In its most general sense, the term bug farm refers to something that is a rich source of bugs. It is typically applied to code which is nearly unmaintainable. Code can arrive in this state through a variety of means. The term is most often used as a cautionary term, calling attention to areas where there is high risk that code you're about to ...
Commenter Nice Clipboard Manager (with drop->clipboard) wonders why Windows still uses a linked list to inform programs about clipboard modifications. If any clipboard viewer fails to maintain the chain, then some windows won't get informed of the change, and if a clipboard viewer creates a loop in the chain, an infinite loop results. Well, ...
After receiving the explanation of what happens to a sent message when reaches its timeout, a customer found that the explanation raised another question: If the window manager waits until the receiving thread finishes processing the message, then why can't you post a message? "After all, with a very short timeout isn't all that different from ...
Hey everybody, I'm down at the //build/ conference. (The extra slash is to keep the d from falling over.) I'm not speaking this year, but you can find me in the Apps area of the Expo room today until 3:30pm (except lunchtime), and Friday morning before lunch. I'll also be at Ask the Experts tonight. There are so many great sessions to choose from....
The function tries to send a message, but gives up if the timeout elapses. What exactly happens when the timeout elapses? It depends. The first case is if the receiving thread never received the message at all. (I.e., if during the period the sender is waiting, the receiving thread never called , , or a similar message-retrieval function which d...
Mark complained that a common control for associating extensions is well overdue. This is a recurring theme I see in the comments: People complaining that Windows lacks some critical feature that it in fact already has. (In the case, Windows had the feature for over two years at the time the question was asked. Maybe the SDK needs a ribbon? j/k) ...
Carrie complains that the building numbers on Microsoft main campus are completely random. Why is building 22 near buildings 40 and 41, far, far away from building 24? Because the Microsoft campus evolved. Many many years ago, the space on which the central Microsoft campus resides was a mill. Eventually it became an office park, and when Micro...
Somebody sent me email pointing out strange behavior in the function if you fail a window creation by returning −1 from the message. On the other hand, returning from seems to work just fine. "So why the difference with ?" You already know enough to solve this puzzle. You just need to connect the dots. (In fact, the person who sent ...
Fix that stack.
There is apparently a subculture of people who decide to economize on the car part of the "loud stereo in car" formula (since they really don't care about the car—it's all about the music) and put their loud stereo on the back of a bicycle instead. This quotation from the article caught my attention: "People say, 'It's the next best thing...
