Mark hired me to do some work on Seminole [1], his embedded web server. I'm finding it a difficult thing to work on—not because the code is bad, but because the code is in a language I'm not comfortable programming in (C++) in an environment I'm not used to (embedded programming) and I'm weak in reading and understanding the code of others.
It could be worse though—I could be making performance enhancements to osCommerce [2].
It's also got me thinking about the whole development process. On how we write code, edit code, compile code and store code. About multiple development branches (Seminole currently has 21 compilation targets and 34 compile time selectable options). And language design, because I think that how we develop code influences computer language design.
Mark had some comments about this entry:
> * You misspelled “language” twice on your blog post. [Fixed. This is something that happens too often, actually. —Editor]
* You may want to mention I didn't choose C++ either. It chose me when Seminole was “accidentally” created. [True—but that's a story for Mark to tell, not I —Editor]
* There are way more than 21 compilation targets. What you see is the “in tree” reference portability layers. I have a few customers who have created their own.
* You may want to go to a Barnes & Noble [3] and check out a book from O'Reilly [4] (no animal on the cover though) called Beautiful Code [5]. I just bought it but haven't had a chance to read through.
[1] http://www.gladesoft.com/products/seminole/
[2] http://www.oscommerce.com/
[3] http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
[5] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596510047/conmanlaborat-20