-
Jeg synes ethvert møblert hjem bør ha sin egen replikator. Og for
-å få min replikator på plass, har jeg som del av
-NUUGs
-3D-skriverprosjekt bestilt deler til en
-reprap fra utlandet, som skal
-bygges sammen slik at den kan demonstreres på Go Open 2009 i april.
-Foreløbig plan er å bygge to i parallell, en basert på byggesett
-fra utlandet, og en basert på deler skrevet ut på 3D-skriveren til
-Institutt for Informatikk ved Universitetet i Oslo. Jeg har fokusert
-på byggesettet, og håper noen andre vil ta ansvar for den
-hjemmelagede utgaven. :)
-
-
Nå er det den lange ventetiden som rår, etter at begge
-byggesettene er bestilt og betalt. Dog har visst den første pakken
-gått tapt etter at postens fikk den utlevert i Norge. Den er ferdig
-fortollet, og pakkelapp kom i postkassen før pakken var klar til
-henting. Det var 2008-11-07. Postens sporingssystem forteller at
-pakken ikke har beveget seg siden 2008-11-05, da den var innom
-omlastingsterminalen i Oslo. Dette var elektronikkbyggesettet som kom
-fra USA. Mekanikkbyggesettet er ennå ikke sendt fra England, og jeg
-håper det ikke går tapt på samme vis.
+
There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
+quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
+do not yet know them.
+
+
The first one is valgrind, a
+tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
+It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
+and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
+program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
+to report the source file name and line number where the problem
+occurs. It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
+X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
+'using uninitialised value in control logic'. This tool has made it
+trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
+reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
+
+
The second one is
+Coverity which is
+a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
+and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
+started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
+used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
+and the company behind it is running
+a community service for the
+free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
+their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
+found and fixed so far. It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
+X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
+Y lines O to P can never be executed'. The projects included in the
+community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
+reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
+
+
I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
+errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
+make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
+surrounded by today.