Refeactor! for C++ -- Review

Tried Refactor! for C++ (free version 9.1.5 published June 29, 2009). Visual Studio 2005

Summary of my experience:
Pros:

• Free;
  
• The idea is very attractive: refactor C++ code with right click and no modal dialogs;
• Rename class names seem to work fine;

Cons:

• Does not work most of the times. Usually global search and replace did a better job in renaming things;
• Affects VS grammar highlight. After installation, code grey out by "ifdef"s are totally messed up. Unistall the softwate, Visual Studio went back to correct grey out;
  

Recommended? No. I uninstalled the software after a few days.

Still looking for a decent C++ refactoring tool.

ASTRA -- Open Source ActionScript 3.0 Library From Yahoo

Here is a first look of ASTRA: ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications.

ASTRA, the ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications, is Yahoo!’s collection of Flash and Flex components, libraries, toolkits and advanced applications. These libraries are open-source and available under the BSD license.

Quote from http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/

The "Flash Componet Library" is the library that really draws my interest. I only looked at this library. I guess, however, the "Web APIs Library" is the one YAHOO really want people getting attached too. :-)

The download is a complete package that starts to be useful within seconds
The download (9.6 MB) contains complete documentation, source code with detailed comments, examples, and binaries that can be installed into Flash CS3 directly. If you are only interested in using the components, you only need to double click the file "astra.mxp", the components will automatically installed and you can start to use it in Flash CS3. You will find the new components under "yahoo" folder. (Notice: if double click "astra.mxp" does not lead you to anything, please check you have installed "Adobe Extension Manager", a separate installation that can be downloaded here: http://www.adobe.com/exchange/em_download/. It is not installed when you first install Flash CS3.)

Small Footprint
All the .swf files in example directory are no more than 50 KB (even chart samples).

Excellent learning tool
If you have reservation on using "Beta" libraries in your product, there may still be reason to have a look at this library. It's source code is fully commented, and neatly organized. This make it a great tool for beginners who are learning to use ActionScript 3.0 and trying to understand object-oriented programming.

Problems
As I said, being a "beta" library, we should expect a lot of bugs. After about 10 minutes playing with chart. I already found a few things worth mentioning. The Flash I created is here: http://huguogang.googlepages.com/testAstra.html
1. Rotated chart cannot be shown properly (although preview on the design surface seems to be ok);
2. Error handling of chart data is weak. It do not show any error message if "dataProvider" has string values. I also managed to make X axis shift to the right by 1 unit, which I don't know why it happens;

Free Screen Capture Tools for Windows

Here are two free screen capture tools that work decently well for small tasks:

1. CamStudio 2.0: Open Source software that comes with Visual Studio solution, and Win32 installation package. It works very well. Can capture to .AVI, and has a tool to convert AVI file to .SWF file and a HTML template to embed the Flash file. The captured file size is big. 40 seconds capture generated 20MByte AVI file and 1.5MByte SWF file.
Links:
SourceForge Host: http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/
CamStudio - Free Streaming Video Desktop Recording Software: read the "Issues" section on this page. You will need to manually edit the generated HTML template in order for it to play in Firefox or Netscape.

2. Windows Media Encoder: Free Microsoft tool for video capture and editing. Capture result is WMV file format. File size is very small. But I recommend to use at least medium quality option which will generate a 500 KByte WMV file for 40 seconds capture.
Links:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

My environment: Windows XP Professional, Dual Monitor

Regular Expression Designer

Writing regular expression is always tough for me, not to mention trying to read regular expressions written by other programmers. I found this excellent FREE tool: Regular Expression Designer provided by radsoftware.com.au a Sydney based company.

As you can see from the screen-shot below, it makes it very easy to experiment and visually inspect output of regular expression applied against various text input. You can try MATCH, SEARCH or REPLACE with one click. Match results are displayed in a tree format, so that you can instantly see all the matches and captured groups. An online help of regular expression language elements is provided as a quick reference.


This application only runs on Windows computer with .NET Framework 1.1 or 2.0.

C++ Primer (Recommended Book)

Title: C++ Primer (I own the 3rd Edition)
Authors: Stanley B. Lippman, Josée Lajoie

Bottom Line: A keeper. Highly recommended. With its accurate and complete coverage, concise text and short code samples, this book serves as a good C++ reference book for intermediate or advanced C++ programmers. But definitely not a book for beginners.

Review:
This is the 1st and the only C++ book I have. The books has been on my shelf for 6 years. I was already familiar with C++ when I bought this book, and I find this book very useful through out the years. It covers EVERY fine details of standard C++, and the information is ACCURATE and CLEAR.

At first, I spent a few weeks browse through it. I found it has tremendous amount of new information for me -- an self-taught intermediate level C++ programmer.

But, if you are beginner trying to learn C++ and Object-Oriented programmer, I would recommend you to find another book.For one thing, in many places, there are terms referencing concepts in future chapter that make you having to read the book in two passes to understand it. Then there are too much fine details about C++, and too little practical guides. Even if you manage to read the book, it could easily take you a full year to finish this book and emerge in all the intricacy about C++, then come out not able to write a single program. There is NO full-blown sample program, nor step by step guide to setup development environment.

Due to its sheer volume and broad coverage, I didn't read the book cover to cover. Instead, I kept this book as a C++ standard reference. Whenever I have doubt, I lookup the index and read the related chapters. The books is written in concise and clear language, and has coverage of many minor details that cannot be easily find elsewhere. Having to juggle between C, C++, C#, Javascript, and SQL, I constantly need to refresh my memory about subtle C++ issues. To be honest, even if I work with C++ every day, I do not think I can master the full-depth of C++ language. C++ is a powerful language that provides many opportunities for programmers to express their ideas. This books is the perfect reference tool for me, it provides all the details about a language feature with enough details (but not too long to read) to remind me of the key points very quickly and precisely.


PS
If this book is not a keeper that I feel deeply indebted to, I would not have the urge to write about it. :)