security
This Slate article highlights an interesting statistic: A few years ago, Microsoft set up the Windows Error Reporting Service to help find out where crashes come from. After a Windows application – or your whole PC – shuts down, a box pops up asking you to send a confidential error report. Using
programming languages
I had no idea this was happening, but it is fantastic news: according to this GamePC article, the latest 2005 version of Windows XP Media Center Edition will be released as a retail product within a few weeks: Windows XP Media Center Edition was originally launched roughly two years ago,
programming languages
I was reading an interesting entry in Rocky Lhotka’s blog when something in the URL caught my eye: http://www.lhotka.net/WeBlog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=b28971dc-ac4b-4494-8a21-7a5105a39b07 I guess it’s a DasBlog thing, but good lord: a globally unique ID in a blog hyperlink? Has it really come
programming languages
OK, the title is just, Why Your Code Sucks, but you know you were thinking it. The article may not be as grammatically (sp) correct as I would like, but it’s got some solid advice. My favorite is rejection of dogma: Your code sucks if it dogmatically conforms to
java
I got into an interesting discussion today about that recently published report, Comparing Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere/J2EE. If you haven’t read it, there’s a summary at eWeek, but I definitely recommend downloading the full report for the details. If you’re too busy to do either
programming languages
I recently blogged about how pure object oriented programming is oversold. Well, evidently Paul Graham agrees with me: Object-oriented programming generates a lot of what looks like work. Back in the days of fanfold, there was a type of programmer who would only put five or ten lines of code
programming languages
Scott Hanselman continues to impress with his consistently useful blog entries, this time an observation about performance. I found an even more interesting link buried in the comments, though: the Eric Lippert post, How Bad is Good Enough? I’ve read articles about the script engines that say things like
user experience
God bless whoever at Microsoft decided to build Calculator Plus, an unsupported free upgrade for calc.exe. On the other hand... who decided it was a good idea to skin the UI by default? My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing! Now compare that “upgraded” UI to the windows default,
software development concepts
Chris Sells is one of those rare developers who is so talented at both coding and communicating that everything he writes is worth reading. How I wish this was more common! If you haven’t already, read through his archived Spout posts; there’s some really great stuff in those
programming languages
I am hardly the world’s best programmer. I’ll be the first to tell you that there are tons of developers out there better than I am. But here's the thing: in the ten years I've been gainfully employed as a so-called professional programmer, I
dynamic typing
The recent release of IronPython .NET, and Microsoft’s subsequent hiring of its creator, got me thinking about typing. There’s a really interesting, albeit old, post on the dubious benefit of strong typing at Bruce Eckel’s blog. Which reminds me how much I hate constantly casting objects via
programming languages
I talked in a previous post about Unbreakable Links – that is, stating every URL in terms of a Google search rather than an absolute address. Great concept, but how do you determine which words on a web page are most likely to generate a unique search result? Well, wonder no