22 May 2006

Because I'm an idiot, that's why

I've tried to ensure this blog is relatively free of technical stuff, the gory details of my life as a code monkey. But this thing has bit me twice now, so I'm recording it here. Maybe it will help me to remember what's wrong next time.

IF you are forced to use Borland C++ Builder 6, and IF you are getting really sick of your project taking a really long time to load, go into includes\VCL and delete all the *.HDP files. They're apparently some kind of precompiled optimisation, to make building your code all super fast and shiny. This is a lie. On a suitably large project, these files will cause your compilation to take so long you need to shave between code changes. Don't believe me?

This morning my code was taking 1057.36 seconds to compile. That's right. Seventeen minutes. I deleted the HDP files and it's gone down to 267.08 seconds. Four minutes!.

Borland have stolen hours of my time and I can never get it back. I could have been spending that time in silent contemplation of the beauty of nature. Or even, ya know, writing more code and getting my job done faster. And yes, I'm an idiot because I didn't remember when installing builder on my new laptop to delete the default optimisation files. But really, what the hell kind of optimisation is that? One that makes me use way too many bold and italic tags, that's what.

Of course, you could ask why I'm using C++ Builder 6 instead of, oh, any new language/IDE from the last 50 years, but that's a whole other story and it's not being told here.

Anyway. Rant over. Next time I promise nothing technicable.

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