Header files... Been there... that's pretty much what I had to do when I was
handed the task of getting a communications component adapted to new
optional sub-protocols.   

This one was messy as the host protocol was a ENQ-WAIT-FOR (ACK or TIMEOUT)
sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the timeout on the remotes varied as it was
looped based and on 3 different micro's with different speeds and
instructions per cycles.  The short of it is the remotes would drop carrier
if they weren't asked to do something they knew(they'd not NACK a bad
request).   I ended up changing order of the ENQS (mostly supported ones
first) as well as making the timeing self adapt.
 
I was given a few source files and these were poorly documented and the
target executable ran as a component of an automation package which used
desqview (remember that one?).    I ended up separating the source and
making a natively running debug (project)version that used the same files
(edits would alter both projects except for their respective interfaces).
I would gather this is similar, but much smaller, to what Choppy did on his
previously mentioned project.


Hmm..it seems today, I still dabble in embedded and communication stuff.
Ahh well, old habits die hard.


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of David Jackson
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 11:17 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [brlug-general] Diving in to Complex Projects with
Established Codebases



I am old-fashioned, but the first thing I do when diving into someone 
else's code is to print out the header files.  Almost invariably it is 
more helpful to know what functions and declarations have been made 
ahead of time than anything else.

Also, it is important to remember that the original designers of a piece 
of code more than likely considered some of the same solutions that you 
might be considering when looking over their code, so it's wise to 
consider why they might not have done something, rather than just why 
they did something.  Don't re-invent the wheel, only to have to invent 
it again.

David

Banker, Craig wrote:

>Quick question to the fellow coders out there...
>
>
>What do you do to bring yourself up to speed on complex coding projects?
>
>This one is very pertinant to those who want to contribute effort to open
>source projects...
>
>Anybody care to share some insight or battle stories, perhaps?
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>General mailing list
>[email protected]
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>
>  
>


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