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I'm working on the rasterizer portion of my truetype code, for which I found some public domain code that partially works - the parts I need anyway.
it's really hard to follow C code, so I'm porting it to C# before backporting it to C++ so that I can really understand it.
This isn't the only time I've done that. In fact, I often find myself going this route when coding something based on a codebase I don't understand at first.
Do you do this?
More I guess I'm curious how y'all go about decoding code that is either more complicated than you can readily understand, or too ugly to readily understand?
I port. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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What I like to do is create some integration tests that exercise the code paths and then debug the code to see what it's doing. The advantage of that is, with minor changes to the integration tests, I can verify my new code. That said, I do live in a world where integration testing is probably easier.
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If I was wiser and more disciplined that's what I would do. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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I find C much easier to understand than either C# or C++ 
GCS d--(d-) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I did too - until I "got into it", then C# is a whole load easier to read (and write).
One nice thing is that it prevents "silly mistakes" whereas C just shrugs it's shoulders and goes "Eh. He knows best, I'm sure" - leaving you with a PITA debug session becuas eyou read what you meant to write instead of what you did write (or I do).
Plus, the libraries are much better organised, and it supports large projects a lot easier as well.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I do the same thing. It's like being bilingual, when trying to read, listen or speak a second language, your mind interprets to your first language before you understand what is being communicated.
"When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others; same thing when you are stupid."
Ignorant - An individual without knowledge, but is willing to learn.
Stupid - An individual without knowledge and is incapable of learning.
Idiot - An individual without knowledge and allows social media to do the thinking for them.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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I've never translated code to another language to help understand it, but I've reformatted it as a way to study it line by line.
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Greg Utas wrote: I've never translated code to another language to help understand it, but I've reformatted it as a way to study it line by line.
This is what I do. If I don't understand the code, I have no idea how I'd translate it.
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BryanFazekas wrote: This is what I do. If I don't understand the code, I have no idea how I'd translate it.
If you don't understand a block of code at all, you can't translate it, but translating a code section that you think you understand into another language can be a very good test of whether you really do, since it forces you to concentrate on details of the implementation that you might otherwise skip over.
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Tequila tends to be more effective than port.
But, for the most part, I never use code written by others. I even try to avoid third-party DLLs.
Having said that... when I was trying to understand the spec for TELNET, having some working code available was quite valuable. But, understanding the code wasn't really the goal.
modified 6-Jul-21 12:25pm.
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honey the codewitch wrote: How do you understand cryptic code?
Very slowly, with many iterations of thinking it through, interspersed with head scratching, coffee, and experiments to see if I can mentally 'reconstruct' it.
honey the codewitch wrote: It's really hard to follow C code, so I'm porting it to C# before backporting it to C++ so that I can really understand it.
Wow, that's an interesting way but I can see why it would work.
The only thing for me would be going from C# to C++. Memory management in C++ requires a lot more conscious design thought in C++ than it does in C#, I think.
modified 6-Jul-21 16:21pm.
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It does but I have some patterns in how I craft the C# code that help it along. not "unsafe" or anything but using arrays instead of lists, and that sort of thing.
Real programmers use butterflies
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My first step is almost always renaming variables to make the names sensible. If it was C code, I'd step through it in C to do so. Once the names are sensible, everything else comes easy. I've seldom dug into a codebase with good naming conventions to start with. Ungh!
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honey the codewitch wrote: Do you do this?
Rewrite.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I usually can't understand it enough to rewrite it without porting it first, but that's me. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Understanding an application part - what does this code do (or tries to do). Running many times on different use cases. Adding a lot of logging/trace code and learning a logs in different use cases.
Logging depends on the platform - from OutputDebugString or log file to UART-based printf on embedded device.
Trying to make some simple changes and see what happens. Running and reading a logs again.
And finally, all this doesn't help to understand 10 lines of code written by real C++ guru - template template parameters + traits + 10-20 crazy Boost base classes + SFINAE + RAII + design patters etc. Such code goes to Recycle Bin - it never works. Anyway, I will be in the Recycle Bin soon, so it doesn't matter...
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11917640 Member wrote: template template parameters + traits + 10-20 crazy Boost base classes
Yeah. I do a lot of generic programming (GP) instead of OOP in C++ so templates are par for the course.
However, I dislike boost because of the level of abstraction. I already sideeye the STL for all the allocations it does, and I can't use it when targeting IoT because the Arduino framework doesn't make it available, probably because it can target 8 bit platforms with 8kB of RAM and 256kB of program space.
So I tend to agree. Unfortunately I find myself producing code (sans boost and often sans the STL) like that in order to get the compiler to do what I need. I wish it wasn't necessary because the code becomes so abstract it's really hard to follow.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Quote: it's really hard to follow C code, so I'm porting it to C# before backporting it to C++ so that I can really understand it.
I try to port it to C code.
I'm doing a lot of this kind of work, with assembly-like C code.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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honey the codewitch wrote: I'm porting it to C# before backporting it to C++
That's an interesting way of addressing the understanding issue... I still think it is easier to port direct to C++, since C is probably closer to C++ than C#, but then, I do not speak C# much-
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I just wish to understand how C is more cryptic than C++?
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I never said it was. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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No, you didn't, it just seemed that way to me. I wouldn't even bother with C# in between, but that's a personal opinion, still trying to understand the logic though.
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The reason I move it between unmanaged and managed code is it forces me to restructure it. I can't just get lazy and copypasta.
In the process of restructuring it, I grok it's machinations.
Furthermore, C# has a library for pretty much everything, so no matter what I'm doing in C++, there is pretty going to be the equiv in the .NET framework that I can rely on, so I can seal it off there and I don't have to import code like say, the code to do an HTTP request from C++, if that's not directly what I'm working on. I hope what I just wrote makes sense!
Real programmers use butterflies
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Ok, thanks, my bad I don't even think of things such as .NET, it doesn't exist in my current life. If I can't find a suitable library, I have to create the functionality. It's just a completely different environment.
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Besides, "cryptic" usually is a matter of who wrote it and how, not what language it happens to be in. Some of the most cryptic code I have run across was SQL written as a single line. Without parsing it, I would never have figured it out.
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