July 2006 | The Old New Thing

Christmas gift idea for your favorite glasses-wearing geek

Raymond ChenJuly 31, 2006Jul 31, 200607/31/06

Yes, I'm talking about Christmas gifts (or "winter solstice gifts" if you prefer) in July. I'm one of those people for whom buying Christmas gifts is a brain-wracking ordeal, and I'm always on the lookout all year round for the "perfect gift". Last Christmas, a friend of mine gave me a micro-fiber lens-cleaning cloth that comes in a pouch you

Just because I don't write about .NET doesn't mean that I don't like it

Raymond ChenJuly 31, 2006Jul 31, 200607/31/06

Some people have inferred that I don't write about .NET because I don't like it. That's not true. I use it myself. The reason I don't write about .NET is because I'm not an expert on it and there are plenty of other .NET blogs out there, written by people who are actual experts. (Such as Maoni Stephens, whose little finger contains more know

The Seattle Monorail has two trains, and they collided

Raymond ChenJuly 28, 2006Jul 28, 200607/28/06

Murphy's Law vindicated again. The Seattle Monorail has two trains, and last year they managed to collide. To get this to happen was particularly tricky, since the trains run on separate tracks, and there is only one spot on the entire line where a collision could occur—and they found it. You can read about it in this Associated Press

The efficiency of ordinal-based imports while still being name-based

Raymond ChenJuly 28, 2006Jul 28, 200607/28/06

Reader Tom brought up the interesting point that ordinal-based imports are slightly faster than name-based, though not by much. But if even that tiny fraction of a percentage bothers you, you can still get the benefits of ordinal-based imports while still being name-based. People are more familiar with the first half of the "rebase and bind"

Handy tip: If you're going to break into vehicles, the police vehicle service center is probably a bad place

Raymond ChenJuly 27, 2006Jul 27, 200607/27/06

And you probably shouldn't fall asleep in the van you break into.

Index to the series on DLL imports and exports

Raymond ChenJuly 27, 2006Jul 27, 200607/27/06

Names in the import library are decorated for a reason

Raymond ChenJuly 27, 2006Jul 27, 200607/27/06

When I wrote that the symbolic name for the imported function table entry for a function is called __imp__FunctionName, the statement was "true enough" for the discussion at hand, but the reality is messier, and the reason for the messy reality is function name decoration. When a naive compiler generates a reference to a function, the refere

Real Madrid (i.e., proper football) comes to Seattle

Raymond ChenJuly 26, 2006Jul 26, 200607/26/06

Hot off the presses. Real Madrid (with David Beckham, Ronaldo, and other stars) will play an exhibition match against D. C. United in Seah^H^H^H^HQuest Field on Wednesday, August 9th. I wonder if it'll be anything like the last soccer match I saw. At least let's hope they're ready to play instead of having tired themselves out playing vide

What happens when you get dllimport wrong?

Raymond ChenJuly 26, 2006Jul 26, 200607/26/06

Now that we've learned what the dllimport declaration specifier does, what if you get it wrong? If you forget to declare a function as dllimport, then you're basically making the compiler act like a naive compiler that doesn't understand dllimport. When the linker goes to resolve the external reference for the function, it will use the stub f

If you know German, the world is, well, slightly more confusing

Raymond ChenJuly 25, 2006Jul 25, 200607/25/06

While it may be true that if you know Swedish, the world is funnier, I have to admit that my knowledge of German only served to create momentary confusion. When I saw the headline that the head of BetonSports was arrested, I thought to myself, "Who the heck would have a web site devoted to sports in concrete?" That's because the German word

The Old New Thing

July 2006 | The Old New Thing

Christmas gift idea for your favorite glasses-wearing geek

Just because I don't write about .NET doesn't mean that I don't like it

The Seattle Monorail has two trains, and they collided

The efficiency of ordinal-based imports while still being name-based

Handy tip: If you're going to break into vehicles, the police vehicle service center is probably a bad place

Index to the series on DLL imports and exports

Names in the import library are decorated for a reason

Real Madrid (i.e., proper football) comes to Seattle

What happens when you get dllimport wrong?

If you know German, the world is, well, slightly more confusing

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