Re: [Plib-devel] PLIB developers needed.

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

> Dave McClurg wrote:

> 2) don't use C++ exotics like STL, templates, exceptions, operator overloading, and iostreams to make porting easier.  if you love that kind of stuff, you can always wrap plib in your app code.

I'd add that classic:

Windoze people: Please don't do this:

    for ( int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++ ) whatever ;
    for (     i = 0 ; i < 20 ; i++ ) whatever ;

(It's illegal in modern C++ and although MSVC likes it, GNU C++ doesn't).

Linux people: Please don't do this:

    for ( int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++ ) whatever ;
    for ( int i = 0 ; i < 20 ; i++ ) whatever ;

(Although it's perfectly legal C++ - MSVC barfs on it - I forget
 about this *every* time - sorry Windoze dudes!)

Instead, everyone do this:

    int i ;
    for ( i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++ ) whatever ;
    for ( i = 0 ; i < 20 ; i++ ) whatever ;

(Yuk!)

The 'P' in PLIB stands for "Portability" - and the rest is just a "LIBrary"!

...which reminds me...  :-)

 I tried to compile PLIB on an SGI machine at work - and your 'const-ification' of the clock
routine stopped it from compiling on the IRIX compiler.

You had:

  class ulClock
  {
    ...
    public:
      ...
      int getSomething () const { return something ; }
      ...
   } ;

The 'const' seemed to do *bad* things to the SGI compiler.

Could you remind me what exactly a 'const' right there actually *does*? 

...and then remove them anyway!

> 4) For any major change, please consider posting to this list *first*.  Other developers
> may have a more elegant method of implementing the same thing or already have a patch that
> they didn't think anyone else was interested in.  Perhaps the major change you are thinking
> about does not belong in PLIB at all and would be better off in an auxilliary library or example.

This is by far the most important thing.  I've had one or two really unfortunate cases
where someone has put in a LOT of effort into doing something that wasn't (IMHO) appropriate
for the future of PLIB - so I had to refuse to add them to the package.  In both cases, people
we ...erm...*polite* about it - but it made me feel *REALLY* uncomfortable to have to do it.

-- 
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