Kenny Kerr

Who says you need to add additional threads to your application to keep it from becoming unresponsive? The golden rule for responsive client applications is to avoid blocking calls on window threads. A blocking function call on a window thread prevents the thread’s message loop from dispatching messages promptly and the result is an unresponsive set of windows since the window is not able to respond to input from the mouse, the keyboard, other applications or the operating system itself. A common solution is to make blocking calls on worker threads but threads are costly, introduce complexity into your application, and would itself not be doing much of use other than managing some state and waiting for the blocking call to return. One simple and efficient solution to this problem is called alertable I/O and makes use of asynchronous procedure calls (APCs) and that is the topic of this first part of the Parallel Programming with C++ series or articles.

Microsoft’s developer division has, at least publicly, been placing a lot of emphasis on making it easier for C# and VB developers to build scalable applications more easily. The Parallel Extensions CTP for .NET 3.5 is clear evidence of their commitment to the C# and VB developer. Why C# and VB and what about C++? Is C++ not getting the attention it needs in the age of parallel programming?

It’s been almost four months since arriving in England. We moved into a flat on the 30th of August. Can I get something as fundamental as a working phone line in that time? No that’s apparently too much to ask for. I’ve received some poor customer in my day but BT takes the cake.

I arrived home this evening and Karin told me a package had arrived from Chris Sells. Chris had sent me a copy of his latest book entitled Programming WPF. Karin then pointed me to the acknowledgements (clearly she’d examined the package carefully before I arrived home!) where I was pleasantly surprised to find my name in both Ian’s and Chris’s acknowledgements and the following in particular under Chris’s Acknowledgements:

The latest installment of my Windows with C++ column is now online in the December 2007 issue of MSDN Magazine.

I’m visiting the Microsoft campus in Reading on Friday 26 October (tomorrow). I’ll be hanging out in building 3 I believe, for an MVP event. Do stop by and say hello if you’re in the area.

South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup!!!

Since publishing my XmlLite article in MSDN Magazine I have received a lot of questions about distribution. Clearly developers are very excited to have a fast and “lite” alternative to MSXML for native code but the lack of a redistributable for Windows XP keeps coming up as a roadblock.