anthay

I do have that hostility to art criticism of which you speak, which is what prompted me to post. I know nothing about art, so I should have kept my mouth shut, or at least been less insulting. Sorry.

When I read a story, hear a song or watch a movie and I might _feel_ something or my world-view may have been moved. But I look at a painting or sculpture and I feel nothing. It doesn’t feel right that a critic has to explain to me that my perception is being experimented with.

You are right, I am articulating an ill-formed feeling, probably based on my ignorance of the subject.

I assume the point of physics is to understand nature and communicate that understanding to others, who will need sufficient interest and background knowledge to understand what is being communicated. I don't personally understand physics beyond the basics, but I'm prepared to believe physicists are not talking bollocks to each other. I can see the concrete results of their applied knowledge in my everyday life.

On the other hand, I can't help feeling that art language is deliberately obscure and elitist and its purpose is not designed to communicate objective truth because there is no objective truth to communicate. Perhaps the emperor does have clothes and I'm just too ignorant to see them.

I've made this mistake in the past. In C++ I used a reference to fix it like so:

    #include <cassert>

    typedef char array_xyz_type[42];

    void test(array_xyz_type & a, array_xyz_type b, char c[42], char (&d)[42])
    {
        assert(sizeof(a) == 42);
        assert(sizeof(b) == 4);
        assert(sizeof(c) == 4);
        assert(sizeof(d) == 42);
    }

    int main()
    {
        array_xyz_type x = {1,2,3};
        test(x, x, x, x);
    }

I'd add these comments:

1. The reference makes the code somewhat less flexible in that you can't call the function with anything other than a char[42] type, e.g. test(new char[42]...) won't compile. (This may or may not be what you want.)

2. As Linus said, don't ignore compiler warnings.

3. Write some code, then watch every line execute in the debugger so you see if what you wrote is what you thought you wrote. Repeat.

For a more optimistic outlook may I suggest spending a little time reading http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/?

I'm sure you guys are familiar with this, but I've just discovered http://earlyretirementextreme.com/. I've just started reading the book.

Surely you will be upsetting people who, for whatever reason, are unable to speak?

On the other hand, I think one of the good things about C++ is that you have a choice. If you wish to write code that explicitly allocates memory for a string of characters you can. You can even wrap it up in a class to make it easy to use.

But you risk your manager (if you have one) telling you you are "sandbagging." And you might see others on your team tell your manager "it's no big deal - an hour or so of work". And they slap some crap in there that whacks the mole down long enough for the manager to make a mental note to give your team mate a bigger raise than you.

Flying over a strange landscape http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,1,2,1,1,1,0,2,1,2...