[Giagnocavo]Michael::Write() - C# spoils you too much

Saturday, September 18, 2004

C# spoils you too much

At the company I'm working for, we're using Asterisk, open-source telephony software for Linux. There I said it :). I actually have a little Linux machine sitting beside me. No, I'm not on drugs -- opportunity presented itself.

The only way to really extend Asterisk with full power is via the C API. Not C++. C. The last time I did anything significant (i.e. more than 100 lines) in C was quite a few years ago. I'm just surprised at how much less productive I am in C than C#. Not to mention my constant paranoia that I'll accidentally introduce a memory leak or a buffer overflow (although, since the only interface to my code will be via DTMF tones, I doubt someone could exploit it :)).

One thing that's made it easier is Visual Studio 2005. Now, I can't compile on Windows (ok, maybe with CygWin), so I thought that'd rule using VS out. But nope. I just create a makefile project with MSVC++ 8, set the includes, and presto: Intellisense and other goodness. But what's really great is the code definition window. Like most open-source projects, documentation is quite lacking. So I always rely on going and reading the source to find out how to do something, or what's going on. With the code-definition window, I can always see the header files for things I'm using, and from there I can get over to the C files quite quickly (no grep needed). My biggest gripe is that nothing gets activated in the editor if you open a C file that's not part of your project. This makes navigating large source files that you don't own rather difficult.

Misc. Technology

Saturday, September 18, 2004 4:19:39 PM UTC

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Sunday, September 19, 2004 8:06:57 PM UTC

I use VC++ for the same thing. I use an OpenSource library that has zero docs ( and it's huge, literally a hundred plus source and header files ). The class browser tab is a life saver. Here is a trick I use for getting argument types with large libraries. Open two sessions One is your real project the other is just a console app shell. Add all your source to the console app and whenever you want to look something up just start typing in the int main function. That way you can have a sort of psuedo documentation up at the same time as you are working in your regular project. "find in files" is also a lifesaver for finding variables and such that are causing naming conflicts or whatever.

Andy

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