Hot

The weather has grown hot again, and the air is close. I stepped outside this morning to find a dusting of ash on the patio, and this afternoon, no sooner did I set my lemonade next to my seat then its surface was flecked with small particles. Yup, it's summer again.

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It's funny, but since moving south, although my surroundings have become more urban, I feel more attentive to my immediate surroundings. Popular destinations, like restaurants and grocery stores, are now within walking distance. And a great joy of mine is the produce of the tiny garden we grow in pots and boxes around our home. We grow basil, sage, and mint to spice up our meals; more recently, we've added marjoram and rue -- some day we'll figure out what that one's for. (The Internet tells me it smells foul -- wholly untrue -- and does wonders against witchcraft.) We've been eating bok choy for months, our patches of chives and spinach yield tiny but delicious dividends now and again, and later in the summer we hope to have tomatoes and peppers. Some day, our two dwarf citrus trees may even fruit... but then again, they may not.

Error Handling in C++: a Compromise?

There's an ongoing religious war among C++ programmers about the right way to handle errors:

• Exceptions: Elegant, but not fully portable. Improves separation from functional code and error-handling code. Some performance concerns.
  
• Return codes: Lightweight. Portable. Really easy to ignore.
  

I read an interesting couple of articles today that propose an interesting compromise: return values that you can't ignore. The articles aren't new, but they were new to me; maybe you'll find them interesting too.

• Original article: http://www.ddj.com/cpp/184401917 (scroll down to "Idea #1", about a third of the way down)
  
• Follow-up/refinement: http://www.ddj.com/cpp/191601612
  

Careful What You Wish For

"From my cold, dead hands!"
- Charlton Heston, October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008



Rest in peace, Charlton.