Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/25
Blast from the past machine generated code by the various assembly versions of the [WayBack] Windows BitBlt function [WayBack] Optimizing BitBlt by generating code on the fly – The Old New Thing.
Via: [WayBack] Rodrigo Ruz on Twitter: “Optimizing BitBlt by generating code on the fly https://t.co/gWmKjex20i”
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/24
Designing for a good user experience is hard, especially to programmers. So if you are a programmer, please read, let them sink in, rinse, repeat the below linked articles multiple times. Being ~15 years old, they are still so very relevant:
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2020/02/06
Interesting bit of history: [WayBack] Why does HRESULT begin with H when it’s not a handle to anything? – The Old New Thing.
TL;DR:
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/12/31
A while back there were a few G+ threads sprouted by David Heffernan on decoding big files into line-ending splitted strings:
Code comparison:
Python:
with open(filename, 'r', encoding='utf-16-le') as f: for line in f: passDelphi:
for Line in TLineReader.FromFile(filename, TEncoding.Unicode) do ;
This spurred some nice observations and unfounded statements on which encodings should be used, so I posted a bit of history that is included below.
Some tips and observations from the links:
Though TLineReader is not part of the RTL, I think it is from [WayBack] For-in Enumeration – ADUG.
It doesn’t help that on the Windows Console, various encodings are used:
Good reading here is [WayBack] c++ – What unicode encoding (UTF-8, UTF-16, other) does Windows use for its Unicode data types? – Stack Overflow
+A. Bouchez I’m with +David Heffernan here:
At its release in 1993, Windows NT was very early in supporting Unicode. Development of Windows NT started in 1990 where they opted for UCS-2 having 2 bytes per character and had a non-required annex on UTF-1.
UTF-1 – that later evolved into UTF-8 – did not even exist at that time. Even UCS-2 was still young: it got designed in 1989. UTF-8 was outlined late 1992 and became a standard in 1993
Some references:
–jeroen
Posted in Delphi, Development, Encoding, PowerShell, PowerShell, Python, Scripting, Software Development, The Old New Thing, Unicode, UTF-16, UTF-8, Windows Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/10/02
I got an interesting question a while ago: should an application terminate (anonymous) threads or not?
Started.WaitFor might not return (which you cannot get around this because all overloads of the CheckThreadError are non-virtual)A problem is that a thread might not execute unless you call WaitFor before Terminate is called. The reason is that the internal function ThreadProc does not start Execute if the thread is already terminated.
The
ThreadProcin theSystem.Classesunit is an ideal place to set breakpoints in order to see which threads might start.Other useful places to set breakpoints:
TAnonymousThread.ExecuteTExternalThread.Execute
Execute not being called by ThreadProc is a bug, but it is not documented because QC is gone (taking the below entry with it), it is not in QP and the docwiki never got updated.
Given QC has so much information, I am still baffled that Embarcadero took it down.
Sergey Kasandrov (a.k.a. serg or sergworks) wrote in [WayBack] Sleep sort and TThread corner case | The Programming Works about this bug and refers to WayBack: QualityCentral 35451 – TThread implementation doesn’t guarantee that thread’s Execute method will be called at all .
The really bad thing are the WayBack: QualityCentral Resolution Entries for Report #35451 Resolution “As Designed” implying the design is wrong.
In his post, sergworks implemented the Sleep sorting in Delphi. Related:
- WayBack: Genius sorting algorithm: Sleep sort
- [WayBack] Reddit – 4chan: Sleep sort : programming
- [WayBack] 4chan: Sleep sort : programming
- [WayBack] Sorting algorithms/Sleep sort – Rosetta Code
- [WayBack] What is the time complexity of the sleep sort? – Stack Overflow
Note that application shutdown is a much debated topic. Best is to do as little cleanup as possible: your process is going to terminate soon anyway. No need to close handles or free memory: Windows will do that for you anyway. See for instance:
- [WayBack] The old-fashioned theory on how processes exit – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] Quick overview of how processes exit on Windows XP – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] Changes to power management in Windows Vista – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] Now that Windows makes it harder for your program to block shutdown, how do you block shutdown? – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] A process shutdown puzzle – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] A process shutdown puzzle: Answers – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] A process shutdown puzzle, Episode 2 – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] Why does Internet Explorer not call DLL_PROCESS_DETACH on my DLL when I call ExitProcess? – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] When DLL_PROCESS_DETACH tells you that the process is exiting, your best bet is just to return without doing anything – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] Why can’t I delete a file immediately after terminating the process that has the file open? – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] During process termination, the gates are now electrified – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] How my lack of understanding of how processes exit on Windows XP forced a security patch to be recalled – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] The old-fashioned theory on how processes exit – The Old New Thing
- [WayBack] Some reasons not to do anything scary in your DllMain – The Old New Thing
Related to waiting:
Related to executing:
–jeroen
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