Last night, I had an idea for a new lock-free algorithm: a single-producer, single-producer queue with a wait-free push and a lock-free pop. The algorithm in question, which is remarkably efficient for, e.g., logging (which is why I called the project HSL for High-Speed Logging) is prone to what I call “spurious popping” – i.e., [...]

A few days ago, I explained to a colleague why certain communications protocols have a “tell me twice” policy – i.e. to allow for any command to have any effect, the same command – or a command to the same effect – has to be received twice (from the same master). In human parlance, this [...]

While going through some old code, for another article I’m writing that will come up on the blog, I came across an implementation of binary search in C. While the implementation itself was certainly OK, it wasn’t exactly a general-purpose implementation, so I thought I’d write one and put it on the C++ for the [...]

In the latest installment of my podcast, I asserted that “all software productivity problems are project management problems”. In this post, I will explain why I believe that to be the case and how I think those problems can be resolved.

I guess it’s not a secret: I’m looking for a job, either short-term or long-term, so I put my CV on a few websites. I got called by head-hunters twice this week: once for a contract to start on Monday (I’m busy until the end of September/the beginning of October so I told ‘em I [...]

Any problem is an invitation to find a solution. Any solution – at least in my line of work – is an amalgam of concrete implementations of abstract concepts. Each of those implementations may or may not meet the requirements just like any of those concepts may or may not be the right one for [...]

I first started working with SQL several years ago: MySQL was still in the 3.x versions, so I didnt use any stored procs, transactions, etc. Most of the business logic around the data was written in Perl. Though it was a fun time in many respects, I dont miss the limitations of MySQL one bit. [...]

Xerces-C is without a doubt one of the most popular DOM implementations in C++ (and its Java sibling undoubtedly the most popular implementation for Java). As with any project that lives under the banner of the Apache Foundation the project is managed using a meritocracy-style project management scheme and has been, quite successfully, for the [...]

I just read a blog by Michel Fortin, where he quotes Joel On Software regarding Hungarian notation, or rather, Hungarian WartHogs. Naming a variable for its type, or a type for its location or namespace, is a mistake. I agree with Joel on his introduction: there are different levels of programmers and, at some point, [...]

And here I though Basic was on its way out: Microsoft has been touting the advantages of C# and .NET in general far more than they have the advantages of Visual Basic (I remember when it became “visual”: it used to be “quick” and that never said anything about run time); and Google seemed to [...]