IBM is *really* into patents and makes it quite easy to file for one. And they have a rewards system for successful filings. Quite a few people in here have literally dozens…
04
Dec 12
First Job: Small startup or large company?
Another point raised recently in a discussion on the boards.ie Development forum (we’ve had a few interesting career-related threads there of late):
When a new graduate is starting out, should they seek out jobs in small startups or large companies?
The very popular answer in the blogosphere/twitosphere/hypecentral is that the smaller startup is the better choice by a country mile, that you have a greater chance of establishing your professional reputation because you’ll have more autonomy, you’ll build more of the products, you’ll work on everything so you’ll gain a wider range of experience faster, you’ll be able to move up the ranks faster, and you’ll get to try new technologies, new techniques, new tools and new shiny things far faster than in a large monolithic company.
Maybe. But I have a different opinion.
As a first job, I’d suggest taking a role in a large company in preference to taking a role in a small one (assuming, of course, that you have the choice!). Yes, in a small company you’ll get to use more tools, take on larger projects and do more design level work.
And you won’t be ready for it and you’ll make a mess of it. Yes, you will. We all did in our first job, that’s why your first job is an entry-level one. No shame in it, you’re learning and it’s expected that you’ll be sloppy in places you didn’t know you had to be neat in, and that you’ll bite off more than you can chew, and that you’ll take on tasks that more experienced people know are doomed and wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. That’s fine. But in a small company, you can wind up being given something important to do that with and the fallout is generally not more training when you inevitably screw up! 
In larger companies, you won’t get near design work of any magnitude for a while, but you will be surrounded by experienced people and if you want to learn and grow as a professional, that’s a pretty good environment to do a first job in. Stick it out for a year or two (or even three or four), and then once you’ve knocked off the worst of the rough edges, go for a smaller company or even a startup and use the tools and do the things you couldn’t in the larger company. Not only will you appreciate it more, but you’re likely to screw up less as a result.
Also, remember this is your first job. It’s not just software you need to be learning, but how the workplace itself operates, how to work with other people in teams on large projects (you haven’t met a large project yet, not if you’re a new graduate. The largest thing you’ll have seen in college work doesn’t even begin to approach the largest thing you’ll work on in industry) and other non-technical things that we just don’t teach in college. It’s how to get on with people that you like and people who irritate you to the point where you’d rip the skin off their face with a rabid badger if it’d make them stop talking for five minutes; it’s how to deal with managers and other bosses, both the good ones and the bad ones (and how to tell the difference); it’s how to deal with clients (though you may not see any in a really large company); it’s how the company is an actual business that needs to earn money and how that affects designs and priorities; and most importantly -if you can see it – how the company hires new hands and what they look for and how they decide how much to pay them.
Oh, and if you can learn about when to stick with the job; when not to take the job; and when (and how) to quietly resign and run for the hills – that would be a good thing too, but the odds are that you’ll be a few jobs learning that (that’s just how it goes, you need data points).
You won’t learn much about those things in a four-person startup, no matter how cool the tools or tasks they have. (Well, maybe the bit about running for the hills, or the bit about bad bosses, and you definitely will learn about the dire need for having written contracts for every last little thing; but other than that…)
Mind, you’ll be learning to eat bitter, but that’s part of the first job anywhere; it’s just that a few people in our industry think they never need to learn it (and they’re the poorer for it and they’re fairly easy to spot because they create unnecessary work for those around them). In a larger company, it’s a lot easier to learn to eat bitter (for one thing, the paycheque cushions the blow; for another, there’s usually more support and better trained managers, and less panic).
It’s not very sexy, compared to the startup world’s “f*** you” attitude and generally insufferable behaviour; but if you want to be a professional instead of a “passionate rock star artiste“, it’s probably the better choice to go work for a large company and actually learn your craft – after all, the startup mythos is always saying that college courses can’t teach you to be a great developer; so if you are going to go do the apprenticeship role, you might as well do it at a place where they’ve proven they’re good at what they do… and frankly four lads in a garage somewhere working on the next twitter clone to vanish into the aether taking all their funding with it is not a better place to learn professional practice than a fortune 500 company that’s been around for decades and shows no signs of vanishing just yet!
There was… some dissent regarding this opinion
23
Nov 12
Using VimWiki as a distributed, encrypted lab notebook for programming
So what’s the most important coding tool for a software engineer in the long-term? There’s a pretty decent argument that it’s a lab notebook. I’ve kept one for years and it’s one of the more useful tools I have, but I found that my notebook, apart from not quite measuring up to how a lab notebook should be kept, wasn’t quite as useful as it could be because when you have five or six notebooks covering a bit over a decade’s worth of notes and no search function, then how do you use them daily?
I’ve been looking around for a while for a software version of a paper notebook without much success (this isn’t ludditism – we just don’t have very much that can match what paper and pen can do for this kind of task). I’ve used a simple text editor on a cron job for a few years as a way to track what I do during the day – every 30 minutes, up pops a vim window with a ready-inserted line listing the date and time, I scribble in what I’ve done since the last time the window popped up and I save and quit – it takes about 15 seconds and it gives me a file listing everything I’ve done at the end of the day/week/month/year which is handy for things like preparing reports, doing job reviews, that sort of thing. It’s simplicity itself to set up, just call a simple script using a simpler cronjob entry:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | #!/bin/bash # Cron script for 30-min activity journal #------------------------------------------- export DISPLAY=:0 echo -n -e "\n[" `date` "] :\n" >> ~/.journal /usr/bin/gvim -U ~/.journal.gvimrc -geometry 100x40+512+400 + ~/.journal |
1 2 | # m h dom mon dow command 0,30 8-20 * * mon-fri ~/.journal.sh |
Simple and effective… but not a lab notebook. It does help test a few criteria for what I need that notebook program to do to fit in with my workflow though:
- It has to be *fast* and familiar to use. ’nuff said, really.
- It has to be distributed. I work on lots of machines; I need it to be available on them, or else I’d have to have it on something like a netbook that I’d carry everywhere and that’s just not practical for me (besides, what if I forgot it or it got stolen?)
- It has to be encrypted. Everything I work on is NDA’d at one level or another; and design/debugging notes would definitely be too sensitive to leave lying around in plaintext format. With a physical notebook, I keep it locked away; but this is supposed to be better than that option…
Colleagues have used various products for this over the years – mindmapping software; emacs in one mode or another; and various other software. But none of those really appealed. Mediawiki did seem to be as good a fit as I could find, but something that depends on an entire LAMP stack to run is hardly lightweight; and while I could host it somewhere public, that’s not really very secure (I’d spend more time making sure the full LAMP stack was up to date and mediawiki too than I want to). Besides, I’d rather this be console-accessible if possible (yes, some of us are still happier that way 
).
I’ve been using vim since around 1993 or so; at this point it’s wired into my fingers. So when I saw vimwiki, it seemed ideal. For those who’ve not encountered vimwiki before, it creates a directory, and then every file in that directory becomes part of a rudimentary text-based wiki (which it can turn into a set of HTML pages so it can handle images and so forth, but you can also navigate it from within vim). It also has a diary function which works in a sub-directory of the wiki directory.
It doesn’t have any support for encryption or distribution. But that’s quite solvable.
The encryption is easy enough – you could use the blowfish encryption in (post-v7.3) vim but that proved a bit awkward as you had to reenter the password every time you navigated down a link (and I don’t always have post-7.3 vim available). This password entering every minute or so broke up my workflow, so no thanks. My netbook and work laptops all have whole-disk-encryption, so I just left the vimwiki directory as normal on those laptops, and on the machines where I don’t have whole-disk-encryption, I use eCryptFS to create an encrypted directory and put the wiki under that. Very simple indeed, but quite effective. Now even theft of the physical hard drive isn’t a major concern.
The distribution was equally simple; you could use any DVCS, but I’m fond of mercurial, so I decided to use that. You have to tweak the vimwiki script ( .vim/ftplugin/vimwiki.vim ) to call it:
1 2 3 4 | augroup vimwiki au! BufRead /home/mdennehy/vimwiki/index.<wbr>wiki !hg pull;hg update au! BufWritePost /home/mdennehy/vimwiki/* !hg add <afile>;hg commit -m " ";hg push augroup END</wbr> |
But that’s a simple tweak at best. And you want to have ssh setup with keys for the easiest workflow, but you have that already, right?
Then just modify the crontab script:
1 2 3 4 5 6 | #!/bin/bash # Cron script for 30-min activity journal #------------------------------------------- export DISPLAY=:0 /usr/bin/gvim -U ~/.journal.gvimrc -geometry 100x40+512+400 -c "call vimwiki#diary#make_note(v:count1)" + -c "r !date +'\%n= \%H\%Mh =\%n'" |
And add an Awesome keybinding and menu entry:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 | vimwiki_cmd = "/usr/bin/gvim -U /home/mdennehy/vimwiki/.gvimrc -c 'call vimwiki#base#goto_index(v:count1)'" ... mymainmenu = awful.menu({ items = { { "awesome", myawesomemenu, beautiful.awesome_icon }, ... { "VimWiki",vimwiki_cmd } } }) ... awful.key({ modkey, }, "w", function () awful.util.spawn(vimwiki_cmd) end), |
And now whenever I hit <Mod4>-w from within Awesome, it pops up a gVim window open at the root of the wiki; every 30 minutes it pops up a gVim window in today’s diary page with the time inserted automatically for a log entry; and whenever I hit save or switch buffers, it syncs the files up to a central server’s encrypted area.
Distributed, encrypted, fast and useful. I’ve been using it in the job for the last few months now and it does almost everything I need. I do still keep around the paper notebook though – no matter how good the program, we still don’t have anything that can do everything paper can do (doodle, take cornell format notes, sketch diagrams easily for later capture, that sort of thing), but vimwiki’s search function alone is making it the day-to-day workhorse and it’s making my life a lot easier. Notes on development, patent ideas, job review reports, sysadmin notes, notes on papers I’m writing, and a daily log, all in one easy-to-use package. Damn useful tool.
21
Nov 12
Baselines
So the Coding Horror thread on boards.ie’s Development forum threw up an interesting post:
Originally Posted by COYW
[..] I was told not to comment my code, as it was a “waste of time”. Apparently, that is classic Agile!
A good code doesn’t need comments; a bad code doesn’t need comments either – it needs to be fixed!
The responses were about as you’d expect, but in the course of answering, I made the following suggestion:
you still have your code from college exercises, right? No? You don’t keep a private archive of old code you wrote? So… how do you tell if you’re improving or getting worse without a baseline?
So I figured I’d take a peek again (last time I looked must have been before Calum was born) and compare it to what I’m writing today.
The really low-level stuff came off pretty well. Some code for programming a GAL chip for 3D2 (where you build a thin client from a 68008 chip and a handful of other chips and what feels like a mile of hand-wrapped wire):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 | ' GAL1 PLDASM ' Address Decoding ' ' 3D3 68008 Project ' ' Group 5 : ' Mark Dennehy 93369425 ' Ellen Delaney ' ' This is the address decoding code for the board. It uses one ' GAL exclusively and the smallest selectable memory block is ' 1024 bytes. The CLK pin is attached to /AS via an inverter. ' ' INPUTS : ' A10..A19 ' BOOT ' /AS ' OUTPUTS: ' EPROM1 ' RAMROM1 ' RAM1 ' RAM2 ' RAM3 ' ACIA0 ' ACIA1 ' LCD ' SYSTEMBYTE ' TIMER<reserved> ' device 22v10 ' Input pin definitions as = 1 a19 = 2 a18 = 3 a17 = 4 a16 = 5 a15 = 6 a14 = 7 a13 = 8 a12 = 9 a11 = 10 a10 = 11 boot = 13 ' Power & ground pin definitions gnd = 12 vcc = 24 ' Output pin definitions /eprom1 = 14 /ramrom1 = 15 /ram1 = 16 /ram2 = 17 /acia0 = 18 /acia1 = 19 /lcd = 20 /sysbyte = 21 /timer = 22 /ram3 = 23 macro io a19*a18*a17*a16; macro rom /a19*/a18*/a17*/a16; start ' EPROM selection : $00000 -> $01FFF and boot /eprom1 /= /as*/boot*&rom*/a15*/a14*/a13; ' RAM_ROM selection : $00000 -> $01FFF and not-boot ' $20000 -> $21FFF and boot /ramrom1 /= /as*boot*&rom*/a15*/a14*/a13 + /as*/boot*/a19*/a18*a17*/a16*/a15*/a14*/a13; ' RAM 1 selection : $10000 -> $107FF /ram1 /= /as*/a19*/a18*/a17*a16*/a15*/a14*/a13*/a12*/a11; ' RAM 2 selection : $10800 -> $10FFF /ram2 /= /as*/a19*/a18*/a17*a16*/a15*/a14*/a13*/a12*a11; ' RAM 3 selection : $11000 -> $12FFF /ram3 /= /as*/a19*/a18*/a17*a16*/a15*/a14*/a13*a12 + /a19*/a18*/a17*a16*/a15*/a14*a13*/a12; ' ACIA 0 selection : $F0000 /acia0 /= /as*&io*/a15*/a14*/a13*/a12*/a11*/a10; ' ACIA 1 selection : $F0400 /acia1 /= /as*&io*/a15*/a14*/a13*/a12*/a11*a10; ' LCD selection : $FE000 /lcd /= /as*&io*a15*a14*a13*/a12*/a11*/a10; ' SYSTEM_BYTE selection : $FF000 /sysbyte /= /as*&io*a15*a14*a13*a12*/a11*/a10; ' TIMER selection : $F1000 /timer /= /as*&io*/a15*/a14*/a13*a12*/a11*/a10; end |
And the assembler was about readable in most cases:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 | ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; ; Demonstration PICRAT program. ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; REVISION HISTORY : ; ; 13/10/97 First draft, preliminary modularisation ; of code. ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ERRORLEVEL 0 PROCESSOR PIC16C74A LIST b=4 __CONFIG _BODEN_OFF & _CP_OFF & _PWRTE_OFF & _WDT_OFF & _XT_OSC TITLE "Demonstration PICRAT program" SUBTITLE "Version 1.00" include <p16c74a.inc> ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; Context Saving registers CONTEXT UDATA 0x20 int_w RES 1 int_status RES 1 int_pclath RES 1 int_fsr RES 1 CONTEXT2 UDATA 0xa0 int_w2 RES 1 ;Dummy Register ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; Variables used in Main Loop Main UDATA tmpChar RES 1 ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; ; NAME : RESET_VECTOR ; ; FUNCTION : Executes reset interrupt service routine ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ RESET_VECTOR CODE 0000 RESET_VECTOR GLOBAL RESET_VECTOR PAGESEL reset_isr goto reset_isr ;--------------------ROUTINE SPECIFICATION------------------- ; ; NAME : INTERRUPT_VECTOR ; ; FUNCTION : Contect saving, correct ISR selection ; ; NOTES : Saves W, STATUS, PCLATH as per ex.14-1 ; in datasheet ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; REVISION HISTORY : ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ INTERRUPT_VECTOR CODE 0004 INTERRUPT_VECTOR GLOBAL INTERRUPT_VECTOR EXTERN USART_Tx_isr EXTERN USART_Rx_isr ;INTERRUPT_VECTOR ; ; Save the W,STATUS,PCLATH and FSR registers, movwf int_w swapf STATUS,W clrf STATUS movwf int_status movf PCLATH,W movwf int_pclath movf FSR,W movwf int_fsr ; Check to see what caused the interrupt, ; Byte received ? BANKSEL PIR1 PAGESEL USART_Rx_isr btfsc PIR1,RCIF ; Jump to USART Rx ISR call USART_Rx_isr ; Ready to transmit byte ? BANKSEL PIR1 PAGESEL USART_Tx_isr btfsc PIR1,TXIF ; Jump to USART Tx ISR call USART_Tx_isr ; Unknown interrupt ? ; Jump to exception handler ; PAGESEL Exception ; call Exception ; Restore registers and return from interrupt. clrf STATUS movf int_fsr,W movwf FSR movf int_pclath,W movwf PCLATH swapf int_status,W movwf STATUS swapf int_w,F swapf int_w,W retfie ;--------------------ROUTINE SPECIFICATION------------------- ; ; NAME : Exception ; ; FUNCTION : Called when an unhandled interrupt ; condition occours. ; ; NOTES : ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; REVISION HISTORY : ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ;EXCEPTION ; Endless loop Exception CODE Exception goto Exception ;--------------------ROUTINE SPECIFICATION------------------- ; ; NAME : reset_isr ; ; FUNCTION : Reset Interrupt service routine ; Determines correct action to perform ; on startup. ; ; NOTES : ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; REVISION HISTORY : ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ reset_isr CODE reset_isr GLOBAL reset_isr EXTERN MemoryTest EXTERN USART_init EXTERN USART_puts EXTERN USART_putc EXTERN USART_hi_msg_tmp EXTERN USART_lo_msg_tmp EXTERN Startup_screen ; EXTERN LCD_Initialise ; EXTERN LCD_PutChar EXTERN USART_getc PAGESEL MemoryTest call MemoryTest PAGESEL USART_init call USART_init ; PAGESEL LCD_Initialise ; call LCD_Initialise PAGESEL USART_putc movlw A'.' call USART_putc movlw A'.' call USART_putc movlw A'.' call USART_putc movlw A'\r' call USART_putc movlw A'\n' call USART_putc ; PAGESEL LCD_PutChar ; movlw A'T' ; call LCD_PutChar ; movlw A'e' ; call LCD_PutChar ; movlw A's' ; call LCD_PutChar ; movlw A't' ; call LCD_PutChar ; Enable perihiperal interrupts BANKSEL INTCON bsf INTCON,PEIE ; Enable all interrupts bsf INTCON,GIE ; Print out startup message PAGESEL USART_puts movlw high Startup_screen movwf USART_hi_msg_tmp movlw low Startup_screen movwf USART_lo_msg_tmp call USART_puts bcf OPTION_REG,7 BANKSEL PORTB clrf PORTB BANKSEL TRISB movlw 0x00 movwf TRISB BANKSEL PORTD clrf PORTD BANKSEL TRISD movlw 0x7F movwf TRISD BANKSEL PORTE clrf PORTE BANKSEL TRISE movlw 0x07 movwf TRISE PAGESEL MainLoop call MainLoop ;--------------------ROUTINE SPECIFICATION------------------- ; ; NAME : MainLoop ; ; FUNCTION : Main Control Interpreter ; ; NOTES : A Finite State Machine ; ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; REVISION HISTORY : ; 9/1/98 First Draft ;------------------------------------------------------------ MainLoop CODE MainLoop GLOBAL MainLoop EXTERN USART_getc EXTERN USART_putc EXTERN AnalogRoot ExTERN DigitalRoot EXTERN CounterRoot EXTERN PWMRoot EXTERN MotorControlRoot EXTERN TimerRoot PAGESEL USART_getc call USART_getc BANKSEL tmpChar movwf tmpChar PAGESEL MainLoop movf tmpChar,W xorlw A'.' btfss STATUS,Z goto MainLoop ;------------------------------------------------------------ ServiceSelect PAGESEL USART_putc movlw '-' call USART_putc movlw '-' call USART_putc movlw '\r' call USART_putc movlw '\n' call USART_putc PAGESEL USART_getc call USART_getc movwf tmpChar PAGESEL AnalogRoot movf tmpChar,W xorlw A'a' btfsc STATUS,Z goto AnalogRoot PAGESEL DigitalRoot movf tmpChar,W xorlw A'd' btfsc STATUS,Z goto DigitalRoot PAGESEL DigitalRoot movf tmpChar,W xorlw A'c' btfsc STATUS,Z goto CounterRoot PAGESEL PWMRoot movf tmpChar,W xorlw A'p' btfsc STATUS,Z goto PWMRoot PAGESEL MotorControlRoot movf tmpChar,W xorlw A'm' btfsc STATUS,Z goto MotorControlRoot PAGESEL TimerRoot movf tmpChar,W xorlw A't' btfsc STATUS,Z goto TimerRoot ;------------------------------------------------------------ ; Error PAGESEL USART_putc movlw '*' call USART_putc goto MainLoop END |
Okay, so that’s not quite as good as it could be, but the libraries were better. What about the Java code?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 | ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // // TACAN - TeleAutonomous Control And Navigation // // Mark Dennehy, 93369425 // S.S. C.Eng. // Final Year Project 1996/7 // ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // // PolarHistogram.java // implements the polar histogram // ----------------- // $Date: 1997/04/03 21:49:54 $ // $Revision: 2.0 $ // $State: Stable $ // ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// package Tacan.RLC; import Tacan.util.LogFile; import Tacan.util.MathUtil; import java.util.*; import java.io.*; import java.awt.event.*; /** * The Polar Histogram of the Certainty value grid. This is effectively a * polar graph of obstacle density. * *@author *@version *@see Tacan.RLC.CVGrid *@see java.util.Observer *@see java.awt.event.ActionListener **/ class PolarHistogram extends Observable implements Observer, ActionListener { private final static double A = 22; private final static double B = 1; private final static int maxFreeSectorSize = 18; private int tmpPH[]; private RLC rlc_; private int no_of_segments_; private LogFile log_; private LogFile data_; private Vector segment_terms_[]; /** * The current Polar Histogram values **/ protected int PH_[]; /** * The Local Autonomy Control graph values **/ protected double LAC_[]; /** * The current maximum value in the Polar Histogram (for normalisation) **/ protected int PH_max = 0; /** * The current maximum value in the Local Autonomy Control graph (for normalisation) *@see **/ protected double LAC_max = 0.0; /** * The threshold value for deciding what path is free and what is not **/ protected int PH_threshold = 100; /** * The maximum network lag permitted before full local autonomy is granted (in seconds) **/ public final static double maxNetLag = 10; /** * Constructor * *@param rlc The Robot Local controller instance associated with this graph **/ protected PolarHistogram(RLC rlc) { rlc_ = rlc; PH_max = 0; segment_terms_ = new Vector[rlc.robot_config.PH_RES]; no_of_segments_ = rlc.robot_config.PH_RES; PH_ = new int[no_of_segments_]; tmpPH = new int[no_of_segments_]; LAC_ = new double[no_of_segments_]; log_ = new LogFile("Polar.log"); data_ = new LogFile("Polar.dat"); for (int i = 0; i<rlc.robot_config.PH_RES; i++) segment_terms_[i] = new Vector(); generateSegmentTerms(); } public int getThreshold() { return PH_threshold; } public void setThreshold(int i) { PH_threshold = i; } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { if(e.getActionCommand() == "Reset") reset(); } protected void reset() { PH_ = new int[no_of_segments_]; } private void generateSegmentTerms() { double theta, r; int x,y; int seg_no; double res = 360/no_of_segments_; int max_x = (int)(rlc_.robot_config.ACTIVE_WINDOW_SIZE/2) ; int max_y = max_x; SectorCell cell; System.out.print("Calculating segment terms : "); System.out.flush(); for (x = -max_x ; x <= max_x ; x++) { for (y =-max_y ; y<=max_y ; y++) if ((x!=0) || (y!=0)) // Avoid (0,0) { cell = new SectorCell(0,0,0); theta = MathUtil.rad2deg(Math.atan2(y,x)); //No, not a typo, atan2 takes (x,y) as (y,x) theta = (theta < 0) ? 360 + theta : theta ; r = Math.sqrt((x*x)+(y*y)); cell.x = x; cell.y = y; cell.term = A - B*r; seg_no = (int)(theta/res); segment_terms_[seg_no].addElement(cell); } System.out.print("."); System.out.flush(); } for (int i = 0; i<no_of_segments_; i++) segment_terms_[i].trimToSize(); System.out.println(" Done."); System.out.flush(); } public synchronized void update(Observable o,Object arg) { Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.MAX_PRIORITY); Enumeration sector; int sector_sum; SectorCell cell = new SectorCell(0,0,0); int x_offset = (int)(rlc_.robot_config.RLC_LOCAL_MAP_MAX/2); int y_offset = (int)(rlc_.robot_config.RLC_LOCAL_MAP_MAX/2); int cv; for (int i = 0; i < no_of_segments_; i++) { sector_sum = 0; sector = segment_terms_[i].elements(); while(sector.hasMoreElements()) { cell = (SectorCell)sector.nextElement(); cv = rlc_.cv_grid.local_map[cell.x+x_offset][cell.y+y_offset]; sector_sum += cv*cv*cell.term; } tmpPH[i] = sector_sum; } smooth(5); setChanged(); notifyObservers(); Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.NORM_PRIORITY); } /** * Averaging filter on Polar Histogram * The values for the PH can vary widely, so a smoothing filter is required * *@param filterSize The number of samples to use to smooth the graph *@return void */ protected synchronized void smooth(int filterSize) { int sum = 0; PH_max = 0; if ((filterSize%2)==0) //If even, make odd filterSize++; int df = (int)((double)filterSize/2); for(int i = 0; i < no_of_segments_; i++) { sum = 0; for (int j = -df; j <= df; j++) sum += tmpPH[(df+i+j)%no_of_segments_]; sum = (int)((double)sum/filterSize); PH_[(i+df)%no_of_segments_] = sum; PH_max = (sum > PH_max) ? sum : PH_max; } } public synchronized void LACupdate(int t,int desired_sector) { double b = (t<maxNetLag) ? (double)t/maxNetLag : 1.0 ; LAC_max = 0; double slope = (1-b)/(no_of_segments_/2); for (int i = 0 ; i < no_of_segments_ ; i++) { LAC_[(desired_sector+i)%no_of_segments_] = b; LAC_[(desired_sector+i)%no_of_segments_] += (i < (int)(no_of_segments_/2)) ? (double)i*(slope) : (-slope)*(double)(i-no_of_segments_); LAC_max = (LAC_[i] > LAC_max) ? LAC_[i] : LAC_max; } } public int clearPath(int bearing) { int res = (int)360.0/no_of_segments_; int desired_sector = (int)(bearing/res); int b; int l_centre =1; int l_width = 1; int r_centre =1; int r_width = 1; LACupdate(3,desired_sector); if ((PH_[desired_sector] * LAC_[desired_sector]) < PH_threshold) return bearing; else { //Scan Left for(int a = 1; a < (no_of_segments_/2) ; a++) //Start of first free sector if ((PH_[(a+desired_sector)%no_of_segments_] * LAC_[(a+desired_sector)%no_of_segments_]) < PH_threshold) { //For up to maximum sector width for (l_width = 1; l_width <= maxFreeSectorSize; l_width++) //Look for end of free Sector if ((PH_[(a+l_width+desired_sector)%no_of_segments_] * LAC_[(a+l_width+desired_sector)%no_of_segments_]) > PH_threshold) { //Set centre of sector l_centre = a+(int)(l_width/2); break; } break; } //Scan Right for(int a = no_of_segments_-1; a > (no_of_segments_/2) ; a--) //Start of first free sector if ((PH_[(a+desired_sector)%no_of_segments_] * LAC_[(a+desired_sector)%no_of_segments_]) < PH_threshold) { //For up to maximum sector width for (r_width = 1; r_width <= maxFreeSectorSize; r_width++) //Look for end of free Sector if ((PH_[a-r_width] * LAC_[a-r_width]) > PH_threshold) { //Set centre of sector r_centre = a-(int)(r_width/2); break; } break; } //Choose left or right, weighing size of sector with deflection b = ((l_width/l_centre) > (r_width/(no_of_segments_ - r_centre))) ? l_centre : r_centre ; b += desired_sector; b %= no_of_segments_; b *= res; return b; } } public String toString() { String s = "[ "; for (int i = 0;i<no_of_segments_;i++) s += String.valueOf(PH_[i]) + " "; s += "]"; return s; } } |
Oh dear. That’s very much a curate’s egg. Some parts are okay, but some… well, I wouldn’t give them an okay in a code review session today. Still, I suppose that’s a good thing – remind yourself that you were just not as hot as a teenage coder as you thought you were, and that you’ve gotten better in the interim.
What about the C++ though?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 | /**************************************************************** * * * TCD Robocup Project 1996/7 * * Intelligent Agents Group * * (Artifical Intelligence Group) * * * **************************************************************** RCS Block : $Author: mdennehy $ $Date: 1996/09/07 15:57:18 $ $RCSfile: main.cc,v $ $Revision: 1.6 $ **************************************************************** $Log: main.cc,v $ // Revision 1.6 1996/09/07 15:57:18 mdennehy // Final version by mdennehy. // Now knows how to locate itself on the field and // can determine the error in this measurement. // // Revision 1.5 1996/09/04 14:03:22 mdennehy // Visual and Audio parsing working. // Minor bug : if more than 5/6 agents connected, Bus errors/segmentation faufollow // // Revision 1.4 1996/08/30 17:31:38 mdennehy // First Working Version // // Revision 1.3 1996/08/26 15:10:49 mdennehy // *** empty log message *** // // Revision 1.2 1996/08/24 16:25:08 mdennehy // Added Threads // // Revision 1.1 1996/08/22 14:34:30 mdennehy // Initial revision // ****************************************************************/ /***** RCS Program Information *****/ char RCS_revision[]="$Revision: 1.6 $"; char RCS_state[]="$State: Exp $"; /***** Header Files *****/ #include <thread.h> #include <synch.h> #include <pthread.h> #include <semaphore.h> #include <signal.h> #include <siginfo.h> #include <signal.h> #include <ucontext.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <GetOpt.h> #include <sys/time.h> #include <sys/resource.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <errno.h> #include <LEDA/string.h> #include "udpif.h" #include "posdata.h" #include "communications.h" #include "dmalloc.h" /***** Main Comms Socket *****/ UDPSocket comm; #ifdef DEBUG /***** Debugging Log file streams *****/ extern ofstream commlog; extern ofstream datalog; extern ofstream intsyslog; #endif /***** Function prototypes *****/ void usage(); void SignalHandler(int signal, siginfo_t *SignalInfo, void *ContextInfo); /***** MAIN() *****/ int main(int argc, char **argv) { #ifdef DEBUG print_statistics(); init_debugging_logfiles(); system_check(); intsyslog << "int main(int argc,char **argv)" << endl; struct sigaction h; // Install Signal handlers h.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO; h.sa_sigaction = SignalHandler; sigaction(SIGBUS,&h,NULL); sigaction(SIGSEGV,&h,NULL); #endif int option_char ; char *serverhost = "localhost"; int serverport = 6000; //Get command-line options GetOpt opt(argc,argv,"?h:p:") ; while (option_char = opt(), option_char != EOF) switch (option_char) { case 'h': #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Hostname CLI option : "; intsyslog << opt.optarg << endl; #endif serverhost = opt.optarg; break; case 'p': #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Port CLI option : "; intsyslog << opt.optarg << endl; #endif serverport = atoi(opt.optarg); break; case '?': #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Help CLI option selected" << endl; #endif usage(); exit(-1); }; //Setup socket connection to server #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Attempting to open socket connection" << endl; intsyslog << "Hostname : " << serverhost << endl; intsyslog << " Port : " << serverport << endl; #endif comm.init_connection(serverhost,serverport); //Player Initialisation sequence #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Sending Team Init" << endl; #endif leda_string s("(init TCD)"); leda_string side,playmode; int unum,err; comm << s; comm >> s; // parse returned initialisation message from server err = sscanf(s,"(init %[lr] %i %[^)]",side.cstring(),&unum,playmode.cstring()); #ifdef DEBUG if (err == 3) { intsyslog << "Side : " << side << endl; intsyslog << "Uniform Number : " << unum << endl; intsyslog << "Play Mode : " << playmode << endl; } else { intsyslog << "Initialisation response parse failure" << endl; intsyslog << "Errno : " << err << endl; exit (-1); } #endif //Start main threads thread_t main_thread_id; thread_t communications; //thread_t planning; //thread_t execution; thr_create(NULL,0,(void *)Communications,NULL,NULL,&communications); //thr_create(); //thr_create(); main_thread_id = thr_self(); #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Main thread ID : " << main_thread_id << endl; intsyslog << "Communications thread ID : " << communications << endl; //intsyslog << "Planner thread ID : " << planning << endl; //intsyslog << "Executer thread ID : " << execution << endl; #endif wait(2); comm.send_message("(say -A1T1.PA.0000.0000.PB.1234.4321.PO2.5678.0123)",comm.S); wait(3); comm.send_message("(move 12 12)",comm.S); wait(5); while (1) // Just moves the agent about a bit to demonstrate the self-location system // Is an infinite loop so the rest of the code isn't much use here for now { comm.send_message("(turn 20)",comm.S); wait(2); comm.send_message("(dash 50)",comm.S); wait(3); } while (thr_join(communications,NULL,NULL) == 0); // Wait for other threads to finish #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "Shutting Down" << endl; commlog.close(); datalog.close(); intsyslog.close(); #endif } void usage() // Prints out correct command-line format via STDERR { #ifdef DEBUG intsyslog << "void usage()" << endl; #endif cerr << "Usage:\n"; cerr << " % agent [options] TEAMNAME\n"; cerr << " options: \n"; cerr << " -h HOSTNAME \n"; cerr << " -p PORTNUMBER\n"; cerr << endl; } #ifdef DEBUG void SignalHandler(int signal, siginfo_t *SignalInfo, void *ContextInfo) // this is UNIX-specific code to handle a signal sent to the agent to signal a system-level error, // such as a bus error or a Segmentation fault. These are the only two such signals currently specially // processed { dmalloc_log_heap_map(); dmalloc_log_stats(); dmalloc_log_unfreed(); perror ("Last Error "); if (SignalInfo->si_code <= 0) { intsyslog << "User Generated Signal" << endl; intsyslog << "User ID : " << SignalInfo->si_uid << endl; intsyslog << "Process ID : " << SignalInfo->si_pid << endl; } switch(signal) { case SIGBUS: { intsyslog << "********** ERROR : Bus Error **********" << endl; cerr << "********** ERROR : Bus Error **********" << endl; if (SignalInfo->si_code == SI_NOINFO) { intsyslog << "No Debugging information given by system" << endl; exit(-1); } switch (SignalInfo->si_code) { case BUS_ADRALN: { intsyslog << "Errno : " << SignalInfo->si_errno << endl; intsyslog << "Invalid Address Alignment" << endl; intsyslog << "Address : " ; intsyslog << (unsigned long)SignalInfo->si_addr; intsyslog << endl; break; } case BUS_ADRERR: { intsyslog << "Errno : " << SignalInfo->si_errno << endl; intsyslog << "NonExistant physical address" << endl; intsyslog << "Address : "; intsyslog << (unsigned long)SignalInfo->si_addr; intsyslog << endl; break; } case BUS_OBJERR: { intsyslog << "Errno : " << SignalInfo->si_errno << endl; intsyslog << "Object Specific Hardware Error" << endl; intsyslog << "Address : " ; intsyslog << (unsigned long)SignalInfo->si_addr; intsyslog << endl; break; } } } break; case SIGSEGV: { intsyslog << "********** ERROR : Segmentation Fault **********" << endl; cerr << "********** ERROR : Segmentation Fault **********" << endl; if (SignalInfo->si_code == SI_NOINFO) { intsyslog << "No Debugging information given by system" << endl; exit(-1); } else switch(SignalInfo->si_code) { case SEGV_MAPERR: { intsyslog << "Errno : " << SignalInfo->si_errno << endl; intsyslog << "Address not mapped to object" << endl; intsyslog << "Address : "; intsyslog << (unsigned long)SignalInfo->si_addr; intsyslog << endl; break; } case SEGV_ACCERR: { intsyslog << "Errno : " << SignalInfo->si_errno << endl; intsyslog << "Invalid Permissions for mapped object" << endl; intsyslog << "Address : "; intsyslog << (unsigned long)SignalInfo->si_addr; intsyslog << endl; break; } } } break; } exit(-1); } #endif |
Erm. Yikes. I did get better though
What about you? Do you check back over long periods to see how your standard of code is actually doing, rather than through the hazy pink-spectacled fog of old memories?
06
Sep 12
WTF phone calls
*ring*
ffs can’t I get any work done… “Hello?”
-”Hello?”
“Yes, hello?”
-”Hello?”
ah wtf is this… “Hello, who is this?”
-”Ah, hello, this is K from Three, how are you?”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
-”I’m calling from Three and I just need to confirm your security details please, what is your date of birth?”
-”Ah, hello, this is K from Three, how are you?”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
-”I’m calling from Three and I just need to confirm your security details please, what is your date of birth?”
…
“Excuse me?”
-”What is your date of birth?”
You’re kidding me… “K, just repeat that to me, would you please?”
-sounding fustrated now “I’m calling from Three. I just need to verify your identity. Could you confirm your security details please, what is your date of birth?”
…
“K, you’ve called me on my personal phone, and you want me to give you *my* security details? Does that not sound like a really dumb idea to you?”
-”It’s just to verify your identity sir”
How did I wake up in a standup routine? “Thank you K, but I’m not going to be doing that today”
-”I can’t continue with this call then sir”
oh, the loss… “Grand, bye” <click>
Seriously?
Who thinks this is a sane way to try to contact customers?
