Some time ago, I wrote about well-known trick for a two-value exchange using no intermediate variables. It’s a fun party-trick, but unless you’re working with an unusually constrained embedded project, it’s unlikely that you would ever really need to use it. On the other hand, hidden within that little trick is some real memory-conserving magic.
I’ve been writing software in C since 1991. While that was shortly after the ratification of the C89/90 standard, it took at least a few years for most compilers to catch up. So my formative years in C were spent developing code for compilers that weren’t yet standards conformant. Certain features were hit and miss. Since much of my development work involves C, I try to keep up with new developments. I freely admit that I don’t know it all; and every few years someone teaches me a new trick or hack that makes life just a little bit easier. Recently, I found a major gap in my understanding of one important aspect of the language.
Not so very long ago, I was given an assignment to perform a forensic analysis on a piece of firmware. It seems that my client’s device had a rather spectacular failure which endangered many lives. The job was critical, but this was new territory for me.
Okay, the news was broken months ago… and I’m still in awe. The Sony Playstation 3 will be released with a more powerful CPU than is currently available in any computer in a PC format. Currently, the only computer I know of that will eventually make use of this chip is IBM’s Blade line of servers. No home computing resource even comes close.
Continue reading “The World’s Most Powerful PC: The Playstation 3” »
Part I of this article described the various types of software architect. In this article we’ll describe the work they do, or should do, in a bit more detail.
Continue reading “The Role of the Software Architect, Part II” »
