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Sander Rossel wrote: I don't think I'm prepared for this
Because you didn't read Don Quixote. 
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I think the last time I worked on a Zebra printer (or something that looks similar to what you posted) was around the 1980's when I was writing a custom print routine on a Commodore 64!
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I had to print to these beasts for a while. What a pain.
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Label printers are the bane of our existence. Every manufacturer has their own proprietary printer language.
You would think that in today's world they'd all be using Postscript.
There's a lot of off the shelf software that will take a label design and generate the correct instructions for the label printer.
What are you trying to do that requires you to dive into the coding of the label?
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MFW I devote a huge amount of effort to create a developer tool that is poorly understood and not really used despite being very useful for what they were designed to do. π
I've tried to simplify my project, and simplify describing that project but it's like trying to simplify Roslyn. There's just too much there to be able to make it simple.
Oh well, I guess. I use it in my own code generation projects and it makes them heckin cool. 
Do you ever write non-trivial tools that you swear by, but only you will probably ever use?
Real programmers use butterflies
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Nah, I just write broken trivial tools thant no one will ever use.
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I said non-trivial because I think most people have written little one-offs to accomplish a specific task
Real programmers use butterflies
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yeah going to up vote that 
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
βThey who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.β BF, 1759
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Oh yeah!
I have them too... Code generators, page designers, data randomizers... All for in-house use only...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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See, you're smarter than me because you're doing it for money.
Real programmers use butterflies
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If you check my bio page[^], third paragraph, it clarifies you post (maybe?).
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I like the cheap hooker analogy!
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I wrote a grandiose control surface plug for Sonar (DAW) that would chain up to five BCR2000s across like a big old mixer but it took too long and the device targeted, and the concept, are obsolete so it's just an in house thing now that not even I use.
Kept me off the streets and close to home.
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Not to start DAW wars or anything but FL Studio lets you build dashes like that with no coding. Just sayin'
Real programmers use butterflies
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midi controller dashboards for instruments. Panels you can control or link to other controllers. They have different ones for different instruments. At least i think you and i are talking about the same thing, but since we each use different DAWs (and FL is a bit weird) we may be using different jargon
i've never actually described one before. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Yeah. Sonar uses COM for it's control surface interface. Old code from the before times. 
Works though.
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Time for a proverb:
Was der Bauer nicht kennt, frisst er nicht.
Anyway, I need such tools rarely. I have always been writing libraries for and against everything. No need to generate anything when I can reuse stuff.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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It really depends on what you're doing though. For example, my parser generators almost always allow for a runtime parser, or a compiled parser. The latter uses code generation, and the result is faster.
Libraries aren't always a replacement for code-gen. Code-gen is pretty specialized though so a lot of times people rarely need it.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Nice and well. Then generate a fast parser and stuff it into a library, along with other useful stuff. No more need to ever generate it again.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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I mean, that's fine, but something has to generate it in the first place.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Sometimes it's better not to get too lazy and use that stuff between the ears not only to keep them apart. 
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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The reason for generation is not to save on thought. It's to save on bugs.
Complex parsers like a C# parser for example, can be difficult even to test, much less develop.
Being able to generate the tens of thousands of lines of code necessary to parse something like again, C#, from an input specification saves countless hours debugging and testing.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: I've tried to simplify my project, and simplify describing that project but it's like trying to simplify Roslyn.
That's what a good technical writer is for. Explain to them what the tool does, and let them write the final documentation.
IMO, having access to such resources is one of the advantages of working for a large company.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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