little debugging technique that has served me excessively well over the years.
The great thing about this technique is that it is literally applicable to any situation - regardless of what debugging tools you have available, or even wh…
The great thing about this technique is that it is literally applicable to any situation - regardless of what debugging tools you have available, or even wh…
May 20, 2008
Further progress on the laser-R2-D2 mod project. I mounted the laser and toggle switch successfully, and rebuilt the R2 unit more or less successfully. It still works properly (woohoo!) but the head has lost its full range of motion, and the laser stopped firing after a few particularly nasty head-…
May 07, 2008
If you haven't already, take a moment to read the Brain giblets round 3 entry, including the comments.
The idea was brought up of using comments rather than actual function call stubs, and then exploiting IDE tools like global find or Visual Studio's Task List to locate and flesh out those comments …
The idea was brought up of using comments rather than actual function call stubs, and then exploiting IDE tools like global find or Visual Studio's Task List to locate and flesh out those comments …
April 30, 2008
Observation: There are two basic ways to handle planned future functionality in your code. For example, suppose you are adding scripting language bindings to a partially finished engine. The engine currently does not have sound effect support, but it will soon. Your choices are fairly simple:
- Don't …
April 30, 2008
Observation: It is tempting to let your software fail in messy ways. For example, consider a case where a fatal exception is thrown from your code. This exception is displayed to the user along with some possibly-useful debugging information.
Now, suppose that there is a certain situation in which t…
Now, suppose that there is a certain situation in which t…
April 28, 2008
I was coding away earlier, innocent as can be, when I suddenly was struck by an errant thought. After scolding it for interrupting my blissfully thought-free coding session, I took a closer look at it.
Turns out it was a fairly deep and important truth. In fact, I nearly came over here to write a jo…
Turns out it was a fairly deep and important truth. In fact, I nearly came over here to write a jo…
April 21, 2008
Today I quadrupled my chances of getting terminal cancer.
This may sound like a difficult feat, but in all honesty it was pretty simple: I just held a soldering iron to a lump of plastic for a while. The toxic fumes still tinge the ambience of my flat, and I now have a dull headache.
Still, I conside…
This may sound like a difficult feat, but in all honesty it was pretty simple: I just held a soldering iron to a lump of plastic for a while. The toxic fumes still tinge the ambience of my flat, and I now have a dull headache.
Still, I conside…
April 20, 2008
I finally got motivated to start working on the R2D2 droid project again. I had a couple of ideas, and ended up picking a fairly simple one to start out with: I'm going to give R2D2 a laser eye, Terminator style.
Being a total electronic toy geek, I naturally have a few laser pointers laying around.…
Being a total electronic toy geek, I naturally have a few laser pointers laying around.…
April 18, 2008
I knew it had to happen eventually... but now that it has, I'm kicking myself for the choices I made.
Some of the old-timers around here may recall the old Freon raytracer project that I worked on several years ago. The goal was to develop a software reference implementation of a hardware raytracing…
Some of the old-timers around here may recall the old Freon raytracer project that I worked on several years ago. The goal was to develop a software reference implementation of a hardware raytracing…
April 17, 2008
I finally sorted out the combination of connections needed to get the on-chip debugger working for the microcontroller. I have no idea what I'm doing differently now than before, but I can run the IDE and step through code in the ROM at will.
This means that I finally have some serious potential for…
This means that I finally have some serious potential for…
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