October 2003 - Posts

• How fast is the XMLSerializer

  I'm linking this here for two reasons: It's an excellent post I'm on vacation and I want to remember to try this when I get back to the real world post-PDC. If you ever use the XMLSerializer class (which I do all the time), you should first read this post, then go try it...   Posted Oct 22 2003, 02:39 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• Ok, I'm outta here!

  Well, I'm off on vacation...  I've got several stops to make before then, but next Sunday I'll be in L.A. at PDC.  Looking forward to seeing everyone at the blogging BOF... Laters!   Posted Oct 17 2003, 10:40 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• Home watching Jerry again...

  If anyone remembers from my previous post (like anyone reads this stuff anyway ;) I have a problem not watching the worst TV on earth when I'm home during the workday.  Today I'm home packing for my trip (which ends at the PDC) and Jerry Springer is on... I swear, I only watch it as a pure sociological experiment.  These people fascinate me!  I don't know why!   Posted Oct 17 2003, 09:09 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• Firebird 0.7 is out

  For those of you out there that realize there is a browser other than IE, the Mozilla guys released the 0.7 bits of Firebird (was Phoenix) a few days ago.  The 0.6 drop was crap, and for a while I'd switched over to Opera (not a half bad browser, but has some quarks [Note for Opera guys: when you are typing a url in the address bar, the tab key should allow you to page through the auto-complete list, not move the cursor to the search box] that drive me absolutely nuts). Download it here!   Posted Oct 17 2003, 09:01 AM by dbrowning with 1 comment(s)

• The number 1 way NOT to spend a weekend

  Picture this: It's a nice Saturday in Atlanta.  You have visions of mowing the yard for an hour or so, then fixing some lunch so you can watch the Florida/LSU game.  Then next thing you know... BAM!  you get hit like a freight train by pain!  I mean, pain... not I stubbed my toe kinda stuff, but “I think I need to go to the hospital” kinda pain... That was me this weekend. Turns out I had gall bladder stones, and one of them decided to dislodge itself bladder and attempt to work its way down to my stomach (which it can't do by the way).  Let me tell you something; that sh*t hurt... I checked myself into the hospital Saturday night, and they removed the gall bladder on Sunday.  I've been home recuperating all week (translation: eating percocet like candy), and I'm finally starting to feel human. Today will be my last day at home, so I'll be off to work tomorrow for 1 day... Then it's vacation time.  This isn't exactly how I wanted to spend my week prior to vacation, but I'm glad this happened while I was at home rather than in the backwoods of Big Sur.   Posted Oct 15 2003, 09:44 AM by dbrowning with 2 comment(s)

• More on exception handling

  Eric Gunnerson says: One way to determine this is to ask yourself, "Self, would a user ever care about the different cases where ApplicationException is thrown?" In some cases this is obvious, but in other cases, it's not quite so clear. My recommendation is that you err on the side of more granularity rather than less granularity. Absolutely.  The try/catch block is the most abused construct in any language that supports SEH.  I write a lot of libraries, so I rarely catch exceptions.  Many times, I want them to bubble up and out.  If bubbling that exception will not give the user enough detail, I'll wrap it in a my own ApplicationExceptioin subclass. Just be sure when you throw those custom exceptions, you don't break the Law of Leaky Abstractions [Listening To: - Operation Ivy - Bad Town] Posted Oct 09 2003, 09:47 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• Error Raising and Handling Guidelines

  Read it... Live it...  and by all means; Never Swallow Exceptions! [Listening to: Operation Ivy - Energy]   Posted Oct 09 2003, 09:34 AM by dbrowning with 1 comment(s)

• Post number 100

  Wow, after that last post I looked over at my counters and noticed that I had reached 100 posts.  Damn!  When I started this blog I wasn't sure I would keep it up.  My first attempt at blogging was a massive failure (I'm still surprised the folks at radio havn't killed it); but this time around its been different. By no means am I the community's most consistant blogger (I'll have a few days when I post tons of stuff, then a week with nothing), and I'll never post as much as Scoble or Robert, but this gives me a forum for my random brain dumps.  And as an added bonus, from time to time I get feedback from others in the community which is the thing I look the most forward to... [Listening to: Lo Presher - Didamoldi]   Posted Oct 03 2003, 08:42 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• Eight ways law can fail to be law

  A coworker of mine (since he has no blog, I”ll link Mark's instead) found an interesting list of ways a law can fail on the MIT Open CourseWare site.  Ironically enough, it sounds alot like the way we implement some of our practices here at Turner. Does this list ring true with anything going on at your work? 1. No rules; every issue decided on ad hoc basis 2. Failure to make rules public or known to those who will be subject to them 3. Retrospective law (making rules in the present and applying to past actions) 4. Failure to make rules understandable 5. Enactment of contradictory rules 6. Rules that require conduct beyond the powers of those affected 7. Frequent, unpredictable rule changes 8. Lack of congruence between rules and administration or enforcement [Listening To: Lo Presher - Halfway Gold]     Posted Oct 03 2003, 08:14 AM by dbrowning with no comments