BD Software delivers on-site training seminars for programmers in C, C++, Java, Perl and Unix

Resources

Effective STL Source Code

Source Code demonstrating the code examples in Scott Meyers' book Effective STL. This is the "official" companion code distribution site for that book.

Writings

C/C++ Users Journal, Illustrated C

I wrote regular articles (a mini-column, sort of) for The C Users Journal (before it became the C/C++ Users Journal) during my tenure at R&D Publications in Lawrence, KS. The very first book published by R&D Books, Illustrated C, was a collection of those columns. The Table of Contents corresponds to the articles:

Directory Navigation: Manipulating the DOS Environment
A DOS Login Program: Supporting Multiple Users
A Mini-Database System: Elementary File I/O
An Address Book Manager: Indexed File I/O
A Personal Journal Program: Text File Management
Processing Code Listings for Publication Part I: Structured space
Processing Code Listings for Publication Part II: Maximum Line Length
A Portable Menu Compiler: Implementing a Small Language Translator

My CUJ article describing the Freeware STL Error Message Decryptor I wrote to demystify those lengthy STL-related C++ error messages, appears in the July, 2001 issue. As the Web Feature for that month, you can read the entire article online! (CUJ is defunct, so this is a link to the article as archived on The Wayback Machine). The software itself is available free right here.

My latest article for CUJ, Thinking in STL: You Know It Don't Come Easy (read it!) appears in the January, 2003 issue. This is the story of the slow transformation of a "C string"-based function template into one using STL strings exclusively. Subsequent versions of this template are part of my STL Container Initialization Library.

Course Technology Web Site

I wrote an article at the behest of a former Java student, for her company's web site, suggesting Why Java Should Be Your First Programming Language. Although I personally prefer coding in C++ over Java, I wouldn't necessarily start people off with C++...

SysAdmin Magazine

SysAdmin was launched by (what was then) R&D Publications while I was on the technical staff. One of my favorite roles as tech staff member was administering the SCO Xenix box that ran the company, typically via shell script programming. Several of my administrative scripts ended up fodder for SysAdmin articles. Thanks to the courtesy of Edwin Rothrock, publisher of SysAdmin, and the efforts of Amber Ankerholz at CMP, the complete text and code from these articles have been made available for online viewing on the SysAdmin web site, at the links below. These issues were published between May, 1992 and December, 1993:

A Community-Style Overnight Job Spooler (Vol. 1, Issue 1)
A Background Job Launcher (Vol. 1, Issue 2)
A System Load Monitoring Trilogy (Vol. 1, Issue 3)
In-Line Input or Bust (Vol. 1, Issue 4)
A Project Directory Management Facility (Vol. 2, Issue 1)
An lp Enhancement (A multi-printer UI facility) (Vol. 2, Issue 2)
User Report: CTAR and Company (Vol. 2, Issue 4)
A Secure Journal/Logging Utility with Encryption (Vol. 2, Issue 6)

Windows Developer's Journal

When R&D launched the Windows Developers Journal (1991? I was there, but I don't recall the exact year...), I was asked to take the helm of the "Tech Tips" column. I was a bit reluctant, since I didn't actually "do" Windows development, but somehow managed to pull it off. I remained the Tech Tips editor until 1998.

Ancient History (or, "BDS C and the Good Ole' CP/M Days")

BDS C information and download links have now moved to the BDS C Home Page.

Really Ancient History (or, "The Wild Pre-CP/M 8080 Days")

"A Tiny Basic Extension Package" (Article in the June/July 1978 issue of Dr. Dobbs' Journal): A fellow named Li-Chen Wang wrote a nifty little Tiny Basic interpreter that ran on my IMSAI 8080 (with its whopping 4K of RAM...if you don't count the 1K on the VDM-1 video board for screen memory, which I actually programmed in until being able to afford the 4K RAM board...). Unfortunately, after you keyed in your program and ran it, there was no way to save it. So, I wrote a set of commands that worked within Tiny Basic to save and load programs from mass storage (being, in this case, the Tarbell Cassette Interface mated to a JC Penney $40 cassette recorder--for which the Tarbell interface seemed to have been optimized.)

"A Machine-Code Relocator for the 8080" (Article in BYTE Magazine, July 1977). My first computer magazine publication. Back before we even had assemblers, moving code around in memory was a real pain. This little program detected addresses within machine language instructions and offset them all by some constant value, essentially doing an on-the-fly relocation of absolute machine instructions. This was actually a useful thing at the time.