All of the things labelled as Posts, so that crawlers have a place to find them.
Blocking and asynchronous operations without timeout are broken
Any time we are waiting for something to happen, from reading the disk to locking a mutex, we need to have a timeout. Without a
Debugging by binary searching through code revisions
What do you do when all normal debugging means fail? You can reproduce a bug, but the debugger just doesn’t seem to pinpoint it. Print
A bug, an error, or fault, and the irrelevance of classification
There’s a lot of confusion about how to classify software issues. Is something a programmer error, or is it an design defect? Is a misbehaviour
A swipingly good time with edge gestures
I’ve been working a lot lately on gestures and am currently working on a swipe-in panel class. Mostly we take these controls and behaviours for
How HTTP cache headers betray your privacy
I recently implemented Etag caching support only to learn its a privacy breach. Internet scum have coopted yet another technology to track us as we
Fast build turnaround time is essential
Being able to make a code change and quickly see the result is critical. The longer we have to wait, the more code quality suffers,
Cohesion and coupling: good measures of quality
What is good code? Even if I say nobody cares about your code the quality nonetheless does influence a project. Functional correctness reigns supreme, but
Nobody cares about your code
Nobody cares about your code. It was quite a shocking moment when I learned this in my programming career. I would take great care in
Using a hack, stifling the perfectionist, and moving on
The code works, but it smells funny. A simple if statement makes the bug go away, but we know somehow we’re just masking a bigger
Measuring finger / mouse velocity at release time
Any interface involving touch will inevitably need to know how fast the user is moving their finger. They touch the screen, drag their finger, release
Complexity theory isn’t required to be a programmer
Complexity is sometimes portrayed as a corner stone to the theory of computation. What good would algorithm analysis be if we had no way to
Visions of generics and templates: How parametrics are compiled
In the world of parametric programming our languages often seem quite varied and unique. At the core however are two primary approaches, let’s call them
What a compiler does: Parsing
Parsing is where the story of compilation begins. While it may mean something wonderful to us, our source code is merely a stream of character
Bringing blurry device independent pixels into focus
Device independent pixels, or points, are a convenient way to design for multiple devices. They allow a consistent layout without worrying about exact pixel densities.
Quelling the floating point demon in my line rendering code
A floating point demon had attacked my rendering code. Instead of drawing a nice straight line I’d get a devil’s tail flurried with barbs. It
Adding proxies to C#: A simple proposition
C# prefers composition to inheritance yet lacks any concise composition syntax. This is unfortunate. While I have nothing against composition, I really don’t like the
What a compiler does: internal types
If we scratch the surface of a language a bit we find a secret, rich world of type information. Our compilers know more about our
What a compiler does: type conversion basics
A quick introduction to how compilers use type information to convert types while evaluating expressions.
Cubist artwork with the help of a GPU
I wanted to come up with a shattered glass effect for my game. That didn’t quite work as intended, but I was nonetheless happy with
An unpleasant visit from the refactoring demon
In the middle of a major change to the Leaf type system I encountered the refactoring demon. It reared its ugly little head chanting, “you’re
What a compiler does: symbol resolution
A key activity of a compiler is to translate named symbols into memory locations. The process typically involves a few stages: identifying the symbols, segmenting
A secure and private browser sandbox
A patchwork set of standards and rules is creating an unsafe web. Cross-site attacks are too common and privacy leaks have become the norm. There’s
