GJSieve for Mac 0.55b released

I have finished a cursory testing process and have deemed GJSieve for Mac to be fully operational - if not even somewhat stable!

You can find it here. Bear in mind that yes, OSX 10.8.0 or later (Mountain Lion) is in fact required. I still do not know for sure if this will run on previous versions of OSX.

In other news, GJSieve 2.0 for Windows is coming along...it no longer fails to test multiple times in a row, but I am hitting a weird problem where subsequent tests after a cancelled test simply stop at the first factor regardless of verbose mode being enabled or not.

GJSieve Woes

I gave up on the threading implementation I tried in GJSieve 2.0 for Windows. It was far too cumbersome and (as it turns out) incredibly unstable. So I am trying a new method using a single giant class. Hopefully it works better.

This involves two separate structures which pass pointers to each other. I sincerely hope that following this advice will help alleviate the serious stability issues I found.

At the same time, GJSieve for Mac is in progress. This will be version 0.5, technically. It will look a lot like IsItPrime 0.2, though not identical. One of the (few) perks of an automagic IDE such as XCode is the ability to use the exact same graphical layout across multiple applications simply by copying and pasting and changing a few important parameters.

It has been a strange day. I spent most of the last hour waiting for webpages to load on the junky old laptop I bring to class with me. I really ought to buy a new one - thinking of an ASUS K53, but any suggestions on inexpensive (as in less than $400) but not-terribly-quality laptops are welcome!

IsItPrime for Mac 0.2 Released

After much fussing with the file-saving mechanism in IsItPrime for Mac, I have finally completed a relatively satisfying release candidate!

For those of you keeping score at home, I was using deprecated methods to create files and folders - by which I mean they went obsolete around 2008 - and thus was consistently trying to access memory registers that don't really exist. Oops! Well, at any rate, it's fixed now and there ought to be no problems.

Indeed, there are no serious issues with IsItPrime for Mac. It is in fact considerably faster than its Windows complement (and I am still unsure of exactly why) and uses much less memory and CPU time.

It is still CPU-intensive, though - just not for as long. IsItPrime for Mac is also not multi-threaded, meaning that if you enter a particularly large number that just so happens to be prime, the interface may lock up (though hopefully not for long).

You can find a (hopefully) attractively laid-out disk image here. Alternatively, check out the main project site if you haven't already.

Wiki and documentation updates are forthcoming.

Bear in mind that this version of IsItPrime for Mac, along with all other forthcoming NCPrime applications for Mac require at least OSX 10.8.0 (that is, Mountain Lion) on a 64-bit (native or emulative) CPU.

I have not tested this application on any previous version of OSX, as I do not exactly have access to a slew of testing machines. However, I can tell you that since I used the 10.8 SDK as the base architecture for this build, it may not even open on previous versions of OSX and, if it does, may exhibit unusual or undefined behavior.

That sure sounds intimidating! Don't let it stop you from checking out IsItPrime for Mac.

App Store, here we come...?

Aaand I misjudged (IsItPrime Mac PR)

XCode is not nearly as much of a pain in the ass as I thought. Turns out, I'm the pain in the ass, what with my constant questions and apparent inability to learn quickly/on the fly (joke).

At any rate, IsItPrime for Mac now looks and feels like a real, full-featured Cocoa program, complete with Twitter integration and the ability to save detailed text files with results, etc.

Now all I need to do is figure out why the latter throws bad access exceptions all of a sudden, as well as finish working on the verbose mode implementation.

Here have a picture.

Spoke too soon

I originally said I had finalized the threading procedure for GJSieve 2.0.

I have, but lately uncovered a major stability/memory management issue, meaning a major setback in development.

I'm currently working on implementing a solution that will likely result in expanding the threading procedure itself to allow for better communication between threads, but we'll see.

GJSieve 2.0 and NCPrime progress report

I have finalized the threading procedure for GJSieve 2.0, which will later be implemented in every NCPrime application. First and foremost, I will polish GJS 2.0, and then begin work on what will eventually become MuPuPriNT 1.2b.

This next version of MuPuPriNT will ultimately forgo the "chooser" window in favor of a GJSieve-like interface where you will have the ability to select Proth, Cullen, Woodall, or Pythagorean tests using radio buttons. This will involve the removal of the CPU/RAM display window. It was originally there just for fun, anyway.

As I have mentioned before, this also allows for the creation of a fully 64-bit version of NCPrime applications, since inline assembly code using the _asm intrinsic is only available in 32-bit (for now). Perhaps VS2012 will change that, but I don't really know. I will find out, however.

Additionally, I have been thinking about doing translations of my applications. Partially, this would also be "just for fun" (as with most of what I do with programming to begin with), but would also serve the purpose of giving me a practical outlet for my linguistic studies.

I have also been working on updating IsItPrime for Mac, which will also allow for the eventual re-writing of other NCPrime applications for Mac. I am currently seeking support/help for and with XCode and other programming methods, since my main problems stem not from my applications themselves, but rather the IDEs I use to design them!

Strongly considering switching to Notepad++ and a command line...

Also, I can't figure out SVN or Git to save my life. It's a problem.

Mac woes

XCode 4.4 is so unbelievably annoying.

I don't understand anything about how the new IB interface (that's somewhat redundant) works and I can't figure out how to properly add references and outlets.

To make matters worse, I realized that none of the applications I've previously written for Mac will actually run on the current machine I'm using for testing (a brand new iMac running Mountain Lion).

This means that I've essentially accomplished nothing.

On the flip side, I do have a pretty decent setup.

I just can't for the life of me figure out how to actually get this stuff connected properly!

It runs, sure, but it's a useless window with buttons and stuff that do nothing!

Well hey. At the very least, I got the library linked (twice, apparently, if you look closely).

It's been a long shift, that's for sure. Each of my paragraphs is only a sentence or two long...