I would like to emphasize one of my latest articles, called C# readonly, that can help you learn more about this keyword. It is part of the C# language and I really learned what it is good for here. You can have a const variable modifiable at runtime.

Limit key lengths to 19 chars. Remove char 1. [perf]

Add code to disable/enable Stopwatch.GetTimestamp(). Disable it. [perf]

Canonical link tag. [awesome]

Case-insensitive.

TODO: keep adding numbering to articles.

Yesterday, added code that generated heuristics for optimizing IsGZipSupported. It is almost twice as fast in some cases, always faster. Wrote article on it, Request.Headers Usage Stats. Mainly a vanity piece.

4 new articles

Removed duplicate images. These were a carryover from when the images were not at the start. Having visual kick to articles is most important so leave them at start.

Stop centering images. Should remove "ct" style logic

Should convert numbers to #. --- (not Figure #. ---)

New articles: Join String Method, Google Webmaster Tools - Crawl Stats. Both have graphs. Very nice. It has really helped that I have taken it slower.

Rearranged RSS link to be right at the top of the home page. It is very obvious and clear now. It looks fine.

Changed runtime to precompute all GZIPs, costs about 300 ms on startup. Should put up the Runtime for a bit. It isn't doing me much good to work on it. I had to fix the problem with the threading in the old lazy Dictionary cache.

Read "Writing For Computer Science" book.

Also bought tons of Red Bull and Double Shots. Zzzz

[Today]

New dictionary GetHashCode method, 40% faster, 10% faster startup

New article about IEqualityComparer

TODO:
Spend time reading
Relax
Lower blood pressure!

So, I did lots of stuff with Dot Net Perls.

First, I used more string preprocessing to make the pages about 1% smaller with no content changes. I will post the HTML Minify article soon.

I rearranged the database so it is simpler to read in at startup. It should also be about 600 bytes smaller. Startup should be faster. Fewer objects allocated in memory at startup.

This week I wrote a couple good articles. Stopwatch Samples and Domain Name Method. They have good style. Also replaced some older images, added new "theme" images.

I added Timestamp functionality to the site. Every request is timed now. This lets me detect performance problems in the future.

I simplified the settings functionality in the runtime.

I have been replacing some spaghetti code with modular classes. For example, a class to handle the decompression cache. Also a stopwatch utility class. Also made Metadata into a single object. I can simply create new ones now, instead of risking corruption of old ones.

I added a CENTER style, which I can use to center images. Also improved some of the style code.

Mainly, I need to sit back and observe the site. I need to take notes in GMail. I will wait for problems and be reassured when there are none.

TODO: Read books.
Observe site, don't waste time doing useless changes.
Work on business model.
Relax--this will improve the outcome.
Read about other things.
Read code for Google Chrome.
Comment.

If you are seeing this, you probably searched for my main site Dot Net Perls. I recommend reading my articles there, as the stuff here is rather old. I think you might like the System.Collections.Generic.List article for List collections I wrote about the List object in C#.

I haven't blogged here in a bit, mainly because I have moved on to my own, custom website. It has much the same material on it, but with 10+ new articles already. I haven't given up by any means and I am dedicated to this cause. Mainly I am posting here because I have made a new program called Anagram Finder, that allows you to cheat at your favorite word game (Scrabulous, Scrabble, Boggle, Yahoo word games). It finds all anagrams in a word that are the same length as the word.

My program is special because it has a decent GUI, no ads, and is very fast. The server is using an optimized database with indexes, etc. It all works very well but I seek to improve it further.

Visit the new Anagram Finder at http://dotnetperls.com/anagram/. There is an accompanying article at Dot Net Perls Dot Com. Come visit; I think you'll like it. The anagram finder is fun to type into.

Dot Net Perls Update #1

There is new stuff at my source reference site, DotNetPerls.com.

One article delves into SiteMapProviders, C#, recursion, and generating HTML. Includes code.

An article about dealing with recursive file directories, with code that is more robust/logical than that on MSDN's site! In C#.

Output caching and master pages. Some cool stuff about ASP.NET performance

Have fun!

Another update:

The new site has code examples and pages on recursively finding file names in directories and subdirectories, counting words like Microsoft Word does in C#, full code examples of an NGEN.exe precompilation Installer Class, and some (possibly) amusing commentary on programmers and blogs.

More stuff (#3)

My Rot13 C# implementation, precomputed bitcounts, single instance Winforms apps without using a Mutex, 3 screenshots, an archive page, much better structure, and probably more.

The new site is better in every way--no ads, 10x faster to load and smaller, code that is easier to copy/paste, a better source repository at Google Code, and a ton of improvements. Google has discovered it but hasn't indexed the latest and greatest.

Look at the new & improved article, along with links to the files at Google Code, here.

Please see the Dot Net Perls Dot Com article on Micro-Benchmarking Linq!

I have edited this content and converted it into two articles. They have been improved, and put on a much nicer site (no ads).

Excel Interop Performance

Object-oriented thoughts

I'm sorry, this content has been moved. Google will figure out eventually.

Look for the new Installer class here. It works as well as ever, and it is free! It is available at Google Code from a link on the new site.

This post has been moved to a new home at Dot Net Perls Dot Com!

New Article Here--I have improved this post quite a lot and put it in a much better format at the link provided. Code is also available at the new site

This page is now located at Dot Net Perls Dot Com. It discusses SQLite rowid joins, etc.

In software development, the most exiting (exhilarating) moments are when a change you just made not only works properly, but causes a massive improvement in the speed or quality of your product. I cherish those moments when, after literally staying awake for 10 hours all night, a complicated and difficult change finally compiles, and works properly. One change I made saved megabytes of RAM by using a special tree structure; it was a thrill after staying awake all night. When a novice developer first makes a database without an index, it will be very slow. But just by making his/her first index, the database will become a hundred times faster. These are decisive improvements that are indisputable. There aren't any benchmarks showing 1%, 1.5% improvements, but common sense and examination in passing can validate the improvement. These are the changes that make software design fun. Fixing bug #25 (or 1,000) is fine and important, and may well be critical to the health of the project, but this kind of change is more exciting.

In the Mozilla project, the last change I thought was truly a big enhancement was the special back/forward cache. Basically, with that cache, the browser would store a previously-viewed page in its finished state and simply display it again when the user clicks back (or forward). Thus, the time for rendering a 10 MB HTML file could drop from 10 (30?) seconds, to .1 seconds.

Recently, a change in the memory allocator in Firefox/Mozilla was made. A new allocator made by Jason Evans (and used mainly in various forms of BSD) was used to replace the system allocator on Windows. Now, the system Malloc() on Windows is fine a lot of the time, but even in .NET and Microsoft's own projects, it is not used. It is old and I don't think it is being improved by Microsoft. Dot Net uses a custom garbage collector. Over the last 10 years, Mozilla has had this behavior: start at 10-20 MB of RAM used, and gradually grow. There was no reduction of RAM really. So, after a day, I would see 100 MB. I restart/shutdown usually, but occasionally I would see 150 MB. I don't think it would stop, ever. JEMalloc has fixed this behavior for me. It changes the allocation patterns entirely. I see the browser get up to 60 MB, 70 MB, and it will stay there. If I open a bunch of stuff, the browser will get to 150 MB, but then when I close those documents, it will go to 60 MB again.

The final effect is simple and that is that it fixes the endless growth of memory usage. I use other programs, as do most people, to actually be productive with my computer. Those programs use 100+ MB, 200+ MB, but they have more of a rationale for that. So, JEMalloc fixes the problem for me. Maybe it doesn't work indefinitely, but it is far better than before. It fixes probably the most hated Mozilla bug (on Windows?) of the last 10 years.

This article is now located at Dot Net Perls Dot Com! Look Here! Enjoy! There's lots of code too.

Look at http://dotnetperls.com/Content/Scrabble-Algorithm-Perl.aspx for the post and a link to my Google Code site for the source.

Here's some more open-source code I have developed or adapted. The first class enabled single-instance applications that actually works (most Mutex approaches on the 'Net will fail a lot). The process code is adapted from the work of a Microsoft engineer posted on a mailing list. The second file is a speciality class I use to make UI updates really polished and even. It works great. I will post more code in the coming days/weeks. Have fun.

Here's how to use ProcessChecker to create a single instance app:

// the string "Launcher" must be contained in the window you will want to focus if it is running.

Application.EnableVisualStyles();

Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

Application.Run(new Launcher());

Here's how to use RenderScheduler.cs to make the screen updates of your app fluid and even:

bool current = _threader.SetLatestAndSleep(Thread.CurrentThread);

if (current == false)

{

Debug.WriteLine("Canceling");

return;

}

// display top 100

_threader.RunIfLatest(Thread.CurrentThread, 50);

 

Thread.Sleep(100);

_threader.RunIfLatest(Thread.CurrentThread, 400);

Hope that helps. Remember to have fun.

NOTE: The source code is in my public folder and is linked to in later posts.