The Old New Thing

Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.

Latest posts

English Cut: Bringing bespoke tailoring into the general consciousness
Sep 30, 2005
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English Cut: Bringing bespoke tailoring into the general consciousness

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Thomas Mahon's English Cut is a glimpse into the world of bespoke tailoring, a world I was completely unaware of prior to his web site. I was particularly fascinated by his description of how to recognise the work of Anderson & Sheppard by inspecting the pockets. It is this attention to detail that really makes the difference between good and great. I like to think that every now and then one of my own essays, say on the fine details of scroll bars or on supporting double-clicked radio buttons, also helped someone raise the quality of their software from good to great. Mr. Mahon's partner in crime i...

The DHS television show was all a scam, it appears
Sep 29, 2005
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The DHS television show was all a scam, it appears

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing reports that the DHS series I mentioned a while back was all an elaborate scam to bilk investors out of millions. (One tip-off has got to be that they changed their domain name from www.dhs.tv to www.dhstheseries.tv. And curiously, their "News" page just says .) Read Ms. Jardin's article for more linkity goodness. I guess this has a good side: It means no FEMA episode.

On objects with a reference count of zero
Sep 29, 2005
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On objects with a reference count of zero

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

One commenter claimed that When the object is first constructed, the reference count should be 0 and AddRef should be called at some point (probably via QueryInterface) to increment the reference count. If you construct your object with a reference count of zero, you are playing with matches. For starters, when the object is created, there reference count is not zero - the person who created the object has a reference! Remember the COM rule for references: If a function produces a reference (typically an interface pointer), the reference count is incremented to account for the produced reference. If you con...

Avoiding double-destruction when an object is released
Sep 28, 2005
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Avoiding double-destruction when an object is released

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

The trick of the artificial reference count.

COM object destructors are very sensitive functions
Sep 27, 2005
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COM object destructors are very sensitive functions

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

If you try to do too much, you can find yourself in trouble.

Raymond’s 2005 MVP Global Summit event diary
Sep 26, 2005
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Raymond’s 2005 MVP Global Summit event diary

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

In case those coming into town for the 2005 MVP Global Summit were interesting in chatting with me, here's my event diary for this week. (Non-native-English-speaking MVPs can hover over the highlighted words for a translation from slang into "standard American-English".) If you want to be sure to catch me, drop me a line and I'll try to make time to see you. Note, however, that I'm doing this outside of my "regular job", so please be a bit understanding if a work emergency forces me to do some last-minute rescheduling. [Colors fixed 8:30am; sorry I was half-asleep when I wrote this entry.]

Kurt would have wanted it that way
Sep 26, 2005
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Kurt would have wanted it that way

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working in the office next to Danny, a phenomenally talented fellow, not just a stellar programmer but also an accomplished pianist, singer, video game restorer, and skier. I remember when he was working on DirectSound3D, we would sometimes put our heads together to nail the formulas for effects such as Doppler shifts. Particularly satisfying was when we attacked the problem from two directions and arrived at what initially seemed like different answers, but after some algebraic manipulation turned out to be the same thing. When you can solve a problem in two totally diffe...

This is an unsupported ride, so if you stop, you will fall over
Sep 25, 2005
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This is an unsupported ride, so if you stop, you will fall over

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Well, at least I only passed out once. To recap, The E's goaded me into joining them on a ride up Zoo Hill. I'm really not a climber. I'm taxed by the hill on the southbound 520 Trail leading to NE 51st St., so much so that I commute to work along a different route (taking 156th Ave. NE instead) just so I can avoid it. But I accepted their challenge anyway. I didn't literally pass out, but I did run out of steam at 173rd Ave SE and had to stop for a nap. Well, okay not really a nap, just a sit-down break, but I really could've used a nap right then. Maybe if I had remembered to bring an inflatable p...

The Double-E Half Hour of Pain
Sep 23, 2005
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The Double-E Half Hour of Pain

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

I'm pretty confident I'm going to regret this. I have been goaded into The Double-E Half Hour of Pain, featuring Eric Gunnerson and The Fat Cyclist. Indeed, Mr. Cyclist has already started the trash talk. My strategy will be to start slow and taper off. (Especially since it will have taken me about an hour and a half just to get to the starting point.) I'll be the one in the black shorts and yellow shirt, with a heavy bicycle and a withered hand. (I just like saying "withered hand".)