justin = { main feed , music , code = { cockos , reaper , wdl , ninjam , jsfx , more } , askjf , pubkey };

Ask Justin Frankel No reasonable question unanswered since 2009! Suggested topics: programming, music, sleep, coffee, etc. Note: please do not ask questions about REAPER features, bugs or scheduling, use the forums instead. Name: Ask: Human (enter yes): [newer questions] [unreplied] | [replied] | [recent comments] | [all] [older questions]

Question: You said you learned win32 as you wrote winamp. Did you read petzold? How'd you get started learning win32 for the project? Asked by Will (24.234.128.x) on September 22 2010, 3:43pm Reply on September 22 2010, 10:39pm (edited at September 22 2010, 10:40pm): I did read some of Petzold's book (Programming Windows 95, I believe), but didn't much mesh with the style of programming. My Windows programming until maybe 2002 was pretty awful. Now it's just a little awful. There was a lot of experimenting, and I didn't use version control back in the day, so things were a bit chaotic. What was funny, though, is at some point Winamp because ubiquitous enough that audio hardware driver makers would use Winamp to test with, so it was widely supported (even though it wasn't necessarily "correct" to begin with). Heh. Comment... Question: who/what inspired you make signal processing studio and then jesusonic the way it is? Asked by _gio (62.103.65.x) on September 22 2010, 1:44pm Reply on September 22 2010, 10:41pm: Well, it was a logical extension of AVS for audio, and it used the same basic compiled code system (EEL). Christophe and I wanted programmable FX in pedal form for guitar playing... Comment... Question: If winamp never happened, and you had to program at a company like Neo (The Matrix) do you think you would end up hating it all? Asked by AnalSeducer (76.220.32.x) on September 21 2010, 6:34pm Reply on September 21 2010, 10:17pm: Haha who knows. I'd hope I'd be able to find a gratifying job programming other places... Comment... Question: Should I pursue a career that is more likely to make me reasonably well off financially or one that might make me happy? Asked by roberttheiii (71.234.18.x) on September 21 2010, 4:32pm Reply on September 21 2010, 6:16pm (edited at September 21 2010, 6:18pm): I suppose if the one that makes you happy provides enough so that you're not constantly dealing with making ends meet, it might be the better choice.. but hell if I know, I've had been very fortunate to get paid to do what I enjoy... As I pontificate more, it seems more likely that you'd do something you enjoy and end up making decent money at it (with careful compromises), than the alternative of learning to enjoy something you despise. Comment... Question: I feel it so hard to understand "CopyBeforeWrite" (also "CopyOnWrite"?), could you please give me some easy ideas to learn this? Asked by dave (222.90.231.x) on September 20 2010, 8:22pm Reply on September 20 2010, 9:59pm: A simple summary: suppose you had a sheet of paper, and on it was information you wanted to keep and possibly change. You have a monkey sitting on each side of you, and any time you go to change a word, as you're about to write over it, the monkey on your left distracts you briefly, while the monkey on the right scribbles down on a separate piece of paper the word (or paragraph containing the it) you were about to overwrite. Kinda like that, except instead of two monkeys, you'd have the OS kernel, which would tag the page of memory as "read only", and if you go to write it, it would cause an exception, which the kernel would handle, copying the page of memory elsewhere, and marking the old page as writeable, and resuming. Comment... Question: A real question! I want to purchase from a group I like. They have Apple Lossless format and mp3 320kbps. What Would Justin Do? Asked by AnalSeducer (76.220.32.x) on September 20 2010, 1:11pm Reply on September 20 2010, 1:52pm: Same price? Losslesss all the way (since you can convert to mp3/aac/ogg/whatever you want). Different price? Well, depends, then... Comment... Question: Do you know much about paired-programming? i think i would hate it, but a lot of people are using it Asked by tacotime (170.146.225.x) on September 20 2010, 9:29am Reply on September 21 2010, 9:45am: Not really; I do know it's handy to have other people check your work, but it seems like forcing that could be annoying. Comment... Question: slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159570&cid=13365387 Do you agree with Carmack? When is ASM "good" these days? Asked by James (70.173.150.x) on September 18 2010, 9:04pm Reply on September 18 2010, 10:13pm: Yeah, he's spot on. Compilers (even ICC) still can't generate great SSE code. Which isn't to say I'd spend time writing assembly at this point -- it's rarely worthwhile. Having said that, I also agree with Carmack's point that knowing assembly is extremely valuable, as it enables you to optimize your higher level code more effectively (never mind debugging, as well). Comment... Question: How did you get started with programming? What books did you read (tutorials?)? Did you start with C on unix? Asked by Will (24.234.128.x) on September 18 2010, 2:16pm Reply on September 18 2010, 7:23pm: BASIC on Atari 800XL then Turbo Pascal on a 386sx, Turbo C++ 3.0 (programming C), then Watcom, then djgpp and gcc on linux, and so on. I really enjoyed the K&R C reference, as well as various books by Michael Abrash, and others (early on I was very into graphics stuff). When I look at my old code, though, it was bad. bad bad. Anyway. Comment... Question: haha jk hey, I wasn't that one who asked if you needed a 'contractor.' Everyone becomes a stalker by accident via google :p Asked by AnalSeducer (76.220.32.x) on September 18 2010, 11:57am Reply on September 18 2010, 7:23pm: :) I totally net-stalk people, too. Or wait that's just reading their blogs, err... Comment... Question: What's your opinion on functional programming (e.g., Haskell, Clojure, etc.)? Way of the future or just another fad? Asked by Jordan (70.67.190.x) on September 18 2010, 11:22am Reply on September 18 2010, 7:24pm: Never used it enough to form an opinion; never knowingly used software made with it to be intrigued. Comment... Question: Your thoughts about C++0x? the good things that you would love to use or the bad points you want to avoid. Asked by _gio (62.103.65.x) on September 17 2010, 2:38am Reply on September 18 2010, 10:38am: Most of it seems a bit extraneous, but a few things could be useful, like lambda functions, although I wasn't impressed with their syntax. Comment... Question: If you like watching Linus talk, this is very interesting: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVTWCPoUt8w Asked by Will (24.234.128.x) on September 16 2010, 2:19pm Reply on September 18 2010, 10:38am: I like the git one better, I didnt get through this one. Comment... Question: Are you planning on moving out of California? If so, I'm gonna miss you mannnn :-( Asked by AnalSeducer (71.142.65.x) on September 16 2010, 1:31pm Reply on September 18 2010, 10:38am: Why are you stalking me? Comment... Question: Will you come out and play? Ranch trip? Asked by Picasso (208.64.185.x) on September 14 2010, 3:53pm Reply on September 15 2010, 9:58pm: I hate fun. Mmm ranch though. Comment... Question: What did James mean when he said "You changed your location?" & what kind of stalkers do you get? Has any freaked you out? Asked by AnalSeducer (71.142.65.x) on September 14 2010, 3:53pm Reply on September 15 2010, 9:58pm: On my profile on our forums, I changed the text. I don't really get stalkers I was being facetious. Comment... Question: What is the current best guess schedule for reaper 4 alpha? :) Asked by James (68.225.40.x) on September 13 2010, 12:50pm Reply on September 13 2010, 6:51pm: This month probably, maybe next. Comment... Question: How did you go about learning x86 asm? Do you consider yourself expert, or enough to get by? Asked by Will (24.234.128.x) on September 11 2010, 7:32pm Reply on September 12 2010, 5:05am: I started with writing little bits and pieces of code with inline assembly and went from there. I think I got pretty good at writing stuff in asm, though maintaining it was another story, and I knew the timings for the 486 (and pairings for the Pentium and to some extent limitations of the P6) pretty well, and while it's meaningless now I think I retain a lot of that knowledge. Oh and I wrote a fair bit of MMX and 3DNow code, too, but not much SSE*. So, expert for 1999? I think once you get the concepts behind assembly, though, it can always be applied -- and to new architectures... For example, EEL2 has a bunch of asm stubs, which I've ported to x86_64 (pretty simple I guess) and PPC (involved reading a bunch of docs, looking at what gcc produces, etc). And then you need to know the ABIs too (sometimes targeting a new platform involves changing calling convention, etc, but not instruction set, anyway I digressed). Comment... Question: How many cups of coffee do you drink usually in one day? and what's the distribution? And do you drink instant coffee? Asked by dave (222.90.231.x) on September 9 2010, 7:48pm Reply on September 11 2010, 8:40am: Anywhere from 0-2, usually (0 usually involves some english breakfast tea). No instant coffee, no. Comment... Question: Why did you change your location from what I remember being San Fransisco to a coast? Asked by James (68.225.40.x) on September 7 2010, 7:30pm Reply on September 9 2010, 12:43pm: Cuts down on the stalkers, really. Comment... [newer questions] [unreplied] | [replied] | [recent comments] | [all] [older questions]

Copyright 2025 Justin Frankel. | RSS