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Been playing a little bit of raven shield, set to some hard rock by way of www.pandora.com it makes a nice mixture. I’m still in a really pissy mood, think I might take up some OpenArena or something to pass the time for a bit more…

I’m so tired of this place.

Dark mood

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I’m really not in a good mood right now. Tired and pissed off make for a piss poor pair. It just seems the more I’m here, the worse I feel; the more I know that something is missing from my world. Been fairly busy of late, mostly keeping myself busy, less time to think. It’s like just about anything that will fill space for a little while; rather then thinking about other issues. I’m also not looking forward to this coming week and such, because I know for what family has planned, is only likely to make me feel miserable in the long run. It’s been 21 years on earth, and I just know… being around family is usually a painful affair.

Plans as part of Operation Redeemer are more or less on schedule but things just are not going fast enough in the right directions to suit my needs; lately I feel like I’m just passing time again, but for different reasons. I draw breath, but what makes me move?

Being lazy: make.cmd

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A short batch file that let’s me skip typing as much as possible when using vcbuild on my present projects.

@ECHO OFF
cls 
IF "%1" EQU "help" (
 ECHO %0 help           --  display this help
 ECHO %0 clean target   --  clean for "target"
 ECHO %0 target [run]   --  build and run "target"
 GOTO EXITPOINT
)

IF "%1" EQU "clean" (
 vcbuild /clean TheSolutionFile.sln "%2|Win32"
) ELSE (
 IF "%2" EQU "run" (
  vcbuild TheSolutionFile.sln "%1|Win32" && pathtothe.exe
 ) ELSE (
  vcbuild TheSolutionFile.sln "%1|Win32"
 )
)

:EXITPOINT

which is (obviously) saved in the same direction as my solution file. A trivial modification would allow passing the solution file through an environment variable, and one could always use vcbuild’s understanding of a lone project file in the present directory but I tend to keep a shell open to the same location as my solution file.

Then again, at the moment I am using a file system hierarchy that looks sort of like this for most of my current stuff:

...
SolutionFile.sln
Project/
  ProjectFile.vcproj
  Makefile # the big thing for conventional builds
  Makefile.compiler
  ...
  Source/
    *.c, *.cpp, ...
    include/
      *.h, *.hpp, ...
    lib/
      # project specific library files
  Build/
    Target/
      # result of compiling (e.g. 'make target')
  ...
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I feel much better at the moment, lately life has just been a bit overly negative; the more things go on, the more deeply I am reminded of what it so terribly missing. The past couple weeks has felt a lot like limbo, just passing grueling time.

One of my favourite films was on tonight, The Teahouse of the August Moon. You could say, I really needed the chance to sit, enjoy, and laugh; there hasn’t been much joy in my life for a good long while now. In all honesty, I think I would take the slower way of life given the chance, hmm; what was the last time I could have seen the sun rise or set, and be at liberty to do so? The movies ending is also priceless! In a way, Sakini’s words also struck a cord:

“Pain make man think. Thought make man wise. Wisdom make life endurable.”

I find truth in it.

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I’m kind of happy with myself at the moment. I’ve found that Visual Studio project files are about the only reliable way I can get things to compile with Visual C++’s compiler on my lone windows machine. Since i greatly prefer using a command prompt for development work, having to alt tab between programs like VCExpress/devenv and Explorer windows are not something I’ll put up with if I don’t have to lol.

Since I do require a real mans editor, I set the IDE to load gvim as the default editor for source files; soon I’ll rig it to use vim’s client-server feature (:he client-server). Like wise that made Visual C++ little more then a very big project management and build system. Some weeks ago whilst looking for cl/link (compiler/linker) switches and a reference to nmake (Microsoft’s make utility), I found the vcbuild utility; which is the “Visual C++ Project Builder – Command Line Version”. So far it seems to be very suitable, which would mean the IDE is now only needed for managing the project and solution files, right? Well, not really!

When I started using Microsoft’s development environment (this box only has the Express editions; I usually do development on my FreeBSD powered laptop!) the first thing I did was look at the .sln and .vcproj files it creates. The solution file (.sln) basically describes the bigger picture in XML format; for my present projects it does little more then reference the project files (.vcproj) that make up the solutions. The project files are also in XML, ‘‘. It defines the various details, essentially what you get in the IDEs configuration manager for a specific project, and the files in the solution explorer. I was very happy to see Visual C++ using XML files, because it means I can *read* the things before opening them with an IDE.

Since the files are XML, and the format is pretty obvious: one can modify the project file quiet easily, and adding/subtracting things like source files, include directories, and libraries is a trivial task. If it wasn’t for the use of ProjectGUID’s I might never need to run the IDE again :-/. Who knows, maybe I won’t even need that in a while lol.

Compiler errors: the art of reading Geek and laughing at your typos

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The code, “typo”

RenderManager RManager;

The resulting compiler error

1>main.cpp
1>.Sourcemain.cpp(9) : error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'RManager'
1>.Sourcemain.cpp(9) : error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int
1>.Sourcemain.cpp(9) : error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int

The correction

#include "RenderManager.hpp"

RenderManager RManager;

What makes me laugh: syntax error : missing ‘;’ before identifier.

The good thing: “missing type specifier – int assumed” actually hints that RenderManager is not yet a known type, as in I forgot to include the appropriate header… hehe.

Writer’s Block: Dream Vacations

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What vacations would you most like to take in the next five years?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

0. A tropical island, toes in the sand, and not a care in the world….

1. Visit Tennessee, see them beautiful mountains again and go campin’ out in nature for a bit, then meet up with a few friends out on the lake 🙂

2. Hit the U.K. and go exploring, get lost and get a lit’ bit wild and crazy ;). Then meet up with a few e-friends made in [SAS], I’ve always had this strange picture of us in my head, of us staggering home from a pub, and singing loudly ^_^.

3. Visit Germany, maybe see if their are any English friendly tours of Berlin that show off the cities varied architecture; then visit some of the museums in/around Berlin and München. I think I would need to be 500% more fluent in the language to pull that one off though :-/.

4. Canada, women, whiskey, and fishing…. could you ask for more? Plus an old friend is from Newfoundland, and would warrant a visit!

notes 4 later today

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http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,11502,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,9722,00.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb174597(VS.85).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173249(VS.85).aspx

Todays personal training (SWAT 4)

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Where; [SAS] Training Ground US

General criteria: no tactical aids permitted, other then breaching kit.

Phase I: Old Granet Hotel, stealth to first contact then high intensity clearing; round 1: success, mp5; round 2: failure, m4. Average shots per kill: 5-6/3-4, killed by a survivor of 4 5.56x45mm to the chest.

Phase II: Children of Tarrone Tenement; stealth until compromised; round 1: failure, mp5sd; round 2: failure, carsd; Average shots per kill 9 / 3; killed by the survivors of 9 9x19mm shots to the skull and 2 5.56x45mm to the skull, respectively.

Phase III: Victory Imports Auto, stealth until first contact then high intensity clearing; round 1: failure, mp5sd; round 2: failure, mp5 (was supposed to be uzisd); Average shots per kill: 4-6; Killed by the survivors of 3 shots to the chest, and a survivor of >12 shots to the body/arms/head.

I nearly threw the freakin’ MP5 at the enemy when during an ambush against would-be bush whackers took about 20 rounds to the head and 3 more to the chest!

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So far I am getting pretty used to wearing these glasses, all in all it isn’t so bad. Whether it is a positive or negative impact on my appearance, well is beyond my immediate concern lol.

They have a tendency to slide down my noise under certain conditions, which I find irksome; makes looking UP more challenging since it causes my eyes to hit or pass the upper frames :-/. That however, I think is just a fact of living with glasses and summer time!

This new headset cost about $45 but so far seems to be worth it. The MP5 in SWAT 4 sounds like a proper machinegun rather then a ‘pop gun’, and the weapons in RvS sound much better. The depth of hearing music is much greater, kind of like listening to a Stereo system. I also like that the padding effectively creates ‘cups’ around my ears xD.