First off, these instructions are for Boost 1.49 and STLport 5.2.1. So far the instructions remain consistent as I upgrade Boost.

Prerequisites

Once you have downloaded boost, open a command line window and cd to the boost directory and run:

bootstrap.bat

This will generate the b2.exe executable required to perform the next steps. Choose the appropriate section below depending on your build needs.

Linking boost against STLport

First make sure you have compiled STLport for your respective compiler. Then go to the tools/build/v2 directory and edit the file user-config.jam to the following:

using msvc : 8.0 ;
using stlport : 5.2.1 : C:/Code/third_party_source/STLport-5.2.1/stlport : C:/Code/third_party_source/STLport-5.2.1/lib-vc8 ;

Above, make sure you use the appropriate version of MSVC. In this example I’m using MSVC8, but change it to your version per the following table:

Visual Studio .NET 2003  -- 7.1
Visual Studio 2005       -- 8.0
Visual Studio 2008       -- 9.0
Visual Studio 2010       -- 10.0
Visual Studio 11         -- 11.0

Similarly, for the using stlport line, make sure you specify the appropriate version of STLport. Here I am using version 5.2.1. The next parameter is the path to the stlport include directory (change accordingly) and the third and final parameter is the path to the STLport libraries that are COMPILED FOR THE SAME VERSION OF MSVC.

Once the user config file is setup, now you can build boost by invoking the following commands.

For DEBUG:

b2 toolset=msvc link=shared threading=multi runtime-link=shared variant=debug stdlib=stlport define=_STLP_DEBUG --layout=tagged stage

For RELEASE:

b2 toolset=msvc link=shared threading=multi runtime-link=shared variant=release stdlib=stlport --layout=tagged stage

Linking boost against platform STL

Same instructions as those given to link against STLport, with some minor changes:

• Remove the using stlport line from the user-config.jam file
• Remove both the stdlib=stlport and define=_STLP_DEBUG options from both the debug and release b2.exe invocations.

Why is it that as software engineers we neglect our build systems? I strongly believe the build system is just as important as the code itself, especially for open source middleware projects (Take OpenSSL for example). A build system should address what I believe are the two most important ideas. First, the build system has to allow the developer to build the source using the development environment/tools of their choosing. Second, the build system needs to be easily automated (for not only generating automatic builds but for automated testing too).

Makefile scripts can certainly address the second point, however the first point they do not address. If I am a Windows developer and decide to contribute to an open source code base dominated mostly by Linux developers, I’m a bit out of luck in the “convenience” department. Working out of VIM/EMACS and ‘make’ suits a Linux developer, especially if they don’t have a GUI frontend for their OS. However, on Windows I have Visual Studio and I would love the ability to take advantage of using that IDE (or any IDE for that matter). Not only does this benefit the Windows developers, but it encourages more people to join in on the project because we can jump straight into worrying about the code and not have to deal with a frustrating and confusing build pipeline.

This philosophy on build systems is something I’ve acquired over the years after I was introduced to CMake. It’s a fantastic tool that you can use to generate scripts/projects for the build tools of your choice. For example, I can take the same CMake scripts and generate makefiles on Linux and Visual Studio project files on Windows. This is such an obviously great thing to have, I am quite frankly appalled that more projects (both open source and proprietary, such as products you will find at software companies) don’t use them. It’s been a struggle so far to get people to migrate to CMake at the company I’m working for now, but it’s not because they fail to find the value in the tool itself. It’s just a matter of migrating over (which is a whole process in itself, especially for a large company). Fortunately it’s a lot easier to migrate to something like this in an open source project where things are not as strict and risk is lower, so I hope to see more things moving towards CMake in the future. The least I can do is blog about what I feel is important and share information about CMake itself. Hopefully this will help spread the word.

I use the Google Chrome extension extensively, and as I used it more I noticed that development on the project was starting to go stale. My motivation to work on this project started with the fact that there was a memory leak that occurred over time in the extension that would eventually cause it to crash. The cause of this memory leak is due to an architectural issue in the Google Chrome Extension API. To summarize, there are parts of the API that allow message passing between content scripts (scripts that live only in a web page, provided by the extension) and the background page (the main “hidden” page in an extension that has is always open so long as the extension is enabled). This API, when used to pass messages between two scripts in the same background page, causes a memory leak. Naturally like other Extension APIs are designed, this scenario should not be so subtle, as normally the browser will not allow the message passing to even occur. Needless to say, the amount of memory leaked was significant, especially since this message passing was happening several times each second.

My first goal was to fix the bug issue and adjust the architecture of the extension to provide for the fix (the design of the extension relied heavily on this broken message passing usage). Once I fixed that, I quickly began implementing several other features:

• A new settings page, which utilizes a javascript API named fancy-settings to implement a settings page for SABconnect++ that closely resembles the settings page for Google Chrome.
• A context menu, which provides a sort of “stop-gap” solution to cases where users cannot send NZB URLs to SABnzbd because that provider (indexer site) is not supported by the extension.
• Real-time updates to content scripts when the user changes options in the settings page (this previously required a page refresh).

My future plans for the extension:

• Complete redesign of the popup
• Do some R&D work on the experimental WebRequest API in Google Chrome to intercept NZB download responses from the server & forward that to SABnzbd (this eliminates any DOM injection we currently do to support specific providers).

As it currently stands, I am working in collaboration with 2 other developers on this project (they are the two devs that already were on the project when I joined). However, they no longer have the time to contribute to the project so I am the only active developer for the extension.

There is a link to the project page for SABconnect++ in this post and also in the main navigation menu system at the top of my site. Go check it out, install it, and enjoy!

I’ve updated the “My Work” menu to show my latest project, Gmail Contact Formatter. This is a Google Chrome extension that will consistently format your Gmail contacts’ data, such as phone numbers. At the time of this writing, I have not been working on this extension long and isn’t functional yet. However, there is code to be shown that demonstrates my web development capabilities as they apply to Chrome extensions.

My first goal is to get something basic, with very little interface, that will format phone numbers for contacts. I’ll grow it into something more aesthetically pleasing with more advanced functionality as I go. I’ll post more updates as progress further into the project.

I’ve spent about 2-3 days working on this and so far I feel like I understand Javascript very well. How did I pick up on it so quickly? Well, I already know C++ and Python, and Javascript feels like a mix between the two. The only reason why I compare Javascript to Python is because Javascript is dynamically typed as Python is. Syntactically, Javascript is very close to C++ (But probably more like C, since the way you implement classes in Javascript feels very C-like).

Someone at Microsoft once told me that it seems like once you master C++, picking up other languages is a breeze. I can relate to this!

I welcome everyone to check out my new portfolio. You can also navigate to it via my menu system at the top of my website. Thanks and please leave me any suggestions or comments if you have any at all!

Also on another unrelated note, my aforementioned SQL Server portfolio hasn’t been forgotten. I am still in the process of figuring out how to properly distribute it. Hopefully I will add that portfolio to my website very soon as well.

So far I have to say SQL has been trivial. In as little as two days I’ve mastered database concepts and designs, SQL syntax, .NET System.Data.Sql interfaces, and the following features of SQL:

• SQL commands: Select, Where, Insert, etc.
• Table Joins (Inner, Left, Right, Full)
• Stored Procedures
• Table Constraints
• Primary Keys
• Foreign Keys

Right now the only thing I have to figure out is how to package and distribute my application so I can place it on my website under my Portfolios section. My application will need to create the appropriate tables and columns, as well as create the stored procedures and constraints required. Once I get this figured out, it most certainly will be available for downloading! For now, please admire the screenshots of this very simple application below.

They played music from well-known classic games such as Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and Tetris. They also had a few tunes from Warcraft. The last half of the show was a bit more progressive, as a guitarist joined in with the orchestra. I would gladly pay to see Video Games Live again, especially since they play different video game themes at each show.

If you haven’t seen my resume in a while, please check it out. The “Download resume” button that used to be on the right side of my blog has been removed. A “Resume” link has been added to the top menu bar, however. This will redirect you to the public view of my resume.

Unfortunately I haven’t played Warcraft III in a very long time, but I recently found out about a game called League of Legends, which is a DotA remake. It has a very similar theme to Warcraft III and plays basically the same. It’s a very well made game and is pretty simple to learn and play. Another good (and somewhat unrelated) point about League of Legends is that it is easy to mediate your play time, which is much harder to do in an MMORPG. That means it doesn’t completely drain away all of my free time!

• Escalation Studios - This is currently where I work (as of this posting).
• Red Sword Studios – An iPhone/iPad game development company that was formed in January of 2009 and I guess you could technically call me one of the “Founders”, although I no longer contribute work there.

So I haven’t been just sitting around for the past 17 months