GRIPES WITH GOOGLE READER

    I have been a loyal Google Reader user for quite sometime but there have been some nagging usability issues that either I have been unable to work around or are simply not addressed by the reader.     

    One of the issues is to do with a count for the starred items. I know that I can get this information from the trends tab but would be nice to be able to see it right beside the items (as is the case for other news items and subscriptions). Also, some more freedom in terms of different ways the items can be viewed would really help. For example, I generally follow the pattern of briefly glancing through news items in the day (or week for that matter) and read them in the night (or weekends). For this, I really need to be able to sort the starred items in the reverse chronological order, else it almost seems like I am watching a news version of the movie Memento with all the events happening in reverse. I know that I could just browse all the way to the bottom and start reading in the reverse order but, am sure, any normal blog reader would

UNINTUITIVE C++

For the past few weeks, I have been pouring over a lot of C++ material trying to create a set of basic concepts that I could use to derive and reason out the others. But with C++, it just seems so tough. There are so many exceptions to expected behavior that it is really difficult to summarize the language. I was reading Scott Myers' Effective C++ book where he mentions that the book was actually a downgraded version of his idea of a tool that could enforce some guidelines and C++ principles so as to avoid basic pitfalls. I guess the non intuitive nature of C++ might have been one of the reasons why he gave up the tool idea. But I guess that is one of the charms of this great language.