Today, after trying to install a few more bugtrackers, I decided to write my own one, using PHP and PostgreSQL.
Books, part I and still waiting for graphics
Friday the first of several books I ordered arrived: 3D Game Engine Architecture. I didn’t have time yet to read it completely (it’s over 700 pages), but I had a quick glance at the engine that comes with it (it’s called Wild Magic) and of course the book itself, and I’m confident that it was worth the money. Really loads of interesting stuff in there, and it’s written in a clear manner. Just be aware this is not a book for people who don’t know C++ or maths well – a solid background in both areas is needed.
I’ve been playing around with Python again during the last days, writing a small script. Python is really amazing, especially when it comes to tasks where you’re working on a not-clearly defined dataset. In this particular example, the input data was corrupted, and even worse, the tool which exported it expected the same corrupted data back (in case you wonder: It was a malformed CSV file). Writing a cleanup function took me only minutes (thanks to the excellent built-in string library), same goes for the easy-to-use yet very flexible CSV parser. It took me no more than 2 hours to complete the script, including bug fixing, and in C++ it would have surely taken me twice the time.
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Patents and bugzilla
Today, the patent decision in Europe has been delayed again (Thank you, Poland)… I’m kinda scared of what is going to become law probably – see yourself what will happen at NoSoftwarePatents. Good luck, guys, let’s hope you’ll win, and not the patent lobby.
Some more happy news: After browsing around the BugZilla homepage, I discovered that the next build (2.20) will have probably support for PostgreSQL. Though MySQL is still free for commercial use as a database backend, I don’t trust them any more … You never know when they’ll change their mind again.
At the moment, I’m writing a small converter tool for a friend, and mastering my asset pipeline. My graphics card has changed it status to “delivery unsure” today, no idea when I’ll get my new rig complete.
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Code review and new rig incoming
Today, I started browsing the source code more closely, looking at what class was supposed to do. Good that we’ve been writing a TDD and loads of comments back in those days 
I also sorted out a compile error today, seems that some windows include file defined min, max. This lead to a problem with the Math::min, Math::max template functions. Wondering where those defines came from, as the initial check compiled fine.
Some happy news: My new rig is nearly complete. Got the CPU and RAM today, only parts missing are the graphics card, the mainboard and – for strange reasons – the DVD drive. Hope to get it till the end of the month, and then, it’s time to LAN 
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