Borland C++ is back, slicker than ever

It's been sometime since I touched C++ programming. Everything seems to be .NET.
.NET is cool, a decent concept, a good base class library and a good enough IDE (Visual Studio 2005), yeah, but there still something missing; raw power. I first saw "Raw Power" delivered yet in a simple to use way in Delphi when VB was still in its infancy and VC++ programmers were considered cool. However coming from the C++ side of things, I was most delighted when Borland released Borland C++ Builder 1.0 - this was a very easy to use, TRULY RAD and powerful developer environment. The last release I used without any problems was Borland C++ Builder 6.0. After 6.0, ... nothing ... there was a C++ Builder Personal edition but the IDE was quite buggy, installation was a pain, .NET integration sucked (though I didn't care much for that)...all in all a pretty 'not happening' period of programming for me. The only thing available was .NET and its various version. Seriously, I hear people vehemently saying .NET programs are always optimized for the target platform since the runtime on the target machine is optimized for the target architecture etc etc etc...hogwash! A managed application still can't come even close to a C++ application as far raw speed is concerned. If I have to develop something for myself, nothing lesser than C++ will do! Sure VC++/MFC is there, but its a royal pain to do even slighlty complicated UI application using it; so I need Borland C++!. Good news: Borland is back, back with a spanking new IDE called CodeGear. I cannot recommend another IDE as highly as Borland's C++ Builder 2007. You can download the trial version at http://www.codegear.com/products/cppbuilder
Happy days are back!

iTunes or WMP11

I have been using WMP 11 for watching a lot of movies, never really faced any issues.
Today, I tried burning an audio cd for myself, WMP would not do it, c'mon, every CD I put in the burner, Windows Media Player kept saying insert a blank CD. The only way out was to save the song-list as a .m3u play-list file, open this file in iTunes and burn it without any hitches.

So, which media player do you use?

Programming language names getting ridiculous

Okay, we had 'C'. Then we had 'C++', quite catchy.
C#? ok, we can tolerate this. F#? wait a minute, what's going on here?
D? damn...I can't stand this anymore!

XP Customization

Seemed like I had seen every possible wallpaper and customization for XP, till I chanced upon http://www.crystalxp.net/. Highly recommended, specially the BricoPacks customization software which make Windows XP look exactly like Vista. They also have an amazing collection of wallpapers! The WWW is fun again!

Odyssey Bookstore Pune

Finally a book-store which had almost all the stuff I've been looking for, for the last 2-3 months. Though the store looks small compared to others like Landmarks or Crosswords, they have a sophisticated collection of books and CDs. I went there looking for the 'Tao of Jeet Kune Do', though they didn't have it, I got 2 other amazing books on the same subject which were also on my list. I must say the customer care is pretty good, they took down the request the 'Tao...', lets see how soon they can get it!

They also must have a pretty neat collection of CDs. I say 'must have' since I didn't have much time to browse through their collection, I just asked for "Deep Purple - Knocking at your back door" and "Best of Shania Twain", they handed me both without much searching, amazing!

Crosswords, you could learn a few things from these guys.

Sparring fear

Two days back I sparred with four or five different students. Everyone one of them used me as a punching bag with my 100% co-operation!

I travel out of my city for my Martial Arts classes so there is usually a gap of 2 - 3 week between the days I attend. I train at home 1 - 2 hours everyday when I'm not attending and keep picturing techniques and moves I can try the next time I spar.

Never has it happened that a single technique I had thought of earlier could be executed during actual sparring. I seem to freeze during sparring and all the grand plans I have disappears into smoke.

I finally searched google for "fear of sparring" and came across some good blogs. I chanced upon some sayings which have motivated me:

'When practicing martial arts, don't be the artist; become the art'

'Every Black Belt is a White Belt who did not quit'

If things work out for me I'll try and analyze how these saying motivated me and helped me to act differently in my next sparring session. Till then keep training.

Patenting the conecpt of Patents and links

I wonder if the concept of Patents is patented.
Anyway, a few links which discuss the stupidity and greed of people concerning patents:

Believe it or not! Some ass**** patented the idea of swinging on a swing, and I'm not even talking about Java.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6368227-fulltext.html


Legendary Richard Stallman talks about the implications of software patents.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jun/20/comment.comment


Read this idea for a patent.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220050160005%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20050160005&RS=DN/20050160005


A small article software programmers.

http://gadgetopia.com/post/2727