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Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28504]

Sat, 04 September 2010 06:13

jerson
Messages: 202
Registered: June 2010
Location: Bombay, India

Experienced Member

{ // Begin Rant
I wonder if you folks have experienced the agony of growing up from a newbie to intermediate to pro in UPP. I am now in that phase and refuse to give up after so long. At the boundary of newbie to intermediate, I think I have rubbed UPP/MINGW the wrong way and they have become angry with me.

All of a sudden last night, I realised none of the projects, be it mine or from any of the assemblies compiles and links. The linking phase was getting hung with 99% processor time. Out of frustration, I reinstalled the latest MinGw32 package 4.5.1 and Upp2625 which was working on my machine (I need the changes of Controls4u). Now, everything is back to normal and things are compiling and linking. I'm not sure if that can answer what I posted in another thread about problems in linking and compiling.

Makes me wonder, am I handicapped because I am a newbie? Or is something happening which has already been experienced by you folks?

} // End of rant.

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28505 is a reply to message #28504]

Sat, 04 September 2010 08:28

cbpporter
Messages: 1427
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

No, random hanging of the linker is something that I have not experienced.

But this is C++ and you will experience some very strange chain failures. After you start poking around deep in U++ sources, you will find that even subtle changes can break other build options. Some header tricks break BLITZ. It is easy to gradually build up a header dependency hell which will take you a lot to fix. And so on. With experience you will get faster at fixing these and even actively avoid them.

The sad truth is that if you want to get the most out of a toolkit like this, you need to be an advanced C++ coder and have advanced C++ building, linking and preprocessing knowledge. I don't think that someone who doesn't have this knowledge will have an easy time. The good news is that if you stick with it, you will get a lot of this knowledge just by using U++.

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28506 is a reply to message #28505]

Sat, 04 September 2010 09:00

jerson
Messages: 202
Registered: June 2010
Location: Bombay, India

Experienced Member

cbpporter wrote on Sat, 04 September 2010 11:58

I don't think that someone who doesn't have this knowledge will have an easy time. The good news is that if you stick with it, you will get a lot of this knowledge just by using U++.

Amen to that. I have no option but to stick it out as I've dug my heels in deep Wink

I've taken on a full blown project that is 40% complete in UPP. I'm not giving up so easy, so, I'll definitely learn along the way. My only hope is to learn tricks that can speed up this process of learning. I can say U++ is not a very tough thing to learn up since I've achieved all this in 2 months since my first post in July. The finer nuances I'm sure will appear as light bulbs on the way. Smile

A lot of what I learnt was due to help from folks here on this forum esp. Koldo whose help is ongoing.

An active forum supported by senior members is definitely a good thing for U++ and I wish I can support folks here someday in my own little way.

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28509 is a reply to message #28506]

Sat, 04 September 2010 14:51

koldo
Messages: 3432
Registered: August 2008

Senior Veteran

Hello

I think this community is excellent. It is always important to:

- Check the doc. It could be better, but is rather complete
- Check the Forum
- Give very short testcases. It requires time to simplify a problem in your project to convert it in a testcase. However you will get easier an answer. A good testcase will be solved in a 100% of times by the Forum. Smile

Best regards
Iñaki

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28510 is a reply to message #28504]

Sat, 04 September 2010 16:42

jerson
Messages: 202
Registered: June 2010
Location: Bombay, India

Experienced Member

Hi Koldo

I agree with you. A lot of the information is in the help files and reference material. You just need to search for it patiently. I was trying to figure out how to modify a vector and couldn't understand it well. Then I did the NTL tutorials and now I am able to work comfortably.

Regards

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28512 is a reply to message #28510]

Sat, 04 September 2010 21:29

koldo
Messages: 3432
Registered: August 2008

Senior Veteran

Yes Jerson

And many times when one (me for example) have a problem, it is hard to prepare a good testcase (you are tired, hurry, ...).

But for other person to try to understand what happens with your code, it is necessary to put it very simple. In this case, almost all problems can be detected in few minutes (less than ten) Smile

Best regards
Iñaki

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28516 is a reply to message #28504]

Sun, 05 September 2010 01:12

gprentice
Messages: 260
Registered: November 2005
Location: New Zealand

Experienced Member

Quote:

All of a sudden last night, I realised none of the projects, be it mine or from any of the assemblies compiles and links. The linking phase was getting hung with 99% processor time. Out of frustration, I reinstalled the latest MinGw32 package 4.5.1 and Upp2625 which was working on my machine (I need the changes of Controls4u). Now, everything is back to normal and things are compiling and linking. I'm not sure if that can answer what I posted in another thread about problems in linking and compiling.

Since I don't post here much and probably don't know what I'm talking about, I'm reluctant to comment but I'm curious.

If the linker locks up, I don't see what that's got to do with being a U++ newbie or having advanced C++ knowledge. A linker shouldn't lock up no matter what input it's given.

What does "linking phase" mean? Does U++ go into a loop somewhere? If so, I guess you would have said so, and posted the output.

If re-installing the tools fixes the problem, then it doesn't seem likely that the problem is in the setup of your project... ah, but you said no projects will link - they all lock up. I guess a U++ expert could comment on what might cause this. If it happens again, I guess you could do a new install of firstly just U++ in a different folder, build a simple project and if it builds, compare files across the U++ directories to see what is different. If it doesn't build, then make a copy of your MingW folder, re-install MingW and compare the two MingW folders and try and build from the original folder. i.e. change just one thing at a time.

Googling for "Mingw linker hang" doesn't turn up much but I guess linkers hang occasionally, but if re-installing fixes the problem, it suggests something was corrupted somewhere.

Graeme

BTW - did you try "rebuild all"?

[Updated on: Sun, 05 September 2010 01:15]

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28517 is a reply to message #28516]

Sun, 05 September 2010 03:01

jerson
Messages: 202
Registered: June 2010
Location: Bombay, India

Experienced Member

gprentice wrote on Sun, 05 September 2010 04:42

A linker shouldn't lock up no matter what input it's given.

What does "linking phase" mean?

If it happens again, I guess you could do a new install of firstly just U++ in a different folder, build a simple project and if it builds, compare files across the U++ directories to see what is different. If it doesn't build, then make a copy of your MingW folder, re-install MingW and compare the two MingW folders and try and build from the original folder. i.e. change just one thing at a time.

BTW - did you try "rebuild all"?

Hi Graeme

I agree - the toolkit shouldn't end up tied in its own shoelaces.
Linking phase means - the output window of the IDE says Linking..... and stays there forever. The cpu slows to a crawl and the process explorer says ld.exe is eating 99% of the cpu time. Oh, and ending the build doesn't help either as the IDE is satisfied that it has ended the build, but it hasn't. Ld is still running in the background. Perhaps the IDE signals ld to stop, but ld ignores it?

I tried everything I could think of including a rebuild all, restarting the IDE and rebuilding, building in Debug mode, Optimal mode. Just nothing would link. Even the standard example codes would not link. That's when I realized something's broken and decided to not waste time on why, but just move on.

I wish I had the foresight to have done what you suggested, but...

I do not know if this is related to the problem, but, the last thing I did before this problem occured was to read the .info files in the MinGW/doc directory using my text editor. Perhaps invadvertantly, I must've saved a .info file.

Regards

[Updated on: Sun, 05 September 2010 03:04]

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28645 is a reply to message #28517]

Thu, 09 September 2010 09:52

cbpporter
Messages: 1427
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Here is somewhat relevant story: yesterday I opened up a project, made some modifications, but when I compiled things started to behave strangely. Things would not link up properly and the compiler ignored an obvious syntax error. It took me a couple of minutes to realize what it I needed to do: clean my projects. After rebuilding everything was fine. There are also other things that can happen. Because of BLITZ sometime you can't pull of some sloppy redeclarations or hacks like you could do in standard compiling model. Also, sometimes I can remove a method definition but leave the declaration inside, and it will not be picked up as an error because it can still find it somewhere. After a forced rebuild everything is working OK again and the linker will complain regarding the missing function.

I guess such problems are bound to occur and learning to recognize and deal with them is something that is part of "growing up". After the initial bafflement at the strange compiler behavior I knew that I need to clean my packages. A newbie would probably waste a lot of time or even give up on this beast called C++.

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28646 is a reply to message #28645]

Thu, 09 September 2010 10:11

jerson
Messages: 202
Registered: June 2010
Location: Bombay, India

Experienced Member

cbpporter wrote on Thu, 09 September 2010 13:22

I knew that I need to clean my packages. A newbie would probably waste a lot of time or even give up on this beast called C++.

Is this clean you talk of same as the 'Build->Clean' or maybe 'Build->Clean Package' option or is it similar to tidying up the code you wrote?

If it is the first type, then wouldn't a Build->Rebuild all do the same? Surely - being a newbie can expose you to the vagaries of the language - scary Shocked

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28649 is a reply to message #28504]

Thu, 09 September 2010 10:18

mr_ped
Messages: 826
Registered: November 2005
Location: Czech Republic - Praha

Experienced Contributor

Rebuild all does the same, and it's the first thing you should try when you hit weird linking errors.

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Re: Problems in growing up from newbie [message #28651 is a reply to message #28649]

Thu, 09 September 2010 10:29

cbpporter
Messages: 1427
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Doesn't really matter that much. Clean package should be enough but clean is OK too. Or Clean UPPOUT. Or rebuild. I don't really use rebuild. Or format your drive and reinstall everything Smile

. The important think is to recognize when it is your fault that things are not working and when the tools decided to act strangely and get rid of the binaries that caused problems.

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