System update going wrong and first steps with VirtualBox

Today was the day I would perform some major system updates. The major system updates (read: toolchain etc...) were all updated without a problem.

But there were also updates for Qt and KDE waiting to be installed. And for a moment I forgot that I have my system set up to compile everything with as much debug information as possible. Installing most updates goes without a problem untill the dreadfull Qt Webkit package.

This package already failed multiple times in the past (I still haven't learned). The reason is that this package is awefully big. One giant enormouse stupendously large library. And with debuggin information, you can guess what a limit of 2GB of ram will do... crash of course. It is not possible to build Qt Webkit on a normal computer when you want to have debugging information in it. I would love to see this package being split up in managable parts.

Rebooting and not starting any X server, restarting the build of Qt Webkit and installing it works ok. So, now the rest of the system is busy updating.

This of course halted my plans to write some chapters for the user manual of the Static Code Quality plugin.

But now that I'm back home, I have another computer and I'm now starting to experiment with VirtualBox.
First steps are rough, but that's just my learning process.

First guest OS: debian. WTF!!! This is 2010 and this thing can't even easily install a desktop environment?
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but my first experiences with Debian are very bad. (I use Gentoo, and most people say that it's too difficult. Well, Debian is 10x more difficult than Gentoo).

Instrumentation plugin for Qt Creator

Next to the Static Code Quality plugin, I'm also researching an instrumentation plugin for Qt Creator.

This instrumentation plugin will use tools like Systemtap and DTrace. This unfortunately limits the plugin to unix/linux systems. Windows does not contain, as far as I know, tools like Systemtap or DTrace, or they will be extremely expensive. I would love to know a Windows alternative I can use for this plugin.

The goal is the get something similar like Apple Instruments inside Qt Creator.
However, I'm still experimenting with ideas and implementations, so no concrete goals yet.
http://gitorious.org/qt-creator-instrumentation-plugin/pages/Home

The complexity of building Qt Creator plugins

Building Qt Creator plugins can be very complex for regular users.
The plugins all rely on the Qt Creator source code, and more specific, some of the headers and .pri files.

Usually, or almost always, these files are not installed by the package management system of a distribution. This renders the usage of the plugin template of Qt Creator and building any plugin impossible.

My advice therefor is to download the Qt Creator source code and build it yourself. Then it is pretty easy to build any plugin.

Now, building plugins should not be needed by most users. I need to find a way to create binary packages for the most used systems. In that respect, I'm looking at virtualbox.
I'm going to turn a computer I have into a system that hosts the most common systems and their compilers and use that as a basis to create system specific packages. I'm not sure if I should use gentoo as the host OS or Windows. My preference is gentoo.

I also need a new graphicscard for this PC. Estimated time of purchase is somewhere mid january, after the holliday spendings. Untill then, I'll only the source code will be available.

Untill the plugin is also ready for a 1.0 release, there will be no versioned source code.

The Static Code Quality plugin and Krazy

Of course, the Static Code Quality plugin is a rip off of Krazy.
It is not meant as a replacement or a statement that I or this plugin is better than Krazy.

This plugin has only one goal and that is to improve my coding skills. I think the plugin can be useful for others too, either to use it or to learn from it. So that's why I make it available for everyone.

Now, it would not be a bad idea to use what already exists. So, I will make it possible to use the Krazy scripts directly via this plugin. However, I think that some of the Krazy scripts could benefit from the cpp parser that comes with Qt Creator. Therefor I created my own scripts that use the cpp parser.

In the mean time, using the cpp parser and writing my own scripts, specifically for improving the source code, greatly improves my understanding of c++ and my skills, which is of course my main goal.

Hosting or no hosting

Gitorious is great for sharing source code via git. But Gitorious is very limited in project management and website hosting.

I was recently looking for a host that would suit my needs: a bug/issue tracker, wiki and blog.
The bug/issue tracker is obvious, it'll be used for bugs and feature requests. The wiki will be used for documentation and the blog as a news channel for updates etc.

Most of the hosts I looked at provided software like Mantis, Wordpress and Mediawiki. But somehow it doesn't feel right. Mantis might be very good, but it looks very ugly. And I want a completely integrated solution which means that every component should look similar to get a consistent website.

For now I settle with separate sites and use the wiki of Gitorious.