2005 News:

I believe I’ve talked here before about the fact that I do not believe in “race” as a meaningful way to classify humans. In other words, I don’t believe there is such a thing as “race”. Here’s another article that backs up my belief. From the article:

Because modern humans originated in Africa, genetic variation among people of African decent tend to be the greatest of all ethnic groups. That means that a person of African descent and a European can be more closely related genetically than two people of African descent, he said. For example, Ethiopians with dark skin are more closely related genetically to Europeans than to West Africans, he said.

"That's what we mean when we say that race in a broad sense is not a useful concept," Kidd said. "I can't draw a line between where one race begins and the next one starts."

Sunday December 4, 2005

Isn’t modern technology great? We all tend to take our modern conveniences for granted, until we are reminded of their usefulness by stories like this one. I love feel-good stories with happy endings.

Friday November 4, 2005

Tomlinson, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has resigned over accusations that he was trying to make CPB more conservative. I believe that the truth is that he was trying to make CPB neutral, as it should be. Whenever I listen to public radio, I am amazed by how liberal biased they are. Of course, if you are liberal, you probably won’t hear the bias on public radio, just as I miss some of the bias on Fox News. I wish Tomlinson hadn’t resigned. Someone needs to finish the job he started. But of course, you can never make everyone happy all the time. There will always be occasional statements that particular listeners think are biased in one direction or another. But public radio should certainly be made more neutral than it is now.

Tuesday November 1, 2005

We had fun trick-or-treating last night. Nicole was dressed as a vampire and Kyle was dressed as a ghoul/grim reaper.

Friday October 21, 2005

This story is a year old, but I just read about it last night (on the web, of course). It’s so unbelievably ironic that the man who discovered the 5000 year old iceman was himself found dead in the Alps not far from the spot where he found the iceman. Mr. Ripley is probably smiling in his coffin. Believe it or not…

Saturday October 8, 2005

I just upgraded all the software that runs my website. I upgraded my JVM from 1.4.2 to 1.5, upgraded JBoss from 3.04 to 4.03, and upgraded the JSP engine from Jetty to Tomcat 5.5. It was exceedingly easy. Here from home, the site seems to run faster. But access from the outside world probably won’t be noticeably faster.

I am considering using Blojsom to run my blog. At present, I use a custom JSP tag library I wrote. It works very well for me, but it’s very simple. I don’t have the time to extend it, so it lacks a lot of bells and whistles that real blog software would provide. Blojsom supports RSS, which it required to be searched via Google Blog Search. Blojsom also supports multi-user usage, so I could create blogs for family and friends.

Friday October 7, 2005

I have been using the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia for a few years now. It seems to me that Wikipedia has the potential to become a repository of (practically) all human knowledge. Given the fact that anyone can contribute to it and that it has practically unlimited storage, it seems inevitable that it will become to be the most complete and detailed single storehouse of information on the planet. Saying this sounds kind of corny, but I think it’s really quite significant. You could say that the Internet itself is the repository of all human knowledge, but it’s so unstructured that extracting the information can be a struggle.

Every day at my job, I find answers to technical problems via Google. It seems that any difficult software development problem I am faced with has a solution documented online. The Internet has made software development easier than it used to be. Ten or fifteen years ago, when you ran into a seemingly unsolvable problem, you had to ask your teammates call your friends or fight it for days until you discovered the solution yourself. I remember fighting very small problems for days. Now I can find the answer in minutes.

It’s hard to overstate how important the Internet is.

Monday September 26, 2005

First Bob Denver, now Don Adams. Would you beleive it? Would you beleive he died of a lung infection. Let’s all share a moment of silence for Don Adams. I SAID, LET’S ALL SHARE A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR DON ADAMS. I heard he missed beating his lung infection by THIS MUCH.

Wednesday September 21, 2005

This weekend, I stopped by the bookstore to look for a book about Alexander the Great. There were no bargain books on him, so I was left with books ranging in price from $16 to $25. I just said no. I was hoping to find a book for $5 or $6. After getting back home, I did a Google search for e-books. I quickly found the $16 book in a downloadable format for $5. I can’t help but think that the printed book is on it’s way out. Why make the paper and drive it cross-country (maybe more than once) when you can simple download it in minutes?

Of course technology isn’t quite where it needs to be to make the book extinct. But I imagine that in the next 5 to 10 years, we will have adequate displays built into most cell phones.

Saturday September 17, 2005

One of my earliest memories is watching a TV show that had giant alligators attacking a boat. I have had an interest in alligators as early as I can remember and I think this TV show initiated that interest. For years I have wondered what show that was that I remembered. I have searched on the web for it in the past with no luck. But this time, I think I found it. It 99% percent sure it was the “Attack of the Alligators” episode of the Thunderbirds TV show. I remember it being in black and white because we had a black and white TV back then. But as you can see from the screenshots on the web, it was actually in color. I might buy this on DVD, if it’s available. I will have a strong urge to turn the contrast all the way down so I can see it in black and white as I remember it.

I found the DVD set with “Attack of the Alligators” on Amazon and found an amazing coincidence. The DVD with “Attack of the Alligators” has a release date of November 20, 2001. My Birthday is November 20. That is fairly bizarre isn’t it? The original episodes were made in 1965, the same year I was born. I cannot say for sure when I saw “Attack of the Alligators”. I suppose I could have seen it when I was just a few years old.

Friday September 9, 2005

I was saddened to learn that Bob Denver (Gilligan) past away last Friday. I have very found memories of watching Gilligan’s Island almost every day after school at my Grandparents’ house in Savannah. My sister and I would get dropped of at my Grandparents house because my mom worked. I remember getting off the bus and smelling honeysuckles growing in my Grandparents’ yard. That smell of honeysuckles was the sweetest smell in the world. It meant that I was out of school and off the bus for another day. I had a hard time at school and I savored not being there. I remember going inside my Grandparents’ house getting something to eat, drinking about a quart of Coke in 5 minutes then sitting down in from of the TV and watching Gilligan’s Island and other kid-targeted reruns shown on TBS such as Ultra-Man, Get Smart, I Love Lucy, The Flintstones, Star Trek, etc.

Like all of us, 1960s TV actors don’t live forever. But seeing them pass on one by one makes it hard to ignore the fact that I am almost 40 years old. The adults I watched on TV as a child are disappearing. When the last original Star Trek actor dies it will be a really significant day for me. Thank goodness Nimoy, Shatner, Nichols, Takie, and Koenig all seem to have many years left.

Monday September 5, 2005

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests birds are descended from dinosaurs. Recent finding seem to fairly conclusively prove that some kinds of dinosaurs were covered in feathers. More and more, it looks like birds are in fact dinosaurs. Just as house cats are descended from wild ancestors, chickens are descended from a branch of predatory dinosaurs (theropods). It turns out that two of science’s nagging questions: “What happened to the dinosaurs?” and “What is the evolutionary history of birds?” have the same answer: Birds are dinosaurs. Cool.

Sunday September 4, 2005

I have written here about the bad experience I had with the Mosquito Magnet. After that experience, I looked for alternate methods to control mosquitoes around my house. I found a very simple solution that works great for me. My solution will probably work best in environments that do not have large amounts of standing water. But if your house is in a large suburban area like mine, then this will probably work for you.

One word of warning first – my solution should only be used in places that very young children (and possibly animals) do not have access to. Use your own judgment and err on the side of safety.

The components are cheap and easy to get. All you need is a five-gallon bucket, a package of mosquito dunks, some water, some dead leaves, and possibly some chicken wire. You can get the mosquito dunks at Kmart or at gardening stores. You can get a five-gallon bucket at The Home Depot.

Simply put a handful or two of dead leaves into the five-gallon bucket, and then pour water into the bucket until it fills about one-third to one-half of the bucket. Do not fill the bucket with water. You might want to cover the opening of the bucket with chicken wire to keep animals from drinking from it. Put the bucket in a shady location where you know mosquitoes frequent. (I keep mine on the concrete pad below my deck.) Let mosquitoes start to lay eggs in the bucket. When the larvas are mostly developed, put a single mosquito dunk into the water. This will kill the larva in the bucket and any additional larva that hatch. The dunk will have to be replaced every couple of months or so. Mosquitoes will be attracted to the standing water, lay eggs in it. Those eggs will never develop into adult mosquitoes.

In addition to the mosquito death trap, put mosquito dunks in any gutters that collect water and in any other standing water that you can’t get rid of.

This technique almost totally eradicated mosquitoes near my house in just a few weeks. I check the bucket every few weeks to see if I need to pour off any excess water or replace the mosquito dunk. When I check it, I’ll usually see a mosquito or two sitting on the inside of the bucket. I leave them alone, knowing they are like decoys on a duck pond – they will attract other mosquitoes to the water and keep the cycle of death going.

Before deploying the mosquito death trap, remove all nearby standing water. A single discarded soda can could be the source of thousands of. And again, don’t use technique in places very young children have access to.

Wednesday August 31, 2005

This evening I replaced the fuser sleeve on our HP 3330 multifunction printer. It took me about three hours to take the printer apart and put it back together again. I’m not sure it was worth the $100 in labor I saved. But at least I have the satisfaction of having done it myself. I also saved a couple of days time. It would have taken that long to get the printer repaired professionally. Apparently HP printers have a long-standing problem with the fuser sleeves getting eaten up. The fuser sleeve is a cylindrical piece of plastic that surrounds the heating element that melts the toner onto the paper. The problem is that the end of the sleeve gets small cracks in it that get caught up on the end of the roller. Once that happens, the sleeve gets slowly ground up against the end of the roller. The printer starts spitting out little pieces of plastic and the paper gets caught up and come out of the printer all wrinkled up on the end that is missing part of the sleeve.

Tuesday August 30, 2005

Wow. The more I see of the damage of Katrina the worse it looks. It seems like whenever there was ever a show on TV about hurricanes or natural disasters, they always provided the ominous warning that if a class 5 hurricane ever hit New Orleans, it would be the biggest disaster in US history. I guess they were right. Although it wasn’t a class 5 hurricane and it wasn’t a direct hit, it looks like New Orleans will never be the same. Looking at the damage filmed from an airplane flying at 5000 ft, I can’t imagine how people could ever live there again. Yet, I know they will. New Orleans will be rebuilt. I’m sure of that. But I wonder how long it will take. I wouldn’t think things could return to normal for at least two years. Maybe five. My heart goes out to all the people affected by this tragic event.

Saturday August 27, 2005

We just got back from a rafting trip down the Flint River. Last night, Tess the kids and I went down to Thomaston Georgia where we spent the night at the lodge at the Flint River Outdoor Center. I got up early to go to the Wal-Mart at Thomaston to get supplies for our day trip down the river. At 10 AM, Jim McDaniel (who owns and runs the outdoor center) took us up river to Goat Mountain where we put in. The trip down the river took us about 6 hours. The river was high. Where we were, the river is mostly smooth interrupted by brief sections of shoals and natural dams. We all had a great time. It was the kid’s first river run. The kids thought the 6-hour trip was too short and they are looking forward to our next river run.

Thursday August 25, 2005

The kids are getting back into the school routine. They both have very good teachers this year. I think they will have good years. Kyle has been separated from his best friend. They still get to play together at recess. Nicole and her best friend have been kept in the same class again this year. Both of them are happy about that.

Best wishes go out to my mom who celebrated the anniversary of her 29th Birthday on the 23rd. She and my stepfather Roy live like I want to live someday: On the water with a great view of the marsh. They live in paradise as far as I am concerned.

Things are going great at work. We are very close to releasing version 3 of the company’s flagship product. During the past five months we have completely rewritten what was a C#/.Net application in C++. It was the right choice. The new architecture combined with the efficiency and versatility of C++ has resulted in a product that will blow the doors off our prior version. I’m lucky to be working on a great team. We have totally rewritten the prior version in less than half the time. I can’t be very specific about what we do because we are a startup. We are currently in the process of re-branding the product and possibly the company in a build up toward our official debut. I will share more details when I am able.

Thursday August 11, 2005

I’ve been very busy lately, so I haven’t had much time to make blog entries. At work, we are working toward an August 22 release date of the latest version of our company’s flagship product. (More on than when it’s appropriate.) And for the past two months I have been going down to Savannah to work on my rental house. I’ve been coding during the week and painting on the weekends. I started going down to Savannah while Tess and the kids were in the Philippines. After they got back, we all continued going down together. It’s a lot of work, but I find it very enjoyable.

The rental house is currently unoccupied, so we have it all to ourselves. We took some cots down to sleep on while we are there. It’s kind of like camping in a house. There is no furniture other than the cots. Over the past two months of weekends I have done a huge amount of landscaping (trimming trees, bushes, etc.), removed wallpaper from the kitchen and bathroom, painted the entire interior of the house, replaced some lighting fixtures, and performed various other odd jobs. I have really enjoyed it. I’m about at the end of it. I think we will go back down one more weekend to cleanup. There are a few remaining jobs that I will probably hire out.

I was sorry to hear of the passing of James Doohan who played Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott on the original StarTrek series. It was a strange coincidence that Kyle and I were watching an original StartTrek episode (from my first season DVD collection) at the time he passed away. James Doohan’s character inspired me to pursue a career in engineering. I always felt the most empathy with “Scotty” and “Spock” – the two geeks of the show.

The kids start the new school year next Monday. They have had a great Summer. They will have plenty to talk about when they get back to school. My cousin Maureen will be starting her first year at Kennesaw University which just a mile from where I work. Things are only going to get busier here in the coming days, so don’t expect too much in the way of blog entries for a while.

Saturday July 23, 2005

On Tuesday I picked up my family from the airport. It was incredible seeing them again after five weeks. I took them home and then told them the tragic news of uncle Chuck’s death. On Wednesday we all drove down to Savannah. The funeral was on Thursday. We all stayed at my rental house, which happens to be unoccupied at the moment because I have been doing some long overdue maintenance on it over the past few weeks. It was nice to see all the people that turned out for the funeral.

Tess and the kids had a fantastic time in the Philippines. The kids had many unique experiences that they could never have here at home. They explored caves, played on tropical black sand beaches, and drove up the side of a semi-active volcano. They played with some of their many cousins and attended the 100th birthday celebration of their great grandmother. I’m very glad they had all those experiences. I hope they can go back many more times.

Monday July 18, 2005

On Friday July 15, my uncle Chuck Prouty passed away. It looks like he may have had a massive stroke. He died in the same house he grew up in. He was only 50 years old. He was only ten years older than me.

Chuck and I were very close. My parents got divorced when I was seven or eight. Since my mom raised my sister and I by herself, we often had to call Chuck (usually at a late hour on a very cold night) to do some guy-thing like light the furnace. He complained about having to come over, but he did come. Growing up, he gave me some of my all-time favorite Christmas presents. He was a guy (not much older than me), so he had a good sense for what I would like. I particularly remember two presents. One was an air rifle that shot little plastic pellets. He gave it to me, and then warned me not to shoot it at anyone. The other gift I really enjoyed was a battery-powered helicopter that circled around on a wire from a ship. It had controls to allow you to change the speed and height. It could even hover and pick up things with a little plastic hook.

Chuck had a curious mind (like myself). When I was a kid he always had stereos, speakers and other electronic odds and ends is various states of repair or disrepair in his room. From my perspective as a kid, he could work magic with anything electronic. I was very curious to understand how he could do what he did. He did his best to explain various aspects of what he was doing. I am sure that those experiences influenced me to major in Electrical Engineering. Later in life, Chuck started tinkering with computers. He became very competent in that as well. Chuck was very smart. He had more natural ability to figure out how something works just by looking at it than anyone else I’ve ever known. (I used to take things apart too when I was a kid, but I wasn’t as proficient as Chuck at reverse-engineering things or in putting things back together.)

Chuck was also the lead jester in the family. I remember many family gatherings at which Chuck was the primary entertainment. Chuck had a great laugh that I will never forget. I know Chuck would want all of us to get on with our lives and not spend too much time being sad.

I know that Chuck valued his family more than anything. His family anchored him. His family defined him. It’s the same with my family and me. So I think I can speak for him when I say that Chuck would not regret his own loss as much as he would regret not being there for us.

Chuck was my uncle, but he was also part father to me and part brother to me, and I will miss him very much.

Wednesday July 6, 2005

While I am here all alone at home (the rest of my family is on vacation in the Philippines) I find myself doing things to keep from getting too bored. Today after work I went to the farmers market. I wanted to eat something different. I bought some garlic spinach bread, some garlic tahini hummus, some fancy Greek olives and some Emmi Emmenthaler Swiss cheese. I also went by the liquor store and bought the ingredients necessary for making premium Margaritas. When I got home I made Margaritas, and ate. It was a unique combination of tastes to say the least. But man was it good.

Monday July 4, 2005

I feel so fortunate to live in the greatest country on Earth. We are not perfect, but nothing in this world can be. Let us not forget the sacrifices that have been made to keep this great country safe and free. Let us not forget the current sacrifices of the servicemen and women that are putting their lives at risk today. How can words express how grateful I am to everyone who has helped protect and defend this country? Saying thanks seems so hollow. But what else can I do?

Tuesday June 21, 2005

So, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin apologized for comparing interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Nazis. That’s awfully big of him. What an idiot. When are people going to stop comparing people they don’t like or disagree with to the Nazis? The Nazis starved, tortured, and killed over 10 MILLION innocent people. 10,000,000!!! They were pure evil. God willing, there will NEVER be anything like the Holocaust ever again in the history of Earth. Comparing people with Nazis at the drop of a hat lessens the pure evil that was the Nazis. There is nothing to compare to them. Even if the Guantanamo Bay interrogators KILLED 10,000 terrorists, they can’t be compared to the Nazis. I wouldn’t compare the Muslin terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 people innocent men women and children to the Nazis. Maybe if they kill an additional 10 million innocent people then they will have earned the right to be compared to the Nazis.

Saturday June 18, 2005

For the next four weeks, I am living the life of a bachelor. Tess and the kids started their four-week vacation in the Philippines today. We got up EARLY this morning so I could take them to the airport for their 8:20 AM flight. This will be the longest time I have been separated from them. I am curious how I will react. It’s quite strange being here in the house by myself.

To fill some time today, I went to see Batman Begins. It was very good. The movie actually pulls off the impossible: It makes you believe there is a plausible explanation for a guy dressing in a bat suit. It also plausibly explains why criminals in Gotham City take on bizarre alter egos (The Joker, etc.). I never read Batman comic books, so I don’t know how true it was to the story in the comics. But it was very well done and I look forward to the sequels.

Tuesday June 7, 2005

The World must be coming to an end. Apple (the computer company) is going to start using Intel microprocessors. Apple users (like my sister Kristen) won’t notice any difference (except faster machines and more hardware choices). But it might be a tough psychological blow for some die-hard Mac users. For years Apple has implied their hardware gives them an advantage over PC hardware. Now they will be running on PC hardware.

I just downloaded my first (legal) music file tonight. I guess I’m slow, but until just now, I have never bought digital music online. I have ripped most of the CDs I own to mp3s, but I have never bought music in digital form before. For the record, I bought “Drive Away” by Thomas Newman. It’s the song played during the closing credits of “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. Tess bought the DVD last weekend. The movie itself is bizarre, but enjoyable. The music is exceptional. I was not familiar with Thomas Newman before today. He also did the music for “Finding Nemo”.

I bought the music file on Wal-Mart’s website. You don’t hear much about Wal-Mart’s music site, but it’s quite good.

Wednesday May 25, 2005

The circle is complete. Last Saturday we all watched Star Wars Episode III. I liked it very much. Surprisingly, Kyle did not like it as much as I did. It wasn’t really made for kids and I guess his opinion of the film reflects this. I have my minor nit-picks, but overall I was very please. It’s a little sad, though – it could it be the last major Star Wars movie. According to Lucas, there will be more Star Wars on the small screen, but I will miss the large-scale movies.

I remember reading an interview Lucas gave over twenty years ago. He described the basic story of how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. He explained how Vader got burned during a fight with Obi Wan on a volcano. I have fantasized about that scene for over twenty years. Seeing it on screen after all that time of fantasizing about it was a strange experience. It was hard for me to forget I was watching a movie. I kept comparing scenes to how I had envisioned them. I kept comparing the plot to how I imaged it. Years from now, kids will be able to see the six movies in order – and I envy them a little. They will experience the movies in a much different way than I experienced them.

Thursday May 5, 2005

Happy May 5! (I can't speak Spanish.)

I have been really bad about updating my web site lately. We have all been fine. I’ve just been too busy lately. For the first time in two years, I did my taxes myself this year. I had used an accountant the prior two years. I didn’t like the lack of control I felt when I used an accountant. But I really needed him the first year. I was totally in the dark regarding how to file taxes for Tess’s business. But after two years with the accountant, I felt confident doing it myself. I bought TurboTax for Business. It was a snap. I should have been doing it myself all along. Hindsight is 20/20.

This past weekend Kyle had his first communion. We were honored to have most of my family here from Savannah and Augusta. The only problem with having so many people show up is that you don’t have enough quality time with anyone. But It was great having everyone here.

Work (both Tess’s and Mine) has been going well. We have both been busy, but we both enjoy what we do and that makes a big difference. The kids are looking forward to summer. Tess and the kids might be going to the Philippines for a month. I’m too busy to be going with them this time.

Over spring break we all went to Disney World and Universal Studios. It was fun, but exhausting. The lines were very long. We spent most of time standing in line. I vow never to go to a theme park again during peak season. It’s just not worth it.

Sunday March 20, 2005

Recently I have gained experience developing software in C# for the Microsoft .Net /CLR environment. Although I have enjoyed developing in C#, I have to say that for now, it is not yet up to the task of developing large scale applications. The C#/.Net/CLR environment is probably fine for developing web services, web based applications, and internal IT projects. I just think it’s not the best choice for developing large-scale world-class best-of-breed applications. Here are the primary reasons why I still prefer C++ for those types of applications:

Control – In C++ you have almost total control. That control means you can make big mistakes that cause big problems. But in practice, C++ software development is a mature and well-understood endeavor. A (good) senior C++ developer on the team will keep you out of trouble (for the most part). C#/.Net/CLR makes things easier for the developer (at least in theory) and in making things easier they make assumptions for you which leads to the developer giving up some level of control. In internal IT shops, the tradeoff is reasonable. In software companies that are developing world class best of breed products, the reduced control can be the difference between getting a number 1 ranking and getting an honorable mention.

Power – There’s not much you can’t do in C++. You can insert inline assembly language blocks in your code. In Windows, you can hook all system messages. In Windows, you can even replace OS APIs with your own hook APIs. Sometimes there is no replacement for that kind of power. As I said for control: In internal IT shops, the tradeoff is reasonable. In software companies that are developing world class best of breed products, the reduced control can be the difference between getting a number 1 ranking and getting an honorable mention.

Stability of the Platform – C++ as a software development environment is very stable. The .Net/CLR environment has been in a state of flux since its debut and will continue to be in a state of flux for several years to come. That means existing bugs will get fixed and new bugs will appear (either in the .Net framework or the CLR). Both bug fixes and new bugs can change the behavior of your application. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the end user can replace the CLR. That creates support problems for software companies that have to deal with end users. In theory, a user should be able to run a .Net 1.1 application within the .Net 2.0 framework, but as always, there are exceptions. See http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/changeinfo/default.aspx for more information.

Predictability – In large-scale applications is it more difficult to predicting how a managed application will behave than it is to predict how a native application will behave. The same .Net Framework and CLR that make you more productive makes assumptions that you may not even be aware of. That’s not to say the C++ STL and MFC don’t have the same issues. I just find it easier to predict what static code will do than to predict what a dynamic runtime environment will do.

Impedance Mismatch Between the Virtual Environment and the Native OS – Managed code wrappers for native Windows objects like bitmaps, regions, events, threads, etc. must be written and used very carefully so avoid leaking native objects. The .Net Region class actually has a bug that causes one of its methods (GetRegionScans) to leak. And the Regions class was written by Microsoft. It goes to show you how easy it is to leak native objects in managed code wrappers. There are several pitfalls you must avoid here. I won’t go into details here, because it would take too long.

Efficiency – I have seen cases where managed applications consume 20 to 30 MBs of RAM in cases that I would predict a native application would only consume 2 or 3 MBs of RAM. I don’t mean to imply C# code is slower than C++ code. In fact you can construct cases where C# is faster than C++. But in large systems, it has been my observation that C++ code is more efficient and tends to use less system resources (memory and CPU) to do the same amount of work. However this may be due to that fact that C#/.Net/CLR asks less of developers than C++. C++ developers tend to be more aware of efficiency issues than C# developers that have never developed in C++.

Consistency – When developing C# applications for Windows, you inevitably need to access some feature of the OS that Microsoft did not expose via the .Net Framework. Microsoft has made it diabolically easy to use unsafe code blocks and call native code residing in DLLs from managed code. So the temptation to take advantage of these capabilities is always there. When you finally succumb to these temptation, you find that you have lost most of the advantages that C#/.Net/CLR offer. It is very easy to crash a managed application inside an unsafe block of code. This ability to mix radically different paradigms in the same application leads to a lack of consistency that allows for new classes of bugs that you couldn’t even have before.

Robustness – Saying C++ is more robust the C#/.Net/CLR is counter to conventional wisdom. At first glance, it would seem that the features/benefits of C#/.Net/CLR (the lack of pointer, a garbage collector) would give it the edge in robustness. However, it is very easy to write C# code that is technically correct, yet when run, will eat all your system’s available memory. The reason for this is that the default client-side garbage collector will not kick in if CPU usage is too high. If you have a tight loop that uses all available CPU in which you create and disposes of objects, your memory usage will climb indefinitely. The server side garbage collector prevents this from happening (so I have read) but at present, it takes quite a bit of work to run a managed application inside a custom runtime environment and the irony is – you need to write a native loader to create the custom runtime environment if you don’t want your application to use the default garbage collector. In my opinion, some of C#/.Net/CLR’s other properties (poor predictability, less control, less efficiency, and less consistency) combine to make it less robust than C++. Keep in mind I am not talking about “Hello World” applications here. I am talking about large and complex applications.

Portability – At present, C++ applications are (or can be) more portable than C# applications. Non GUI C++ code can be extremely portable. I have written very large applications in C++ in which 90% of the code would compile on Windows and all varieties of *nix. Differences were hidden inside class libraries. The C#/.Net/CLR environment offers the potential of writing portable applications (even GUI applications) in the future, but we are not there yet. Even when the .Net/CLR has been ported to all platforms, you will still have to be careful to avoid using Win 32 specific API calls and third party DLLs to maximize portability just as you have to do with C++.

Now a word about Java: Most of the things I have said about C#/.Net/CLR also apply to Java/JFC/JVM. Both are fine for web services, web based applications, and internal IT projects. (I will save the discussion of which platform is best for those various uses for another day.) Neither is best for developing large-scale world-class best-of -breed applications.

Thurday March 17, 2005

I’ve been terrible about updating my website recently. It’s because I’ve been so busy. Work and the daily chores of life have really been keeping me busy. I just wanted to add this little note to say that we are all fine. I am looking forward to Spring and Summer. We are having another cold snap here in Atlanta. It will make spring seem even sweeter when it finally comes.

The big news at our house is that for a couple of weeks now we’ve had a stray cat hanging around our house. The kids have named him Elliot. He (or she) showed up one night when we were grilling some hamburgers outside. I guess he smelled it. It’s obvious he was raised by someone as an inside cat. The first day he showed up he was trying to get inside. He thought his place was inside a house. Well, we fed him that first night and ever since then he has made our house his home. He never strays far from the house. He loves human attention. Tess and I agree that we don’t want a cat in the house, so he sleeps outside. Today, I put a basket outside lined with some old blankets for him to sleep on. It seems we have a cat.

Sunday February 20, 2005

Friday night we all went to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was very good. Not as big or flashy as I remember, but I guess it never is. The last time I went to the circus, the animal trainer Gunther Gable Williams was the headliner. This time the headliner was a clown: David Larible. It is the greatest show on Earth.

Last night we went to the annual Girl Scouts international night. Nicole’s group had to bring food from Mexico. Each group performed a song from the country they were representing.

Wednesday February 2, 2005

John Kerry said on Meet the Press (regarding the elections in Iraq): “No one in the United States should try to over-hype this election”. I guess he thinks freedom is overrated. He should move to Cuba or China. I wonder if he’ll warn us not to over-hype American independence next July 4th? I suppose King George had something similar to say when the United States gained independence from Great Britain. I pity the fool. One thing I’ll give Bill Clinton credit for is that he would never put his foot in his mouth like that. An intern’s foot though…

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton seeks common ground with pro-life groups. What is the world coming to?

Sunday January 30, 2005

It’s a great day for the free people of Iraq. Let freedom ring.

Meanwhile, here in Atlanta, we have been covered in ice. It looks like it’s melting now and things should be back to normal just in time to go back to work and school. Many are without power, but we haven’t lost power yet. We did have some flickering lights last night, but they never when completely out.

Sunday January 23, 2005

Copper clappers around the world fell silent today. Goodbye Johnny Carson.

Monday January 17, 2005

Let freedom ring.

Sunday January 16, 2005

On Saturday, Kyle and I left the house early to go to his basketball game at the YMCA. His team won again. They are undefeated halfway through the season. Nicole and Tess left early too. Nicole had tumbling and ballet.

After the basketball game, Kyle and I went to Colossal Games to check out the annual Yu-Gi-Oh regional tournament. I did not think that Kyle would be able to play because the tournament was supposed to start at 10:00 am, and when we got there at about 5 ‘til 10, there was a line of about 30 people waiting to register. But one of the judges told me that no one would be turned away. So I went ahead and registered Kyle to play.

They were only expecting 70 people, but 120 showed up. It was a huge tournament. And the level of play was very high. The first 7 rounds of the tournament was Swiss format after which, the top eight players have single elimination rounds until a winner is decided. Kyle played exceptionally well. Most of his opponents were teenagers. There were 10 or 15 adults in the tournament. I knew 2 people who made it to the final eight. They were regulars at the place Kyle and I played. I know one got beat in the first round of the finals, but I’m not sure about the other. Kyle and I left soon after the first round was done. We had been there from 10:00 am to 6:30 pm.

Monday January 3, 2005

Over the last several hours, I have been fighting with “IE Hijacker”. It’s a spy-ware program that attaches itself to Internet Explorer. The toll I use to keep such things in check (PestPatrol) let it through, and failed to remove it. Ad-Aware removed it, but only temporarily. It kept coming back. I finally found this web page and the extremely useful tool HijackThis. After manually removing the offending registry settings, dll, and exe files I found peace at last. I have been considering switching to FireFox, and this experience has only reinforced that idea.

The really scary thing is that I work with computers for a living, and it took me quite a while to get IE Hijacker off my computer. I can’t image how average computer users manage.

Saturday January 1, 2005

Happy New Year.

This has been the most laid-back holiday season for Tess and I since we’ve been married. We didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t have any guests. We didn’t even cook a big meal. It was just the four of us at home. It was nice and restful.

Santa was very good to the kids again this year. Kyle received a bunch of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and accessories, clothes, and computer games. Nicole received a new bike, clothes, computer games, and dolls. They also got several DVDs.

It’s sad that so many people lost their lives this holiday season because of the tidal wave. It makes you appreciate what is really important: family, friends, and their good health.

ABC News has declared bloggers to be their People of the Year. Now I’m somebody.