NewsTips and Tricks

Visual Assist’s AI Assistant: Things You Can Do with VA Intelligence Right Now

If you’ve been following Visual Assist for a while, you might have noticed something a little different about the last few releases. Alongside the navigation improvements, refactoring updates, and parser optimizations, there’s a quieter but important thread running through it all: VA Intelligence. We introduced Explain with AI a few releases back, and with 2026.3 we just shipped Change…
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Tips and Tricks

Why Are Pointers Used in C++? A Practical Guide for Modern Developers

TL;DR Pointers are one of the biggest things that confuse new C++ developers, especially if they started with languages like Python or Java where memory management mostly stays hidden. This guide breaks down why pointers still matter in modern C++, how they help with performance, memory control, dynamic data structures, and low-level system programming, and why they are still heavily used despite…
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NewsTips and Tricks

Writing Safer C++: Introducing Visual Assist’s New Code Safety Inspections

C++ Safety is one of the most important conversations happening in software right now. From industry leaders to government agencies, including recent guidance coming from the U.S. government, there is a renewed call to strengthen memory safety and reduce classes of bugs that have historically plagued C and C++ projects. But here is the reality: C++ remains one of the most critical languages in the…
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Tips and Tricks

Why Readable C++ Code Outlives Clever Shortcuts: The Key to Maintaining Legacy Systems

TL;DR Maintaining legacy systems is a necessity and readable C++ code is a big factor in reducing debugging time, simplifying onboarding and making future updates safer. Clever shortcuts, macros, nested ternary operators, and overly compact code may save a few lines today, but they often create technical debt that becomes expensive to pay back in the long run. Using clear variable names, writing…
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