Tips and Tricks

How to Navigate a Large or Legacy C++ Codebase in Visual Studio

You cloned the repo on your first morning in your new team’s project. Twenty minutes later you’re looking at a solution with four hundred projects, a build that throws errors on a clean checkout, and a ticket that says a number is wrong on one screen. You don’t know where that screen is—in fact, you don’t know where anything lives. And that’s absolutely normal. But…
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Tips and Tricks

Finding your way through a large Unreal Engine codebase: a practical guide

The moment the project opens Welcome gamer! You’re excited to start coding games so you set up your Unreal Engine and  finally got the source linked to your project… Once it opens you’re greeted with a sample project. It’s huge. And why are there red error squiggles under everything? You open Solution Explorer and there are 800 folders. You explore. Hit F12 on BeginPlay…
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NewsTips and Tricks

AI in Your IDE: What's Real, What's Hype, and Where C++ Fits In

It’s been roughly three years since AI tools and large language models (LLMs) hit the mainstream in a real, unavoidable way. In that time, people have put them to work writing emails, summarizing legal documents, generating marketing copy, composing music, tutoring students, answering medical questions, planning vacations — and yes, generating entire recipes for whatever’s left in…
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Tips and Tricks

“Nobody Will Read This Code” (Until You Have to)

When we code, we like shortcuts. We use keystrokes that combine two or more actions. We like it when we can do two things at once. It feels productive (and maybe because most of the time it is.) However, there are cases where we need to avoid shortcuts. In the realm of engineering and design, simple is better. But sometimes, adding a bit of complexity and length to our usual process can pay off in…
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