June 2004
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A challenge for the .Net boys and girls
I’d like to do some comparative performance testing of The Server Framework against a .Net TCP/IP server, but I don’t know enough to be able to write a serious TCP/IP server in .Net. Sure, I could use TcpListener to throw … -
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This still amuses me
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away… I wrote a short review of The C++ Programming Language, 3rd Edition. Which, for some strange reason, Addison Wesley decided to quote on their page for the book in question (click reviews, … -
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A time to move on
The one problem with building a dream flat from scratch (well, a shell) is that once you’re done, you’re done. There just isn’t anything that needs doing for a very long time. If you’re someone who enjoys the doing … -
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20 years on, 60 years on, thoughts on D-Day
20 year’s ago I traveled with my dad and the remaining members of my grandfather’s unit to Normandy for the 40th anniversary celebrations. I was 17, around the same age that some of them were on the day. My grandfather, Frank … -
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Outage...
Sorry for the recent outages. My hosting provider upgraded a server and it took longer than expected to find all the things that were installed on the old server but were not on the new server. It seems that I’m the only one that uses … -
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Pimply youth
Last week I spent some time back with the guys on the refactoring project. Things are going well for them and, apart from a few minor transgressions, they’re sticking with the process that we put in place when I was with them on a … -
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Joel on Win32; API complexity and the Army of Muppets (a rant)
Joel has written a nice little piece on the demise of the Win32 API. Some of it I agree with; such as for many developers the fact that .Net is just the latest example of Microsoft indulging in a Fire and Motion exercise, yet for other … -
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Testing payback
I’m building a new data provider for one of my clients. It breaks a huge chunk of their existing codebase out into a new component that hides behind a simple COM interface and abstracts away lots of nasty stuff so that they … -
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Repeat after me, COM is just an interface layer
I was reading this the other day and I recognised Past Mozilla Mistakes: two as something that quite a few (if not all) of my clients have made… If you’re writing in C++ then COM is just an interface layer. It’s great for … -
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Erase registry keys using .reg files
I didn’t know you could do this; seems like a useful thing to remember. How to erase registry keys using .reg files… -
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Firm Foundations
As I mentioned last week, I’m writing a new component for one of my clients. I also mentioned that ‘beyond the interface, I can do what I like’; that’s actually a surprisingly important part of the specification due … -
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Code that's like a box of Lego
I’ve been noticing that since I started doing the testing thing in anger my objects tend to be smaller and I have more of them. The pressure that testing puts on you to design in such a way that each object can be used as … -
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Staying focussed on the finish
The data provider project rolls on and we’re almost at 100% of the functionality required for version 1.0. In fact, we have a few 1.1 features in there because they were easy wins and by the time we made sure that we they’d be … -
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Currently reading
I currently have 3 quite different technology books on the go, and one waiting in the wings. I’m re-reading Software Craftsmanship, McBreen’s ideas really appeal to me, but then I guess that may be because I went through an … -
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DRY
I was visiting a client on Friday to help them integrate a server we’d written for them, using The Server Framework, with some of their existing systems. We had just got everything working nicely when they mentioned, in passing, that …
