April 2005

27Apr2005

The String Memory Gotcha

By carlfish on

String has, however, a package-private "quick" constructor that just takes a char array, offset and length and blats them directly into its private fields with no sanity checks. Most of the time this is benign and useful. Most of the time.

25Apr2005

Competition in a Nutshell

By carlfish on

The cable modem is the most hated device on my desk. Everything else was chosen by me, to be an efficient part of my lifestyle. The modem was supplied by my cable company, with the most likely motive of shaving a few bucks off the cost of each new subscription.

08Apr2005

Maciej on Dabblers and Blowhards

By carlfish on

Maciej Ceg?owski, who for a while has been a member of my list of bloggers I desperately wish I could write as well as, has poked a well-aimed skewer into Paul Graham's essay, "Hackers and Painters". It's one of those articles where, in trying to find an excerpt, I had to stop myself quoting the whole thing.

06Apr2005

The Macintosh Advantage

By carlfish on

One of the commonly repeated lies spread about the Mac by non-believers is that it is somehow 'limited' by the fact that it only ships with a single-button mouse. You see this 'fact' trolled across every single Apple-related discussion on the Internet.

03Apr2005

World of Warcraft

By carlfish on

It's no wonder that games like this quickly end up revolving around leveling and getting more powerful items - you can't change the world around you one iota, so the only thing you have the power to do is change yourself.

02Apr2005

The Difference a Word Makes

By carlfish on

Unremarkable, except that the word "your" changes what should be a warning into an accusation. Should I be battening down the hatches in case a pack of rabid NDA lawyers descend on me?

01Apr2005

Random Tomcat Annoyance

By carlfish on

How to unknowingly deploy an application twice under Tomcat. Subtitle: all support and no coding makes Charles increasingly short-tempered.