October 2005 Entries

I'm all geeked up

Yep. I did it. I relived the pressures of my Math 8 final. I'm pretty sure I perspired a bit more at the real final though. I don't know who this mm53bar guy is, but damn he's starting to freak me out. I used to go on those same type of road trips to the Loops and Cariboo College as a kid. And ooooooooohhh did I know I was a geek. I embelished it for humor's sake. Hell, I have a picture of me biting the medalion for Grade 12 Math achievement like I had just won a gold medal in the...

MSMQ Triggers and COM Components

The other day I found that any emails you were sending me weren't getting through.  One of the emails sitting purgatory was a request for more info on how to make MSMQ triggers call a COM component.   I tried to reconfigure my  email and in  the process lost the email.  All I know is that it was a bloke from Mystic Logistics.  Well mate, hope this helps out. I'm well past working on the first version of the MSMQ portion of our software project.  As I'd mentioned before, I am going to post more info on the use of Invocation Parameters and their use when calling COM components. ...

Programmer Characteristics

I'm sure you've all seen or made jokes about the things that make us programmers such a unique bunch.  Things like socially inept, introverted, and fashionably challenged.  Sure, you can take the easy road and pin us all together with those easy stereotypes, but let’s try for something a little more difficult. For the last month or so I've been reading Code Complete.  One of the last sections of the book, entitled Personal Character, was quite interesting and provided a look at the softer side of the people that are programmers.  It covers everything from curiosity to laziness and habits.  For those who haven't read the book at all,...

Damn Email

I hadn't noticed that the email for this darn place wasn't working.  You could contact me, but your email would end up in purgatory.  I also noticed that comments had been disabled.  I think that the comments thing has been rectified, but the damn email is still troubling me.  Untill further notice, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Coding Responsibilities

Today I saw this article focusing on a statement made, at Secure London 2005, by Howard Schmidt.  The statements included:     "In software development, we need to have personal quality assurances from developers that the code they write is secure"     "We need individual accountability from developers for end-to-end solutions so we can go to them and say: 'Is this completely secure?' " For the past 5 years I've been working on software systems that manage and maintain data that is both sensitive and has had extremely high requirements for calculation accuracy.  Sure they've not been systems which controlled aircraft, kept the pace set by pacemakers or dispensed...

The End of an Era

Friday was the end of an era.  Buddy moved from our team to become a burden on someone else's.  He sprinkled a few gems over the last few weeks that had me shaking my head in confusion and awe. "I left my last job because I had to do too much JavaScript and UI."  Sure.  Most of us would rather be doing other things. (Slim promptly assigned him to backend C# code.) "I don't like writing business logic."  Okay.....but why did you take a job with a consulting company then?  We will never be doing anyting but UI and business logic, and...