Here is my published reusable c++ code, which includes a version of a sorted vector that I’ve been using for years. It may not be academically sterile C++, I’m more interested in getting things done, and I had to crank out some new functionality needed for my upcoming media manager. But it should be solid production code. It glues together std::vector with std::sort, std::lower_bound, etc., which is a pretty fscking logical thing to do – who wants to redo that every time you have data to manage? :> My favorite part is the find_it_or_fail() function, the only real extension of functionality. Basically, it extends lower_bound() in a logical way, so you either get a hit, or failure (indicated by returning vector::end()). There are also versions of member functions with predicate function parameters, to help you use it with vectors of object pointers, which isn’t exactly straightforward in C++. Let me know if it seems useful or sucky. :>
Google implemented my results preview concept. You’ll start seeing integrated previews now in your google results – they did a great job! It’s nice to be validated, and frankly, nice to have the monkey off my back as far as trying to repeatedly resurrect Google Results Walker. Re-engineering someone else’s web site is fun as hell, until you’ve over-committed, and then the original website exits stage left on you and invalidates all your work.
It sure was a fun ride while it lasted – 50,000 downloads in its heyday, when I was knee-deep in the Mozilla Add-ons developer community. That’s the most successful software I’ve ever written, in terms of users. Coupled with the joy of a completely cross-platform solution!
So to sum up, thanks Google for improving your search in exactly the way I thought needed it to be done. :>
Just a quick note: I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot today just because I READ this article. Nice bomb drop. We’ll see what I do with it… I think it’s a bit too crunchy to put into use – I don’t feel like dealing with any gotchas on all the versions of all the compilers I’m using, as there are a LOT these days. But it has lead me to research other progress in the C++ standard. The boost function library, which has been accepted into TR1, is already available in some compiler spaces, whoop.
I started down this path because I wanted to store a predicate function in my sorted_vector class. For now I can get by without this stuff, always passing in a functor to the function calls that need it, but that’s not as elegant.
Meanwhile, it’s upwards and onwards with QT slots and signals – QT is getting the job done for me in a major way. There are boost::signal and boost::bind as alternatives to that, but I’m really kicking out the jams with QT, so I’m not stopping now. More to come soon, hopefully.
UPDATE: C++0x is hopefully coming soon. Wikipedia, as usual, gives a nice overview and some nice guidance. In particular, I need to avoid std::auto_ptr and function object base classes (std::unary_function, std::binary_function) which are slated for removal(!). Sounds like I need to keep my eye out for polymorphic wrappers for function objects, they may be just the ticket I need. Check out the whole standard, it’s juicy! :>
UPDATE 2: Here is a nice rundown of options for the sort predicate function, leading into the C++0x solution.
