Not Off the Radar Yet

I can't even put into words how busy I've been the last few weeks. My last post was a little more than 3 weeks ago, but it has felt like an eternity. This past month or so I've had to deal with three separate incidents of a sick child and spending a week keeping the house running while the other half was busy being ill, as well. Not the least bit fun. School has been crazy busy with more than I care to enumerate here. It's been a lot, needless to say -- makes me wish for times that were much easier to find a few spare moments. I haven't given up and I haven't gone anywhere, but at least all two of you out there know what I've been up to. :-)

Lesson...12? All About Attributes

You might think that I took a short vacation, but I've just been buried in Real Life. You might also be wondering about where lessons 6-11 went. They'll be published later, but you're not missing anything, as they are edits of the last several lessons from Learning to Program with Haiku with an experienced developer in mind. If you've worked with the previous series, there isn't anything in 6-11 that you haven't seen before -- they're more to make the Programming with Haiku series complete on its own. This lesson is all about attributes -- what they are, how they can be useful, and how they are manipulated from code.

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 12

Programming with Haiku Lessons 3-5: C++ Triple Play

In an attempt to move on and get on to just the Haiku API, here are the final three lessons on C++. Lesson 3 introduces C++ file streams, formatting and printing using C++ streams, and lightly touches on exceptions. Lesson 4 takes a break from actual coding and spends time on a critical development tool: source control -- what it is, how it is used, and why it is used. Lesson 5 ties together all of the C++ concepts covered in this series with a project. I hope you enjoy them.

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 3

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 4

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 5

Klutzo Strikes Again

As is typical for a geek of my athletic ability, I'm a near-total klutz. It's not uncommon for me to bang some part of my body on something each day. Last night I managed to do a real doozy: a computer bit me on the foot. Hard. It wasn't even mine, either. I'd brought home 3 different machines from school, 2 of which were left lying around for parts and the third was good except for a dead hard drive... or so I thought. The CD drive needed replacing, too.

The machine is a Gateway E series mini desktop which has a tool-free case -- fold up the top and pop off the front bezel and you can remove the CD drive and the hard drive. I foolishly left the thing sitting on the floor beside my computer desk, sans front bezel. Unfortunately, I kicked the thing and one of the plastic edges in the front put a nice slice into the outer side of my foot near my pinky toe. Ouch. A new low in clumsiness-related injuries in my life. On the upside, I can put a sign on it when I take it back to school: "CAUTION: this computer bytes. Use at your own risk." Yeesh.

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 2

I had an unexpected day off from school today, so I took advantage of the time in getting a bunch of writing done. The result? Lesson 2 is available for your reading pleasure. In this lesson, we go on a fast and furious flight through the rest of the Standard Template Library.

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 2