CEEFIT: I miss you

I first noticed on Sep 24th that the web-site that hosts the C++ implementation of FIT (CEEFIT) was gone. I get a "DNS Error. Cannot find server" error for the URL http://ceefit.woldrich.com/. Even http://www.woldrich.com/ is no longer found, with the same error might I add.

This is not good. Indicates that the company that hosted/developed CEEFIT is gone taking some of the documentation for CEEFIT with it. While the source code for CEEFIT is still available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fit/files/, some of the implementation details that were key for me to customize various aspects of CEEFIT are no longer available. If you use any of the downloads that I provide through the "My Downloads" section, you have the necessary header files and libraries to use CEEFIT in your IntegratedTests. But you would need the original source code and documentation for any customizations.

I have emailed Dave (using an old email address I have, which unfortunately is part of the woldrich.com domain) and hope I will hear back from him. I have requested he upload the documentation for CEEFIT to sf.net and I am really, really hoping he grants wishes.

In the short term I am screwed, but fortunately there is an alternate implementation of FIT in C++ available through http://www.fitnesse.org/. I have briefly tried fitnesse and have found the requirements they place to use their library (that I learn their Wiki markup to create tests and the ability to run a HTTP server on my build machine to run the tests) quite burdensome. But if I am going to continue C++ development and want to run Integrated Tests, I guess I have no other choice. But this time, I will be careful enough to create a personal mirror of www.fitnesse.org for myself, in case this too disappears off the face of the world(wideweb).

But honestly this is one more of the reasons why I love open source. If CEEFIT was a closed source library and the company developing it, shut down, then I would definitely be screwed. Since I have the source for CEEFIT, I can continue to develop it (if I had the requisite skills, of course).

So does CEEFIT going AWOL affect you?

Did uninstalling SolidWorks delete half my hard drive?

I recently had to re-install SolidWorks 2009 on my laptop. During the uninstall process I noticed that several of my programs in the "C:\Program Files" folder went missing. Now I am not the one to start pointing fingers just yet, but this episode completely freaked me out. I had SolidWorks installed under "C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp" so would be more than surprised if this was in fact an error on the part of the SolidWorks uninstaller, but at the time of uninstallation, my laptop was not being used and no other "application window" was open. I also rarely log on with administrative privileges on either my XP or Vista laptop, so pretty low chance I accidentally deleted these folders myself (if I was that insane). I also did the usual checks for viruses, spyware and other junk, in vain.

Oh well! That's life I guess.

But during the reinstallation process I realized a quirk in the SolidWorks installation. Does it make sense to put header files required for SolidWorks Add-in development under the "samples" directory? Well that's what SolidWorks has done. So if you are developing SolidWorks add-ins, don't forget to select the "Examples" option in the SolidWorks Installation Manager, during the installation. Else you will not have the headers (e.g. "amapp.h") that you need for VC++ Add-in development.

Who uses BRL-CAD? An Anonymous answer

This post is more of a response to a comment I received on my previous post titled And the World's Oldest Source Code Repository is.... Since the commenter chose to remain anonymous, I had no way to respond other than to blog a new post. I will resume posting "useful" information with my next post.

Firstly, Thanks 'Anonymous' (I knew I should not allowed people to comment on my posts anonymously, but it encourages more commenting from what I can tell), for your very detailed answer. I wonder if you are one of the seemingly many contributors to the BRL-CAD source code.

I would have been happier if you were able to provide some links to sites or people who use BRL-CAD, but I think I may be able to find at least 1 contact inside the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) who could enlighten me further.

It has been a long time since I downloaded and tested the latest version of BRLCAD. I am hoping to be surprised by their user-friendliness though from their screenshots (mostly updated in Mar 2008), it still appears command-driven rather than menu-driven.