Plumbing

Ryan Van Slooten — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:43:40 GMT

My bout with Windows Script Host (WSH) the other day turned out fine. I managed to get a working script less than an hour after my post, but it left me thinking about low-level issues in today's environment. There are some low-level issues that are truly inconsequential such as old DOS relics like expanded memory (XMS) and extended memory (EMS) specifications but there are also many useful aspects as well. Things like two's complement, Karnaugh maps (haven't had to use it in quite a while though), floating point data format (something I had to discover on my own) -- I hope most of these are still taught in university today. One of the reasons I mention this is that an old project I worked on involved displaying an image that exceeded the size limit of normal DOS memory allocation so I used djgpp and DPMI to solve the problem.

For most programmers, the most productive time is spent when coding at a high level. As soon as a tricky low-level issue is encountered, the productivity level takes a major dive. Debugging these issues can be frustrating and time consuming but at the same time it can be rewarding. Some issues are accompanied by a moment of "Eureka" -- for example one of my first memorable debugging challenges was the first week of interning at a company that build compressor controllers. I was working on software that used commercial hardware I/O boards to test the response time and accuracy of the compressor controller's I/O. I was debugging someone else's code that was reading an analog current from an I/O board but the value seemed to be all over the place. I soon realized that the current was occasionally reading a negative value and added a little range checking and the problem was solved. The problem in retrospect was not difficult but at the time it felt rewarding.

It has been interesting to see an article in MSDN Magazine about security vulnerabilities that included assembly and WinDBG. For those interested, I also recommend reading Mark Russinovich's blog.

I believe programming is an art form and as I have progressed as a programmer, I have tried to achieve a higher level of competence and art. It is important to identify (ahead of time) the low-level issues that might derail the high level productivity.

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD Pricing

Ryan Van Slooten — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:45:37 GMT

With the holiday shopping season fast approaching, the manufacturers of Blu-ray and HD DVD are going to be competing for your money. In fact they are going to go to great lengths to entice you into supporting their platform. I just read that Wal-mart is going to be offering a sale special for an HD DVD player for $100 which is plain amazing. The player that is offered is already replaced by a newer model so it is somewhat outdated, but nevertheless it is amazing. The nearest Blu-ray player that I have seen is at least $400 (perhaps the Playstation is cheaper now?).

The subject of this post is not the price of the players though, it is the price of the discs. I just search Wal-mart and most of the HD titles are $19.87 to $22.87 with quite a few in the $25.87 (Dazed & Confused?) to $31.67 (Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift and Fearless). I compared this to Amazon where prices ranged from $19.95 (The Fifth Element) to $21.95 (Pirates of the Caribbean: Black Pearl) to $27.95 (Bulletproof Monk - take that Jet Li!).

According to all of the hype and hoopla surrounding the competing formats, Blu-ray holds more data and is the more technically advanced of the two formats. The main advantage of HD DVD was that existing manufacturing systems could upgrade more easily to HD DVD and it would take less time and money to upgrade. This should translate into lower HD DVD prices though, shouldn't it? I did not find a large price difference in BD vs HD title prices so this argument does not seem to hold. More likely, BD manufacturers are reducing title prices to compete with HD manufacturers are making (a little?) extra money in production costs.

The bottom line is though... the bottom line. The format war is about money (for them, not you silly!) and it will be waged through marketing and (corporate) politics. This is not Betamax redux however, as soon as economical players that support both formats are available the "format war" will simmer down (but not go away entirely thanks to the corporate politics).

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