Notes on software engineering, kernel development, and game programming
A while back, I participated in a software engineering capstone with a group of other computer science students to complete my degree. Our project was to create a from-scratch implementation of grsecurity's "randstruct" GCC plugin for the Clang compiler. Long story short, we ended up sending out a request for comments (RFC) on the initial … Continue reading Test Driven Development in the Clang Compiler
Look- I'm a big fan of programming books. My most recent foray was into Ben Klemens's 21st Century C. I'm already proficient with C in general, so why read yet another book on it? Well, my learning style is primarily iterative--which I suspect is true for many of us. A little review never hurt anybody. … Continue reading My Favorite Takeaways from 21st Century C
Have you ever wondered how Linux knows what PCI devices are plugged in? How does Linux know what driver to associate with the device when it detects it? In short, here's what happens: During the kernel's init process (init/main.c), various subsystems are brought up according to their "init levels." Among these early subsystems are the … Continue reading How the Linux Kernel Detects PCI Devices and Pairs Them with Their Drivers
The last term of my undergraduate Computer Science degree is almost over. Yay! My software engineering capstone project also comes to an academic close in a matter of days and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the key lessons that I’ve learned from this entire process. For the uninitiated, Computer … Continue reading Lessons Learned From an Open Source Capstone Project
You want to see what the compiler has done with the layout of your structure and you want to see it now! There are a number of reasons why you might want to do this. Maybe you want to see what kind of padding has been added (if any) or maybe you want to verify … Continue reading Inspecting Structure Memory Layouts
So you want to write a Clang plugin but you’re not sure where to start? Well this is kind of the blog post for you. I say “kind of” because I can’t tell you exactly how to write the Clang plugin you want to write, but I can give you a nudge in the right direction. … Continue reading How to Write a Clang Plugin
It is sometimes hard to see past the thick haze of caution surrounding the use of C Preprocessor macros in your code. Indeed, the dangers of Macromancy are well-stated in many corners of the internet. You would do well to heed them. However, there are times where a judicious use of macros can help reduce duplication in … Continue reading Macromancer’s Spellbook: Using Macros to Stay DRY
"Hey, you! You're sliding all over the place! STOP! ", you project your thoughts violently at the character sliding around your screen, getting caught on the corner of tiles, other objects, your pride. You stand up out of your computer chair with a sigh, dreaming about the grid movement mechanics in old-school Pokemon and Zelda … Continue reading How to Implement a Grid Movement Mechanic for Your Tile-based Game
This summer, I've been spending some of my free time learning game programming. Rather than learning how to use any particular game engine, I'm somewhat insane and decided to go a little more low level than that -- game programming with a framework! I started with SDL2, but I eventually stopped and moved onto SFML. … Continue reading Why I Switched to SFML
I work in an undergraduate T.A. role for a computer science sequence that teaches students programming concepts and data structures in C++. In each course, students have to take a proficiency demo -- a closed book, closed notes, live coding exam where they must solve a technical interview-flavored question with a given data structure. For … Continue reading Pass by Reference vs Pass by Value in C++
