I am a computer programmer by profession. In my personal time, however, I am a computer programmer. The difference between the two: requirements (or the absence thereof). In my industry, software requirements are considered a big deal by nearly all of my users, especially the paying kind. In the 5 years I’ve been working in […]

I’m a new convert to Qt’s stylesheets. They make customizing your Qt GUI much easier than other methods (like QPalette). Recently, I responded to a request for comments from Trolltech, and I thought my fellow GUI developers might be interested in it. These are my humble suggestions to Trolltech for improving Qt stylesheets: I use […]

In Qt 4.3.3, I found myself needing to use QRect instances as a key in a QHash. However, Trolltech provides no qHash() implementation for QRect, so I implemented this one, and I think it ought to cover the most common uses of QRect. What do you think? uint qHash(const QRect &rect) { uint code = […]

I’ve interviewed dozens of software engineers, mostly to fill positions involving C++. I’ve also interviewed for about a dozen positions involving C++ and lots of other technologies and languages. I thought I’d share some good on-the-phone interviewing techniques for the interviewer for C++ positions. Before you read this, you shoud know that my interviewing technique […]

Classic! Xkcd brings us the programmer’s version of “talk to the hand”: Commenting someone in Perl or Python requires two hands.

I often hear people say, “We’re going to take some money out of the house” when they get a home equity loan. That is exactly what banks and lenders want you to think you are doing, but it is totally and completely wrong. Let me explain. Think back to when you got your first home […]

I put together a $22 Hobby Lobby Yak 55 Profile this week, and it’s great fun. This is by far the most aerobatic plane I’ve flown. Here’s my power setup: Kit: Hobby Lobby Yak 55 Profile Motor: EMax FC 28-22 from HobbyCity Prop: 9×3.8 APC Slow Flyer from Some Dude’s Hobbies Speed Controller: 30 amp […]

I’ve updated the LDS General Conference podcast to include the 4 sessions from October 2007. More details are on the General Conference podcast page.

Here’s the video of the Easy Glider maiden flight: Since then, I’ve had about 4 more flights, and they’ve all gone very well. The only mishap was when the canopy popped off during my last flight, and landed in the nearby river! The wind was good to me, though, and blew it over to the […]

I finished the Easy Glider today, and took it out for its maiden flight. Here’s the setup: Motor: Tower Pro 2908-10 brushless ESC: Tower Pro 30A Battery: Hextronik 2200mah 20C Prop: 9×4.5 (will upgrade to a folding prop later) Servos: Hextronik 9g servos Radio: Spektrum DX6 with AR6000 receiver The plane took a little longer […]