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May 2004 - Posts

Obfuscated code...

I recently ran into this post from Alex Papadimoulis’s “Daily WTF”, and it reminded me of one company’s response to mandatory source disclosure (no, this isn’t really another open source discussion, really – I’ve Read More...
Posted Friday, May 28, 2004 5:15 PM by LarryOsterman | 14 Comments

Validating inputs

“ Derek ” posted a comment to my previous post about validating inputs to functions that’s worth commenting on. IMHO, the user shouldn't be able to crash the app. The app should verify all information from any untrustworthy source (user Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 27, 2004 4:23 PM by LarryOsterman | 4 Comments

Free security CD from Microsoft

This isn’t news, but it came up in a discussion in the comments section of my blog yesterday. Microsoft offers a free CD that contains all the security patches for Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Windows 98SE up to February Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:05 PM by LarryOsterman | 12 Comments

Unique pointers in COM interfaces

One issue that keeps on coming up day after day has to do with what RPC (or COM) does with pointers as parameters in RPC (or COM) interfaces. I’m going to talk about string parameters, since they’re relatively simple, but everything I say Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 3:43 PM by LarryOsterman | 8 Comments
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Microsoft just doesn't get Security - NOT!

I was reading Robert Scoble’s post on “ Longhorn Myths ”, and I noticed this comment from “Dave” in his comments thread: Most outlandish Longhorn myth? I mean this with all due respect, and say it with complete sincerity.... Read More...
Posted Tuesday, May 25, 2004 6:07 PM by LarryOsterman | 45 Comments

Things not to do, Part 3: Don't call CreateFile on your Windows message pump thread.

Sometimes it’s not a big deal, but there are some situations where it’s disastrous to call CreateFile on a message pump thread. The problem occurs because CreateFile might take a long time to complete. Conceivably it could actually take HOURS Read More...
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004 3:57 PM by LarryOsterman | 13 Comments

Business Conduct Training Complaints

Oh man, I’m gonna get in SO much trouble for this one. So I get an email this morning telling that I’ve got to watch web training video about Microsoft’s standards of business conduct. It’s a standard corporate training video – Read More...
Posted Friday, May 21, 2004 3:20 PM by LarryOsterman | 9 Comments
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Software archaeology

There are times that I think my job is the same as an archeologist. Rick touched on this a bit on his “ Anatomy of a Software Bug ” post (an excellent read, btw, if you haven’t already seen it). Code, like people, gets old. And, just Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004 3:49 PM by LarryOsterman | 17 Comments

I win the google prize!

My post on “ how do I explain dividing fractions ” from yesterday is the #1 google hit when you search for: what do i do to figure out fractions with different denominators Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004 3:44 PM by LarryOsterman | 0 Comments
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Managed Code can't have memory leaks, right?

One of the axioms of working with managed code is that since you’re using managed code, you don’t have to worry about memory leaks. This can’t be further from the truth. It’s totally possible to write code that leaks memory, even Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004 5:44 PM by LarryOsterman | 15 Comments

How do I divide fractions?

Valorie works as a teacher's aid in a 6th grade classroom at a local elementary school. They've been working on dividing fractions recently, and she spent about two hours yesterday working with one student trying to explain exactly how division of fractions Read More...
Posted Tuesday, May 18, 2004 9:21 PM by LarryOsterman | 46 Comments
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Should I check the parameters to my function?

I just had an interesting discussion with one of the testers in my group. He had just finished filing a series of bugs against our components because they weren’t failing when he passed bogus pointers to the API. Instead, they raised a 0xC0000005 Read More...
Posted Tuesday, May 18, 2004 8:20 PM by LarryOsterman | 29 Comments

Office Decorations

One of the long standing traditions here at Microsoft is decorating other employee’s offices. Over the years, people have come up with some extraordinarily creative ways to trash others offices. It’s truly awe inspiring how people use their Read More...
Posted Monday, May 17, 2004 11:46 PM by LarryOsterman | 11 Comments
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What assembly language DOES your code generate?

Pat Niemeyer had a fascinating comment in my article about programmers knowing roughly what assembly language their code generates : Your example serves to demonstrate that developers should, under normal circumstances, *not* care about low level code Read More...
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 3:00 AM by LarryOsterman | 9 Comments

Why is it FILE_SHARE_READ and FILE_SHARE_WRITE anyway?

Raymond’s post about FILE_SHARE_* bits reminded me of the story about why the bits are FILE_SHARE_READ in the first place. MS-DOS had the very same file sharing semantics as NT does (ok, NT adds FILE_SHARE_DELETE, more on that later). But on MS-DOS, Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:10 PM by LarryOsterman | 18 Comments

Things you shouldn't do, part 2: Dll's can't ever call CoInitialize* on the application's thread.

When a Dll’s executing code on an application’s behalf, the Dll can NEVER call CoInitalizeEx on the application’s thread. Why? Because you can’t know the application’s threading model, so you can’t get it right. If Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 12, 2004 3:22 PM by LarryOsterman | 6 Comments

What's wrong with this code, part 2 (the answers)

So here are the intentional bugs in the “what’s wrong with this code, take two” post : The first two bugs are quite straightforward, but insidious. I can’t think of the number of times I’ve seen code that gets this wrong. Read More...
Posted Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:55 PM by LarryOsterman | 1 Comments

What's wrong with this code, take two...

Well, my last “What’s wrong with this code” post was such a rollicking good success, I figured I’d do it one more time (I’m SUCH a glutton for punishment). This time, I not only bench checked the code, but I verified that Read More...
Posted Monday, May 10, 2004 4:37 PM by LarryOsterman | 18 Comments

Things not to do when you run a combined build and BVT lab...

First, a caveat: I have nothing but respect for the people who run build and BVT labs. It’s a thankless task that requires obscene amounts of time and energy. Now on with the story J … My favorite example of things that you shouldn’t Read More...
Posted Friday, May 07, 2004 4:47 PM by LarryOsterman | 7 Comments

Longhorn system requirements

Mary Jo’s comments about the system requirements for longhorn have been stirring up quite the discussion about the “average” Longhorn machine would be. Robert picked this up with some insightful commentary on it as well. And I figured Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 06, 2004 4:51 PM by LarryOsterman | 20 Comments
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So what WILL the postal service accept?

Valorie somehow found this yesterday and forwarded it to me. Someone over at AIR decided to see what exactly the post office would accept for delivery. The results , to say the least were “fascinating”. The post office delivered a deer tibia Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 05, 2004 4:45 PM by LarryOsterman | 1 Comments
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Mea Culpa (it's corrections time).

One of the rules in Tim Bray’s version of Sun’s blogging policy is “Write What You Know”. Well, I should have listened to this when I posted my 3 rd post, “ So why does NT require such a wonking great big paging file on my Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 05, 2004 4:28 PM by LarryOsterman | 12 Comments

Remember the Giblets!

I was planning on writing something else today, but Raymond’s post about a buffer overflow in the LHA libraries convinced me to write this up. Yesterday afternoon, I spent a really quite enjoyable 4 hours sitting in listening to Michael Howard give Read More...
Posted Tuesday, May 04, 2004 10:11 PM by LarryOsterman | 2 Comments

Measure Twice, Optimize Once

When I move offices, it takes 16 moving boxes to hold my junk (I‘ve got a lot of it). One reason is because of all the books I’ve collected over the years. Many of them were read once and discarded, others are treasures I come back to time Read More...
Posted Monday, May 03, 2004 6:02 PM by LarryOsterman | 2 Comments
 
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