Re: lint, Ensure++, etc

From: Desmond Daignault (dez@IONET.NET)
Date: 04/07/98


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Jacobson <fear@ATHENET.NET>
>The new versions never came.  New numbers never came.  Insure++'s and
>CodeWizard's licenses ran out.  Not that I cared.  The products, while
>very good, are NOT meant for real-time applications, such as MUDs.  The
>sales agent mentioned that fact, and that it would, obviously, slow them
>down.  Code was slowed down more than 10,000% (and this is NOT an
>exageration.)  I didn't get much use out of them, so was not concerned
>when the licenses ran out.  After a month of waiting, we simply removed
>the graphics and links from our web page, and have not spoken with
>ParaSoft since.  Proper coding methods, desk checking (rereading
>everything after you've written and gotten it to cleanly compile),
>keeping clean code, and staying organized, are far better solutions for
>developing real-time code, or any code for that matter.


Well, when using Purify, the mud takes approx 10-15 times longer to boot,
but once
the majority of the memory is allocated, the slowdown isn't that noticeable.
If you want to take a look you can find it at http://www.pureatria.com.
Another nifty tool
that they provide is Quantify.  It is a suped up version of gprof with a
nice gui.

>Don't let anyone fool you - you are your own worst enemy when it comes to
>coding, because you might trust your own work too much to suspect it, and
>can easily miss a simple mistake such as = being == or vice versa, since
>you are familiar with the code.  Desk checking and full warnings and
>errors helps prevent this (I should practice what I preach, some of you
>[George] might say, but hey - why NOT take advantage of compiler
>extensions when you're standardized on the target platform :-)


One of the things I have found to help is to explain a section of code to a
person that
knows squat about programming.  It tends to force you to see your own
problems
as you try to tell them in plain english.


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