By the way...

[pphaneuf]

Wow, I'm quite busy these days, haven't been writing (or reading, for that matter!) much...

Mostly, it's to blame on the quest for a place to live in that's going on. I'd like to buy, this time around, so this makes it a couple of notches more complicated than what I'm used to (I've never been an owner, so this is all new to me). The numbers bandied around are making me quite dizzy! Hopefully, we should come out of this with a nice place, but in the meantime, it's time for "let's save up money like crazy for the cash down", so on top of being busy with this stuff, it'll also make me less visible than I usually am (well, uh, it should still be better than the last year!).

In other more geeky news, I think I am succumbing to the coding style of the C++ standard library with regard to naming. For method names, there's more than a few people who are going to think "finally!" (I used to favour a Java-style interCap, like "readUntil", now I tend to prefer "read_until"). This makes a lot of sense, since this is also more common in C and Perl code. But the more controversial part is that the standard library uses all lowercase for class names (it's "unordered_set", not "UnorderedSet"), and I'm getting a crush on those too... Perl, Ruby and Python are using FullyCapitalized style for those, and so are a number of C++ programmers I know, but I'm finding that there is something to be said for adopting the style of the language. I'm also using namespaces and exceptions (mostly in constructors and object-returning methods) more, these days.

So either I'm becoming stylish, or I'm becoming senile. Oh well.

Also, it would seem that the giant jackhammers are following me.

Comments

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

If you can ever trade the jackhammers for cranes, let me know and I'll set up an ambush.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, cranes would be too awesome, but noooo, it has to be headache-inducing giant jackhammers.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

You should yell "Quit following me!" at every large jackhammer you see. That should solve the problem nicely, as they're probably not allowed to follow you to the mental institution :)

[graydon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can only stand two naming styles in my own code: names_like_this for C-family stuff, and names-like-this for lisp-family code. Of course, if you're doing language engineering you often wind up exhausting every variant with things like type TYPE = Type ... and whatnot. Ho ho ho.

The various camelCaps and StudlyCaps styles I put up with because of legacy and maintenance, but it makes me think of teenagers who talk too fast, or a fraternity prank of cramming people into a phone booth. Or the Java class libraries.

I'm increasingly willing to spend more whitespace, too. Especially operator and vertical whitespace. I've become quite an 80-column fascist, despite screens growing ever-wider. Just means you can have N buffers fully visible on your screen at once.

(Particularly alarming: I find myself defending statement-oriented languages on the aesthetic basis that they lend themselves better to vertical whitespace and columnar reading! I mean, there are other reasons as well, but it's not to be underestimated. Programs are for human comprehension, after all. I'm even teetering on the belief that function calls should not be allowed in expressions at all.)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm definitely done with interCaps for method and function names (I blame Mozilla for putting that silliness in my head, by the way!), it's the class names I'm still teetering about. I'm secretly afraid my friends will make fun of me for my class naming style. ;-)

I used to use K&R bracing style, but I've been using Allman style for a good while now (four or five years), so I hear you on the vertical whitespace. I've always liked space between operators and operands, but there's a few exceptions that rub me the wrong way (I've seen "my_func( 2 + 2 );", for example, eww). And I've always been quite the 80-column fascist too.

What's your C++ naming style for classes, specifically?

[pdage.livejournal.com]

None of my business of course, but you might want to consider buying a house with no cash down instead. The logic behind it is that you could live in your own place RIGHT NOW or wait and save until you have a cashdown. Sure the first method is costlier, but you have a house none the less, right? The exaggerated version of this story is about a guy who waited 5 years in an apartment before he had all the money he wanted to buy a house with all the trimmings, while the other guy next to him was already enjoying the comforts of his own place.

That was we ended up doing and we could not be happier.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Well, I've got enough RRSP (REER in French) to take advantage of the HBP (RAP), so I can have some decent cash down for sure (I have to reimburse it, but there is no interest and I have 15 years to do it). The trick is, this is a new condo, so it'd be ready either in February or June 2008 (depending on which one we choose, we're not sure yet), so it's not like we can go live there right away. But we will as soon as we can, for sure! I just figure that if I'm going to have to wait six months, I better take advantage of that to put together as much cash as I can for a nicer cash down...

But you're totally right, no waiting five years in an apartment!

[pdage.livejournal.com]

Good enough.

Just make sure you have tons of cash when you get in. Everyone I've met thought they would have enough for paint, furniture and all the unexpected tweaks/repairs. I ended up on that list :)

Make yourself a budget, then double it, then have more cash lying around because you will be busting it anyway. It's all worth it though.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, I'll be able to avoid painting, tweaking and (most importantly!) repairs, since the damned place is new. ;-)

You can see the place here.

[pdage.livejournal.com]

Looks very stylish! I'm sure Az will approve :)

Well I only bought one place myself so my experience in the matter is very limited, but I'll venture an opinion anyway. Unless you have a hand in your choosing of certain elements during the construction (which would include paint for instance), then you will indeed have some level of ease when going in. It looks like it is the case, so good for you.

While my condo was not purchase during the planing or construction phase, I still ended up with a unit that was just as new. The original owner bought the place during the construction phase but barely ever lived there. He was a court judge who simply needed a place to stay while he was in the Montreal area and used it seemed he only a few days a year, but he did take the time and care to make the place as comfortable as possible by installing a better air conditioning system and other special bathroom arrangements for showers (he installed a second one, the man is almost as fat as I am and the original system probably did not suit his fancy).

To give you a better idea, the place looked like Al Pacino's home in the movie "Heat". It looked like the place was already cleaned out or as if the owner was ready to leave in a moment's notice. The entrance itself kept the odor of glue. The floors where pristine save for an obvious trail of some footsteps that led from the bathroom to the living room to the bedroom. The locker in the back had painting tools that where still there but never used. It was, by far, strange. The man who bought it quickly found a girlfriend after he bought it, and thus he never lived there at all, nor did he take care in the arranging of certain elements. He took it as his, installed some stuff he wanted, put in some furniture, and for what we can tell, only came back for some of the basic maintenance.

The first rule about having a new place is that all houses and buildings need to be broken-in. It's to be expected that adjustments may need to be made by the original builders. Such was the case with Vro's house (built), my brother's house (used) and my step cousin (built). In my case I had to face the same problems, thankfully they where minor but still present and often the source of puzzlement. Some of these tweaks can be handled by yourself should you be remotely capable of using tools, some might need the builder, it will definitely depend of where the problem lies and how skilled you are (some things you will not have the right to touch because it is a condo, and thus some elements are considered "common" and can only handled by professionals once the whole syndicate has agreed to do the repair, whether it is still covered by the builder's guarantee or not).

For instance. My door? Fucking unusable. Could not lock it, could not close it. Strange because I could visit it in the past and the morning before I purchased it I had no problem entering, but after that something happened, and it was as if the whole frame shifted which made it suddenly crippled as if the man who made it did not know how to work with a tape ruler. Yet it was fine just before! I was furious and mad about this aspect, that's when I learned the break-in period. I simply used a router tool and gave my bolt a bit of breathing room and patch the empty space with compound wood. Since then I found different minute but strange problems, like the construction glue used for the placement of certain floor elements had become brittle and fragile, making it early useless, I had to do it all over again myself. Considering all the elements involved in the construction of a building like this, I was not surprised that some small details needed attending. Oh, and I punched a hole in my bathroom ceiling. olol.

That stuff, my friend, will be hard to estimate. If nothing needs to be done then good for you, but chances are that something will happen that will need some attending. Looking at the quality of what you are buying I would not worry much but like all homes that you buy for yourself, you basically buy a new set of problems. But they are problems you will love to have :)