The Old New Thing

July 2006 - The Old New Thing

Christmas gift idea for your favorite glasses-wearing geek

July 31, 2006 Jul 31, 2006 07/31/06
Raymond Chen
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

July 31, 2006 Jul 31, 2006 07/31/06
Raymond Chen
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 ...

The Seattle Monorail has two trains, and they collided

July 28, 2006 Jul 28, 2006 07/28/06
Raymond Chen
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

July 28, 2006 Jul 28, 2006 07/28/06
Raymond Chen
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...

Names in the import library are decorated for a reason

July 27, 2006 Jul 27, 2006 07/27/06
Raymond Chen
When I wrote that the symbolic name for the imported function table entry for a function is called , 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 reference is decorated in...

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

July 26, 2006 Jul 26, 2006 07/26/06
Raymond Chen
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 ...

What happens when you get dllimport wrong?

July 26, 2006 Jul 26, 2006 07/26/06
Raymond Chen
Now that we've learned what the declaration specifier does, what if you get it wrong? If you forget to declare a function as , then you're basically making the compiler act like a naive compiler that doesn't understand . When the linker goes to resolve the external reference for the function, it will use the stub from the import library, and...

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

July 25, 2006 Jul 25, 2006 07/25/06
Raymond Chen
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...