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Kevin Yank opins on the effect services like Google’s App Engine may have on web hosting choices. By abstracting away the details of configuring and deploying web apps for a particular host system, services like App Engine and Heroku may give developers more time to concentrate on providing business value (creating applications instead of fighting with servers). The greatest benefit may accrue to independent developers, students and hobby developers, who haven’t the time, money or server-fu to set up and administer their own dedicated server, virtual or otherwise.

Came across a useful link: www.osalt.com Open Source Alternative - Find Open Source Alternatives to commercial software. Thanks to Jimmy, who made note of osalt.com in his comment to Jeff Atwood’s post on the value of open source vs. commercial software on Jeff’s always thoughtful blog, Coding Horror.

Koen deWitters published an article on game loop design that should be of interest to anyone who designs software. He explains not only how to design a game loop, but why one technique is better than another, with simple, clear examples.

I’m taking COMP 2617 C++ for Object Oriented Software Development at BCIT, and using Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition to do my homework. Pretty sweet little IDE, lots of Pro VS 2005 goodness for free!

But - why does the .ncb file (Intellisense parser database) for my dinky little C++ program, all of 160 lines in one 5Kb .cpp file, weigh in at over 2Mb?! According to Li Shao in this thread on the MSDN forum, “In VS2005, we have made change to remove this prebuilt ncb and dynamically parsed the files including the system headers into project ncb.”, in response to the original poster, who complained that “… an NCB file of 50KB under VS 2003 now has 500-600 KB, a 200 KB NCB under VS 2003 now has about 2 MB. And NCB files that used to have a size of 2-3MB now have 25-30 MB.” Sheesh! This is progress?

Robert Scoble’s wise words on what to do if you’re laid off in 2008 recession apply no matter what the weather…