The Old New Thing

February 2010 - The Old New Thing

Microwave popcorn enthusiast proudly proclaims, "I *am* popcorn!"

February 26, 2010 Feb 26, 2010 02/26/10
Raymond Chen
Oscar Night is a few weeks away, but when you settle in to watch the show with your bowl of popcorn, please be aware that inhaling deeply from the fumes of a freshly-opened bag of microwave popcorn is not the greatest decision you can make from a health standpoint. (Then again, you probably ought to reconsider eating microwave popcorn in the ...

It's fine to use fibers, but everybody has to be on board with the plan

February 26, 2010 Feb 26, 2010 02/26/10
Raymond Chen
We saw fibers a long time ago when I looked at how you can use fibers as a form of coroutines to simplify the writing of enumerators. A fiber is a handy tool, but it's a tool with very sharp edges. Since fibers are promiscuous with threads, you have to be careful when running code that cares about what thread it is running on, because that ...
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Food products that are offenses against nature: Bagel-fuls

February 25, 2010 Feb 25, 2010 02/25/10
Raymond Chen
Wow, it's been a long time since my last rant against food products that are offenses against nature. Today's rant is against Bagel-fuls, a product which Kraft launched in April 2008. Bagel-fuls (note the hyphen and the lowercase "f") are a dense, doughy material formed into a log shape, with a cream cheese filling. Think of them as ...

What happens to the fibers which ran on a thread when the thread exits?

February 25, 2010 Feb 25, 2010 02/25/10
Raymond Chen
What happens to the fibers which ran on a thread when the thread exits? Are all the fibers destroyed? No, only the currently-executing fiber is destroyed. Fibers running on other threads and fibers which are not running on any thread at all are not affected. Fibers do not have thread affinity (when not running), and they do not remember what...
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German language tip: Matratzen = mattresses, Matrosen = sailors

February 24, 2010 Feb 24, 2010 02/24/10
Raymond Chen
Be careful not to confuse the two. Since we're sharing: During a conversation in German, I talked about seeing Unfall (accident) instead of Abfall (garbage) on the street. To my credit, I immediately corrected my error. To my discredit, the error was made at the state finals of a German language contest...

Why does the CBS_SORT combo box style sort the left square bracket so strangely?

February 24, 2010 Feb 24, 2010 02/24/10
Raymond Chen
Some time ago, Michael Kaplan asked (and answered), How the @#%&*! does CBS_SORT choose to sort it all out? One detail in his answer is that the sorting algorithm used by CBS_SORT is basically CompareString, with special treatment for the left square bracket U+005B. Why is the left square bracket so special? It goes back to the LB_DIR ...

Le Chatelier's principle in action: Announcements

February 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010 02/23/10
Raymond Chen
As I noted some time ago, one of the most important lessons I learned from Systemantics is Le Chatelier's Principle for complex systems which states, "Every complex system resists its proper functioning." At Microsoft, there are processes galore. For example, when a server is taken down for planned maintenance, you can expect a series of ...

Custom navigation in dialog boxes, redux

February 22, 2010 Feb 22, 2010 02/22/10
Raymond Chen
SuperBK asks, "What's the proper way to add keyboard support to a dialog box?" There are many options available to you. The most traditional way is to pick them off in the dialog loop, either hard-coding the keys in code or putting them into resources by moving them to an accelerator resource. Moving them to an accelerator resource is a ...
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How many servings are there in a single-serve cup? The answer might surprise you

February 19, 2010 Feb 19, 2010 02/19/10
Raymond Chen
I was in the grocery store, and there was a sign advertising a new product. Delight in a cup Your favorite XYZ Ice Cream Now in convenient single-serve cups. I took a look at the cup. Seemed kind of big for a single serving. I picked one up to read the nutritional information. Servings per container: 2...