What’s Your JoeDog doing now? He’s knee-deep in old C code. This code generates software that calculates the optimum way to cut sheets of linoleum as they roll off a production line. Aren’t you glad you asked? How old is this code? It was last updated in 1999 when it was ported to HP-UX.

You know how an old song can take you back — sometimes to a good place, sometimes to hell? Old code works like that. This project was coded by other humans, but Your JoeDog sees his own flaws in it. He sees techniques that remind him to hang himself back in 1999.

Nobody codes like that anymore. There’s a reason why we’ve abandoned some techniques in favor of others. For the past two weeks, Your JoeDog has been dereferencing variables, debugging memory leaks and trying to figure out what’s whacking his stack. Context is everything, people. In this one, you don’t want anything whacking your stack.

Now siege already encapsulates much of his current programming philosophy. It’s written in C but it relies on object-oriented architecture. If you encapsulate memory management it makes it easier to pinpoint flaws.

Unfortunately, his personal projects haven’t kept up with industry standards. This coding experience has prompted him to fix his sins before they become unmanageable. Your JoeDog updated to gcc-4.7.4 and he watched the warnings fly! This version fixes all of those warnings. There’s nothing sexy about it but you should probably upgrade anyway.

[JoeDog: Siege-3.0.9]