Diagnosing weird problems – a Stack Overflow case study

Earlier, I came across this Stack Overflow question. I solved it, tweeted it, but then thought it would serve as a useful case study into the mental processes I go through when trying to solve a problem – whether that’s on Stack Overflow, at work, or at home. It’s definitely worth reading the original question, but the executive summary is: When I compute the checksum/hash of c:\Windows\System32\Calc.exe using various tools and algorithms, those tools all give the same answer for each algorithm. When I try doing the same thing in Java, I get different results. What’s going on? Now to … Continue reading Diagnosing weird problems – a Stack Overflow case study

Eduasync 20: Changes between the VS11 Preview and the Visual Studio 11 Beta

A while I ago I blogged about what had changed under the hood of async between the CTP and the VS11 Preview. Well, now that the VS11 Beta is out, it’s time to do it all again… Note that the code in this post is in the Eduasync codebase, under a different solution (Eduasync VS11.sln). Many of the old existing projects won’t compile with VS11 beta, but I’d rather leave them as they are for posterity, showing the evolution of the feature. Stephen Toub has an excellent blog post covering some of this, so while I’ll mention things he’s covered, … Continue reading Eduasync 20: Changes between the VS11 Preview and the Visual Studio 11 Beta