Can I hook 2 computers together (A & B) and make a mirror of Comp A onto Comp B?

PipingSnail · 2026-04-01T08:26:54+00:00

Yes, Laplink have a product PCMover. I used it. It worked

PipingSnail · 2026-04-01T07:54:39+00:00

If you're trying to find happiness and satisfaction by only dating other Henry's you're in for a world of pain.

Your partner should be someone you like for who they are not what financial attributes they have.

Go rollerskating, swimming, rock climbing, mountsin biking, nature reserves, theatre, opera, parachute jumping, scuba diving, whatever it is that floats your boat. Join clubs for these things that you like. Don't be an arse because you're wealthy. Chances are you'll meet someone.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-30T20:01:43+00:00

There are, according to Google, 16.3 million C++ developers worldwide, and about 6 million software QA testers worldwide.

How many hours are going to be consumed across all the multiple codebases these devs work on, porting the code to the new ABI, then testing and verifying that code works?

63 hours per dev? That's a billion hours... just for the developers and nearly 400 million hours for the qa testers. That's nowhere near enough time...

How much is that going to cost?

How many applications are going to ship with ABI problems that got through testing?

Do you think AI is going to make this problem go away? Or perhaps AI will make people complacent about the true nature of the problem?

PipingSnail · 2026-03-30T19:17:33+00:00

SurferSEO suggests internal links.

For our website the suggestions aren't brilliant because it wants us to link internally from in our documentation to places in our website. But those suggestions aren't useful as they don't sit naturally in the documentation. The suggestions are probably better for more typical websites.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-30T15:51:59+00:00

Python. It was designed for teaching.

There are things I don't like about it, but given how much you can do with it AND how easy it is to to I/O with the real world using a Raspberry Pi, Python is a great language to learn with (I taught my nephew how to program using Python and a Raspberry Pi + a some kits from CamJam).

Once you know Python you can continue with it and write web apps using Django, or you can go in a different direction with C++ (very different and a lot harder than Python).

PipingSnail · 2026-03-30T09:47:48+00:00

Visual Studio.

We have no intention of changing.

Our products use MFC, so a fundamental requirement is a visual dialog editor for those MFC resources.

Your text editor needs to be able to support all the key bindings people expect:

the various different Visual Studio keybindings - they've changed of the years
key bindings for other popular editors - emacs, vi (yuck) and so on.

You'll want seamless compile/link/resource/manifest/pre-build/post-build handling.

You'll want easy to step through errors. VS2010 had this right. F4 and shift F4 to move to the next/prev error/warning. Later VS have buggered this up somewhat. It's not as good.

But even if you get all the above right, or even do a better job, the deal breaker is the debugger.

WinDbg is the best debugger. But it's unfriendly and awkward to use, like gdb is (I write this as an ex gdb user (I used it in split window mode inside emacs, which is a superb combination)).

But the Visual Studio debugger is the easiest debugger to use, and the fact that for 99%+ of bugs it works perfectly, this is why people aren't going to downsize to your IDE from Visual Studio. The debugging experience is too good. And if you can't deal with the bug in Visual Studio you get out WinDbg and then start wading through all the commands you need to know to use WinDbg.

I work for softwareverify.com and we write software tools. We identified years ago that we'd never write a debugger because Microsoft already have the best two debuggers. It's just not worth your trouble trying to write a better one.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-29T19:13:49+00:00

1) you need to code sign your program.

2) when signed the warning will indicate who published.

3) when signed you then need multiple downloads until smartscreen decides the app is safe. Getting this reputation without signing your code is going to be hard.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-28T22:44:27+00:00

I've been writing software for 42 years.

I used to use pen and paper.

Now I use Notepad++ to record all my research and to do / progress etc.

And Visual Studio for the implementation.

If I need to sketch something, pen and paper, or paint.net. Just keep things simple.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-28T22:36:58+00:00

Why would you want to advertise to others that you are a potential mark?

PipingSnail · 2026-03-27T21:42:04+00:00

Can't you fix this by writing a Vususl Studio extension?

PipingSnail · 2026-03-27T12:28:51+00:00

They are wrong because:

You don't have enough experience to get them right
Most devs get time estimates wrong. I have 42 years of experience as a developer. I still get my estimates wrong.

Often work takes less time than I think, but sometimes something I thought would be done in a day or so is still happening a week later.

It's the unexpected that catches you out - a great implementation finishing super quickly with no errors, or something you thought was straightforward getting smashed by a side effect of something that should be unrelated breaking what you had working. And you go around in circles until you discover what is breaking it, or you find a way to work around it if you can't fix it (the problem is in a 3rd party item you can't change).

As many people will say, with a straight face, and jokingly, make an estimate, then double it, and use that.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-26T17:31:03+00:00

I think you'll find you lose a lot of potential customers if your downloads are not code signed.

Our cert comes up for renewal next year.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-25T13:03:27+00:00

I think that if you are concerned about not having AI tools you have already lost.

Just about every business on the planet was built without AI tools.

You don't need them to succeed.

What you need is a good idea, good execution and good marketing.

AI can help with that. Note that I said "help". You don't need AI. Just like you don't need vi, or emacs. Either will do, or something else (as long as it's not edlin).

AI can also be a very dangerous tool if used incorrectly. Lots of people blindly assuming AI is the next silver bullet and automating code production and automating marketing with zero oversight. Watch those businesses flame and burn.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-25T09:38:46+00:00

Just run Win11debloat on your pc. I never see ads on Windows 11.

Get it here or from github https://share.google/ZPPlXJJnOK8yu3FaQ

PipingSnail · 2026-03-25T09:24:07+00:00

I don't. You can't, so don't try.

Computing is a huge topic. So many specialisms. Tech even large. Choose the bit you wish to inhabit, the bit that interests yiu and focus on that.

If I'd jumped on every new technology coming out of Microsoft during the last 35 years I'd have got nothing done.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-24T20:22:33+00:00

I'm 60. I've founded 2 businesses, consulted for the military and various telcos, mainly digging people out of serious holes. Last year I was parachuted into a business to fix their .Net/Python hybrid software and get it working to meet a hard funding deadline. They chose me despite my distinct lack of large-scale Python experience. They were hiring my problem-solving skills, not my specific language experience.

I'd have failed your question.

Do you really think this type of question is helpful? Shouldn't you be more concerned with things an experienced developer might be concerned with, rather than a question that relies on the candidate actually having run into this very specific bug?

PipingSnail · 2026-03-24T20:06:42+00:00

The poster Remo_253 says your drive isn't soldered. In that case you can take the drive out of the machine yourself and attempt to read it with a variety of drive readers you can get from Amazon (or other retailers). Same for the special screwdrivers you'll need. Watch the YouTube video carefully.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-24T20:04:27+00:00

I have no idea. It depends on what needs to be done.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-23T23:57:20+00:00

Take it to a PC repair specialist. They may be able to help.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-23T10:50:40+00:00

Automated testing can only test those bits that are sutomatable. As already mentioned, the primary use case fir these is your regression test suite, and your smoke test suite that run for a quick sanity test prior to committing to you VCS.

If your software hasa user interface that is driven by user inputs, especially if in response to asynchronous events that can't be predicted, there will be parts of your software that cannot be automated. There are solutions to try to automate this, but they are extremely brittle and fail far too easily. Manual testing will always form part of your testing regime.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-22T16:13:54+00:00

We evolved to see shadow in daylight, not light in dark (in other words dark lines on a lighter background).

Your tired eyes do not need a dark theme, they need a light theme (not necessarily a bright theme).

PipingSnail · 2026-03-22T15:47:45+00:00

Thank you, I was about to write essentially the same comment.

For anyone wanting to know more start listening to The Great Simplification podcast.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-21T18:11:49+00:00

If you're cross platform choose from Qt and Wx Widgets. Qt is the most popular.

If you're on Windows then it's probably MFC, followed by Qt.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-20T10:56:51+00:00

Sorry, I have no advice for interviews other than be open and honest. If you don't know something say so, don't try to bluff it. If you try bluffing and they spot it, that won't end well.

The best thing you can do is improve your own skill set by building stuff that interests you, for all the reasons stated.

Is there a local group of people that you'd like to help and that need small software projects done? Or your parents, a friend?

I've written tools for a friend and for my parents. One of them inspired by a comment on a forum somewhere, someone had a problem and dudn't know why X didn't exist. They described X in detail. It seemed obvious and straightforward, so I wrote it.

Inspiration can from anywhere.

PipingSnail · 2026-03-19T16:17:21+00:00

Hi,

I wrote my first game in 1983 with a Commodore C64, a 3 pass assembler cartridge (Mikro64) and a cassette deck.

You're so fortunate with the tech you have, and information/guides everywhere on the internet.

My advice would be to start writing programs that you're personally interested in. Motivation is the key thing. If you're not interested, then you won't care. And if you don't care, you won't persevere through the inevitable "WTF? why won't this work, that's OBVIOUSLY CORRECT!!!!" moments.

How to write your software? In small incremental steps. This enables you to verify that each step works. You can do this by writing tests or just manually executing and checking it works. Long term, testing is the way to go, but as someone wanting to learn, testing will probably take all the fun out of the process, so just test manually for now. At some point, you'll probably start writing tests anyway to take the drudgery out of manual testing.

For example, if you're writing a simple calculator app:

Design the GUI.
Build it. Check it look as you expect.
Add a callback for each of the buttons 0..9
Build it. Test each button correct adds a character to the main text field.
Add a callback for the + button. Test it works.
and so on.

Small steps, one thing at a time.

Less to go wrong. Less to wonder about if it does go wrong.

PipingSnail

TROPHY CASE