All I wanted to do was to make a game for my Android tablet, so how come I ended up writing a new C++ framework? What happened? Between the standard Android SDK […]
Can a language be safe?
Some languages hand us sharp knives and encourage us to play with them. Other languages put us in padded rooms and discourage us from doing anything at all. Though it may sound […]
Everything wrong with exceptions
In my previous article I looked at a basic reason why exceptions are necessary. In retrospect it was more of a look at why simple error codes are insufficient; it isn’t clear […]
The Necessity of Exceptions
Exceptions often get a bad rap. They are called ineffective, inefficient, and hard to work with. In a way such accusations aren’t unfair, as most languages have totally screwed up their implementation. […]
What’s an object? What’s a variable?
A variable is is the most fundamental concept in programming. You can’t do anything without variables. Yet most languages let you gloss over what these actually are. Simplicity often hides the truth. […]
How Polymorphism Works: Part 1
Polymorphism: the core of object oriented programming. Most modern languages have some concept of interfaces, virtual functions, and classes. Though each language differs in details, and may have specialized concepts, the core […]
Why Garbage Collection is not Necessary and actually Harmful
In the world of new languages it seems like garbage collection is standard feature. A way for the runtime to locate unused bits of memory and release them. It has become so […]
The Cost – A Function Call
In the grand scheme of execution costs function calls come very close to the bottom of the list. They don’t cost very much at all — at least not in most compiled […]
The Cost – Instantiation and the hidden enemy “new”
Whether C++, Java or any other language, we are all familiar with instantiating an object. In those aforementioned languages the operator new happens to do just that. Obviously CPUs don’t have any […]
