About the Cobras
I'm a C, C++, Objective C and PHP programmer. I develop various things for PCs, Macs and the iOS platforms. On and off I'm developing an iPhone game which I expect I shall never finish. I feature progress reports on how far I am from completing it in this blog along with me rattling on about learning French and any other junk I need to get off my chest. I shouldn't really need to say it in this day and age, but obviously, the opinions here are mine and not those of anyone who pays me... unless I've been bribed, in which case, all bets are off. There's more here.-
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Category Archives: Software development
The Bedroom Programmer: Cycle over?
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”Don Marquis It seems only reasonable that the first (and possibly only, I’m really not doing well with this blog lark recently) post of 2014 consists of some editorial that leads to … Continue reading
Posted in Armchair general, My iPhone game, Rants, Software development
Tagged cobra art, excuses, iPhone, slow progress
9 Comments
I know what I did last summer
You, like most people on this planet, probably have a dishwasher. Even if you don’t, you almost certainly know how to use one. I, on the other hand, had neither owned nor used a dishwasher until last summer when thanks … Continue reading
Posted in Miscellaneous rubbish, Software development
Tagged cobra art, dishwasher, flood, UI, user interface
Comments Off on I know what I did last summer
Overcomplicated shark is overcomplicated
“This is my 22nd year doing this, and every single console transition we’ve seen an increase in development costs. Over long periods of time it gets smoothed out, but I would say this is not a transition where that’s going … Continue reading
Posted in Armchair general, Software development
Tagged bad planning, cobra art, complexity, rants
1 Comment
The Incredible Adventures of Rattles McCoil
Imagine this scenario. You are sitting in front of the TV watching the Spongebob Squarepants movie1 and you’re a little peckish. In fact, what you could really, really do with for that authentic movie experience is some popcorn. No problem! … Continue reading
Posted in Software development
Tagged adventure game, cobra art, Rattles McCoils, schedules, slow progress, snake, specifications, Spongebob Squarepants
8 Comments
Bees: the miracle powering modern computing
Computers. How do they work? Magic? Bees? Magnets? Who knows. All those components, wires and other bits and bobs, it’s pretty much a mystery that we’ll never really understand. Well, no, actually. Almost nothing (I say almost because, well, you … Continue reading
Posted in Software development
Tagged 6502, bees, cobra art, giraffe, Girafferillo, machine code
1 Comment
These are the wires used to make my intergalactic spaceship
Ihave been becoming increasingly disheartened in recent years by how little the new generation of programmers know about how computers work. Their understanding of the relationship between what they tap into a computer and what the microprocessor actually ends up … Continue reading
Posted in Software development
Tagged C++, intergalactic spaceship, pointless observation, rants, text adventure
8 Comments
From little acorns
Juuso, one of the chaps whose blog I really enjoy reading, says that he likes to describe emergent behaviour as “1 + 1 = 3”. I would describe that as a syntax error. Emergent behaviour isn’t about taking an obviously … Continue reading
Posted in Cool stuff, Software development
Tagged cobra art, development, elite, emergence, emergent behaviour, procedural generation, virtual world
2 Comments
Imbuing a certain niceness on one’s formatting
Oh my, std::locale(“”) is gorgeous when slapped on a std::stringstream. So long as you’re not writing super-duper-performance-sensitive code, you can do wonderful things like this: #include <string> #include <sstream> #include <locale> #include <iostream> #include <iomanip> int main() { std::stringstream ss; … Continue reading
Posted in Rants, Software development
Tagged broken, gcc, irregular pigeon, khaaaaaaaaaan!, rants, std::locale, tedious programming post
Comments Off on Imbuing a certain niceness on one’s formatting
Scheduling the baby out with the bathwater
When it comes to true innovation, try you must or do you will not. Whilst the larger companies have whole R&D departments dedicated to experimentation with new techniques and technologies, the smaller outfits or individuals have to innovate as they … Continue reading
Posted in Software development
Tagged caving under pressure, cobra art, Gantt charts, schedules, specifications
11 Comments
Book Club episode II: Wool and the art of software documentation
“Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.”Sam Redwine, 4th International Software Process Workshop, 1988 Occasionally, but just occasionally, you end up reading a book that is so good that you can’t stop … Continue reading →