Paul Mooney

A blog reaction

Why did the Win64 team choose the LLP64 model? 

Raymond Chin read a thread on channel9 and one line caused him to blog;

I got a good chuckle out of that and made a note to write up an entry on the Win64 data model.

The Win64 team selected the LLP64 data model, in which all integral types remain 32-bit values and only pointers expand to 64-bit values. Why?

In addition to the reasons give on that web page, another reason is that doing so avoids breaking persistence formats. For example, part of the header data for a bitmap file is defined by the following structure:

typedef struct tagBITMAPINFOHEADER {
        DWORD      biSize;
        LONG       biWidth;
        LONG       biHeight;
        WORD       biPlanes;
        WORD       biBitCount;
        DWORD      biCompression;
        DWORD      biSizeImage;
        LONG       biXPelsPerMeter;
        LONG       biYPelsPerMeter;
        DWORD      biClrUsed;
        DWORD      biClrImportant;
} BITMAPINFOHEADER, FAR *LPBITMAPINFOHEADER, *PBITMAPINFOHEADER;

If a LONG expanded from a 32-bit value to a 64-bit value, it would not be possible for a 64-bit program to use this structure to parse a bitmap file.

There are persistence formats other than files. In addition to the obvious things like RPC and DCOM, registry binary blobs and shared memory blocks can also be used to transfer information between processes. If the source and destination processes are different bitness, any change to the integer sizes would result in a mismatch.

Notice that in these inter-process communication scenarios, we don't have to worry as much about the effect of a changed pointer size. Nobody in their right mind would transfer a pointer across processes: Separate address spaces mean that the pointer value is useless in any process other than the one that generated it, so why share it?

posted on Monday, January 31, 2005 7:00 AM

At 7PM Raymond had 46 replies, from an impressive collection of programming talent, what a conversation!

CodeBetter

CodeBetter is a new blogging site created by a the former DNJ bloggers;

Darrell Norton,  Brendan Tompkins, Sahil Malik, Grant Killian, Paul Laudeman, 
Mark DiGiovanni, Ben Reichelt and Jeff Lynch. Check-out their main Feed for some quality postings on coding in.Net.

Their site looks good with a nicely skined version of Community Server, the software formally known as .Text.  I wish them luck with their new venture, they will be missed here at DNJ as they were among the best bloggers we had.

.Text Installer

Community Server Web Based Installer

Community Server, the software formally known as .Text will ship with a web based installer and should also have a windows installer as well.

The goal of the web installer is to enable a generic install to happen as quickly and easily as possible (ie, with only a couple straight forward choices) and without the need to use tools such as Query Analyzer.

We are all hoping that DNJ will be installing this upgrade shortly.

It's only XML

I know it's only XML, but I like it, like it, yes I do!

Atom Format, new spec draft

By danja on Specifications

draft-ietf-atompub-format-05
HTML version, diffs etc available along with previous drafts.

SharePoint Users Group

Our NY/NJ SharePoint Users Group meets TONIGHT;

The meeting schedule is as follows:
Jan. 27th 2005
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Microsoft, Woodbridge, NJ location

Presentation by Scott Hillier (DataLan) - Basics of Web part development

Can't make it to Woodbrdge?

We have arranged for a Live Meeting for our January meeting;

Please use the following link to connect to the Live Meeting at 7PM EST.

NYC SQL UG

I enjoy going to User Group meetings and now we have a new one in NYC for SQL. I'm excited about SQL Server 2005 and by joining this UG we should be getting an early look at the Data Base we have been dreaming about!

The January meeting will take place on the 27^th at our usual spot at 1290 Sixth Avenue at Microsoft at 6:00 PM. Hilary Cotter, a SQL Server MVP and an expert on replication.

The presentation will cover the following topics:

• When should I use replication over other data distribution methods?
• When should I use each replication type?
• Transactional replication internals
• Merge replication internals
• Conflicts
• The Identity Crisis
• Replicating to objects with different schemas
• Deploying large snapshots
• Latency Performance enhancements
• Troubleshooting
•  If you are planning on coming, please send a confirmation email to joelax@dbdirections.com

Promoting Windows Mobile and Embedded

                            Developer Event Promotional Manager

The Mobile and Embedded Devices Central Promotional Group (MEDCPG) is looking for a talented event promoter to lead our developer education event planning and production. MEDCPG is the marketing and communications arm of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division -- Microsoft’s newest and fastest growing P&L unit. We’re responsible for promoting Windows Mobile for Smartphones, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Portable Media Center, Windows CE and Windows XP Embedded. If you’re passionate about improving people’s lives through unique, innovative mobile devices, if you want to work in a red-hot industry poised for dramatic growth and you’re looking to get in on the ground floor of a critical and fast-growing Microsoft business then we’d like to speak with you.

I changed the wording of this job announcement because too many people don’t understand the difference between Marketing, Advertising, Promotion and Sales.

Software Developers are tech-savvy; we constantly take things apart and put them back together. So if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck we're going to give it a yellow UI.

The real Marketing people are busy thinking about and creating the next generation of Products. Compelling Mobile and Embedded Products will attract Software Developers; not geekey gizmos with bells and whistles, but useful devices.

Who hired the people who have thus far done such a poor job promoting Windows Mobile and Embedded products? There are many super-smart people in Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices Division who deserve much better support then they have received.

I attended the Embedded Systems DevCon and several Embedded Systems conferences; there is a difference between Windows Developers and Embedded developers that needs to be addressed. I have offered to help organize a Windows Mobile and Embedded Developer Event here in NY/NJ, but haven’t gotten any enthusiasm from the very people who are paid to be enthused.

Accidental terrorist

A homeless man spending a very cold night deep inside a New York City subway tunnel lit a fire that ignited cables and destroyed a signal relay room.

We are very fortunate that this happened late Sunday night and not early Monday morning as a train wreck on the A and C lines could have caused hundreds of deaths. More then half a million people ride the A and C trains each day.

This destructive event took place beside the Chambers Street Station, the subway Station of the former World Trade Center. I first learned of a problem with the A train between the Cannel Street and Fulton Street Stations at 4pm Monday. Tuesday morning’s newspapers carried the story about the fire, this accidental terrorism will cost tens of millions of dollars and up to five years to repair.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority is celebrating its centennial, New York City's underground rapid transit system, inaugurated on October 27, 1904, stands as one of the 20th Century's outstanding feats of engineering and urban planning.

High Bid

Thirty of the top consultants and trainers in the worldwide .NET community have come together to help raise money for an organization that is doing amazing and heroic disaster relief in Aceh Province, Sumatra, the hardest hit area of the Dec 26th Tsunamis.

The organization is Aceh Aid at IDEP, headquartered in Bali. Because the organization is located in Indonesia, ALL of the money is able to go to help the victims. Below you will find an explanation about this project. You can also go to www.AcehAid.org to learn more. For a closer look at what they are accomplishing, visit the weblog of Susi Johnston, who is the Acting Emergency Director of Operations and Communications for Aceh Aid at IDEP.

The consultants in this auction are Michelle Leroux Bustamante, Kimberly L. Tripp, Jonathan Goodyear, Andrew Brust, Richard Campbell, Adam Cogan, Malek Kemmou, Jackie Goldstein, Ted Neward, Kathleen Dollard, Hector M Obregon, Patrick Hynds, Fernando Guerrero, Kate Gregory, Joel Semeniuk, Scott Hanselman, Barry Gervin, Clemens Vasters, Jorge Oblitas, Stephen Forte, Jeffrey Richter, John Robbins, Jeff Prosise, Deborah Kurata, Goksin Bakir, Edgar Sánchez, Thomas Lee, J. Michael Palermo IV, Vishwas Lele, and John Lam.

Buyers will bid to win one hour of consulting time from one of these 30 gurus. Starting bid is $100 with no reserve. There will be 30 winners. Winners can pick the brain of a .NET Expert for an hour. Highest bidders will be first in the “draft” for the consultant assigned to them. Winners can call, email or IM the consultant and use the hour to answer that nagging question, do a code review, or just get some general .NET advice. The winners and consultant are free to make other arrangements if they like.

There will be 30 winning bids. eBay rules require that all 30 winners pay the lowest bid price. Though you are only required to pay the lowest bid amount, remember the cause -- we hope that you will donate to Aceh Aid at IDEP the amount of your winning bid.

As I know or have met just about everybody on the list I can tell you that this is a great deal for everyone concerned. It’s wonderful to see software developers donating their skills, and these people do have some SKILLS, bid high and bid often!

Vloggercon

Vloggercon 2005 New York City was a wonderful day of sharing, thanks to everyone’s generosity of spirit!

This conference was originally conceived as a meet-up of Vloggers who knew each other through their video blogs, but henceforth its vlogs and print blogs. Alls changed, changed utterly; the network effect from our gathering of eighty people in the ultra-technological NYU Media Lab will reverberate throughout the blogosphere and the ionosphere.

Until yesterday nobody really knew what they were doing, but by coming together we all affirmed to one another that this is something