This is a collection of notes I have made while porting an application from MFC to wxWidgets. It is intended partly as a tutorial and partly to document some of the roadblocks I met on the way.

In this third installment of our series on GUI programming with the Qt C++ toolkit, we're going to show how to design dialog boxes (or "dialogs") using Qt.

Since STL is a very large topic to be covered in an article or two, we will focus on the most commonly used generic classes: vector and string.

In this part, I will be showing how to use the Glade application for rapid window creation.

In my previous article we learnt the important optimisation process, the steps that ensure any optimisation really is worthwhile. Being eager code monkeys, I can see that you're all desperate for practical code optimisation techniques.

So here they are - in this final part we'll investigate specific code techniques for optimisation. Just don't tell anyone that I showed you. To redress the theological balance, we'll also see how to avoid optimisation in the first place.

In the first part of this series, we looked at what it means to optimise code, and saw the cases for and against optimisation. In this article, we'll look at the process of optimisation. We'll see the correct, methodical approach that will lead to solid, worthwhile code optimisations.

“There is more to life than increasing its speed” - Mahatma Gandhi

We live in a fast food culture. Not only must our dinner arrive yesterday, our car should be fast, and our entertainment instant. Our code should also run like lightning. I want my result. And I want it now.

Ironically, writing fast programs takes a long time.

Optimisation is a spectre hanging over software development, as W.A. Wulf observed. “More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason – including blind stupidity”.

It’s a well-worn subject, with plenty of trite soundbites bounding around, and the same advice being served time and time again. But despite this, a lot of code is still not developed sensibly. Programmers get sidetracked by the lure of efficiency and write bad code in the name of performance.

In these articles we’ll address this. We’ll tread some familiar ground and wander well-worn paths, but look out for some new views on the way. Don’t worry – if the subject’s optimisation it shouldn’t take too long...

To err is human.

Finding fault.

Software architecture

Software evolution or software revolution

A passing comment

What's in a name?

The outer limits

There and Back Again