Fabulous Adventures In Coding
Eric Lippert's Erstwhile Blog
A Whole Lot Of Nothing
Occasionally I get questions from people who are confused over the semantics of data that are not...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/30/2003
In, Out, In-Out, Make Up Your Mind Already
I was talking about reference types vs. by-reference variables a while back (here, here and here)....
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/29/2003
What could numeric rounding possibly have to do with MS-DOS?
A reader points out that FormatNumber uses yet a different rounding algorithm. FormatNumber rounds...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/26/2003
Bankers' Rounding
A number of people have pointed out to me over the years that VBScript's Round function is a bit...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/26/2003
More on Certificates and Trust Decisions
I said earlier that certificates could be used to establish identity and hence the right to run...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/25/2003
Evil Security Twin Powers... Activate!
One day Peter Torr and I walked into Herman Venter's office (Herman was the architect and primary...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/25/2003
I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down
While I was waiting for a shuttle the other day (Microsoft has a fleet of shuttle busses that take...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/24/2003
Error Messages Considered Harmful
My office nameplate was entirely apropos; LoadPicture continued to plague me throughout my career....
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/24/2003
They call me "LoadPicture Lippert"
As promised, my least customer impactful bug ever. VBScript version 1.0 was written by one of the VB...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/23/2003
JScript eval redux, and some spec diving
I was discussing the difference between executing in local and global scopes the other day. A reader...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/22/2003
Running Me Ragged
A reader asked "Why are there two types of multidimentional arrays? What is the difference between...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/22/2003
"For Each" vs. "for in"
While we're on the subject of semantic differences between seemingly similar syntaxes, let me just...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/22/2003
JScript and VBScript Arrays
Earlier I alluded to the fact that JScript arrays are objects but VBScript arrays are not. What's up...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/22/2003
Why does VBScript have Execute, ExecuteGlobal and Eval?
JScript has an extremely powerful (and almost always misused, but that's another story) feature:...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/20/2003
Arrrrr! Cap'n Eric be learnin' about threadin' the harrrrd way
Avast ye scurvy dogs, it be National Talk Like A Pirate Day! A scurvy bilge rat commented on the...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/19/2003
Hard Core Denotational Semantics
Some of the readers of the Lambda blog...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/18/2003
Why is it a bad idea to put script objects in Session scope?
Often a web site will have a series of related pages requested one after the other by the same user....
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/18/2003
How does Active Server Pages use the script engines?
It's always struck me as a little bit odd that Active Server Pages, a web server, encourages...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/18/2003
What are threading models, and what threading model do the script engines use?
I've got a few ideas for some future posts that depend on the reader understanding a little bit...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/18/2003
How Do The Script Garbage Collectors Work?
UPDATE: This article was written in 2003. Since that time the JScript garbage collector has been...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/17/2003
What are closures?
JScript, as I noted yesterday, is a functional language. That doesn't mean that it works...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/17/2003
Are JScript strings passed by reference?
Yesterday I asked "are JScript strings passed by reference (like JScript objects) or by value (like...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/17/2003
Why do the script engines not cache dispatch identifiers?
You COM programmers out there are intimately familiar with the IDispatch interface, I'm sure. To...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/16/2003
What Are "Anonymous Functions" In JScript?
One of our excellent customer support staff in the United Kingdom asked me this morning what...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/16/2003
Are JScript strings passed by value or by reference?
I was describing some of the semantics of reference types earlier, and that reminded me of one of...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/16/2003
Smart Pointers Are Too Smart
Joel's law of leaky abstractions rears its ugly head once more. I try to never use smart pointers...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/16/2003
Bad Hungarian
One more word about Hungarian Notation and then I'll let it drop, honest. (Maybe.) If you're going...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/16/2003
Eric's Complete Guide To VT_DATE
I find software horology fascinating. The other day, Raymond said "The OLE automation date format is...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/16/2003
What are the VBScript reference semantics for object members?
Clearly in order for VBScript to support variable referencing there has to be a variable to...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/15/2003
More On ByRef vs ByVal
In my previous entry I discussed VBScript's various syntaxes for passing values by reference....
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/15/2003
What do you mean "cannot use parentheses?"
Every now and then someone will ask me what the VBScript error message "Cannot use parentheses when...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/15/2003
Why does JScript have rounding errors?
Try this in JScript: window.alert(9.2 * 100.0); You might expect to get 920, but in fact you get...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/15/2003
What's Up With Hungarian Notation?
I mentioned Hungarian Notation in my last post -- a topic of ongoing religious controversy amongst...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/12/2003
Eric's Complete Guide To BSTR Semantics
If you've ever done any C++ or C programming that used COM objects, you'll certainly have seen code...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/12/2003
Fabulous Adventures!
Hi there. Welcome to my blog. This introduction was last updated in 2011. Who is this guy? I'm Eric...
Author: Eric Lippert Date: 09/12/2003