As someone who regularly gives presentations on Garbage Collection, and
application profiling and tuning, I found this Slashdot article the other
day to be really funny:

http://developers.slashdot.org/artic.../11/17/0552247

I especially loved the slashdot spin that it is a bug in C# or in the CLR.

(I know, I know, but I like the title of the thread. How else to make sure
everyone reads this? Plus, it's a slow day today. Everyone must be out on
vacation...)

--
Chris Mullins

On 2007-11-20 15:53:05 -0800, "Chris Mullins [MVP - C#]"
<(E-Mail Removed)> said:

> As someone who regularly gives presentations on Garbage Collection, and
> application profiling and tuning, I found this Slashdot article the other
> day to be really funny:
>
> http://developers.slashdot.org/artic.../11/17/0552247
>
> I especially loved the slashdot spin that it is a bug in C# or in the CLR.

I thought it was funny too, but it's my recollection that, in a rare
moment of Slashdot insightfulness, the early comments mostly were of
the "RTFA" type, pointing out how the referenced blog entry isn't about
a bug in C# or .NET at all, but rather just an ad for a profiling tool
to help a developer find their _own_ bugs.

In fact, I was a little surprised at the general lack of anti-MS
sentiment. Granted, I only read the first dozen or so comments; it
wouldn't surprise me to find that the comments eventually degenerated
into the usual Microsoft bashing.

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:
> In fact, I was a little surprised at the general lack of anti-MS
> sentiment. Granted, I only read the first dozen or so comments; it
> wouldn't surprise me to find that the comments eventually degenerated into
> the usual Microsoft bashing.

Pete, I find the overall tone on slashdot to be anti-MS so this doesn't
surprise me. Pity, I really enjoy reading slashdot as they seem to have
tech news days or even weeks before the (other) media folks pick up a story.

Hilton

When you get to the article itself we find that this is a very old and common
problem (the cause of which is what is between the computer and the chair):

"We profiled the memory usage and saw the obstacle list blowing up. How
could this be? We called "delete" on those old obstacles! To our amazement,
it was only minutes before we realized that our list of detected obstacles
was never getting garbage collected. Though we thought we had cleared all
references to old entries in the list, because the objects were still
registered as subscribers to an event, they were never getting deleted."

----Peter
"Inside every large program, there is a small program trying to get out."
http://www.eggheadcafe.com
http://petesbloggerama.blogspot.com
http://www.blogmetafinder.com



"Chris Mullins [MVP - C#]" wrote:

> As someone who regularly gives presentations on Garbage Collection, and
> application profiling and tuning, I found this Slashdot article the other
> day to be really funny:
>
> http://developers.slashdot.org/artic.../11/17/0552247
>
> I especially loved the slashdot spin that it is a bug in C# or in the CLR.
>
> (I know, I know, but I like the title of the thread. How else to make sure
> everyone reads this? Plus, it's a slow day today. Everyone must be out on
> vacation...)
>
> --
> Chris Mullins
>
>
>

I got to reading this and was asking myself why don't they just attach the
debugger to the car when it slowing down teheheheh

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney [MVP ASP.NET]

[Shameless Author plug]
The O.W.C. Black Book, 2nd Edition
Exclusively on www.lulu.com/owc $19.99

"Hilton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:jLK0j.73129$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Peter Duniho wrote:
>> In fact, I was a little surprised at the general lack of anti-MS
>> sentiment. Granted, I only read the first dozen or so comments; it
>> wouldn't surprise me to find that the comments eventually degenerated
>> into the usual Microsoft bashing.
>
> Pete, I find the overall tone on slashdot to be anti-MS so this doesn't
> surprise me. Pity, I really enjoy reading slashdot as they seem to have
> tech news days or even weeks before the (other) media folks pick up a
> story.
>
> Hilton
>
>

Yea, that's the whole point.

It's not a platform bug at all - not in any possible way. It is, 100%, a bug
in the application code, and one that the development team was very open
about.

I just loved the /. spin, which implied it was the .Net platform that not
only the cause of this bug, but the reason the team failed the DARPA
challenge, and (quite possibly) the root of all evil in general.

I do alot of presentations on GC, and then spend lots of time with people
tracking down memory leaks in managed code. That really made this article
funny to me...

--
Chris Mullins


"Peter Bromberg [C# MVP]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:269633FC-A2EA-4C2F-8B2B-(E-Mail Removed)...
> When you get to the article itself we find that this is a very old and
> common
> problem (the cause of which is what is between the computer and the
> chair):
>
> "We profiled the memory usage and saw the obstacle list blowing up. How
> could this be? We called "delete" on those old obstacles! To our
> amazement,
> it was only minutes before we realized that our list of detected obstacles
> was never getting garbage collected. Though we thought we had cleared all
> references to old entries in the list, because the objects were still
> registered as subscribers to an event, they were never getting deleted."
>
> ----Peter
> "Inside every large program, there is a small program trying to get out."
> http://www.eggheadcafe.com
> http://petesbloggerama.blogspot.com
> http://www.blogmetafinder.com
>
>
>
> "Chris Mullins [MVP - C#]" wrote:
>
>> As someone who regularly gives presentations on Garbage Collection, and
>> application profiling and tuning, I found this Slashdot article the other
>> day to be really funny:
>>
>> http://developers.slashdot.org/artic.../11/17/0552247
>>
>> I especially loved the slashdot spin that it is a bug in C# or in the
>> CLR.
>>
>> (I know, I know, but I like the title of the thread. How else to make
>> sure
>> everyone reads this? Plus, it's a slow day today. Everyone must be out on
>> vacation...)
>>
>> --
>> Chris Mullins
>>
>>
>>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hilton [private.php?do=newpm&u=]
> Posted At: Wednesday, 21 November 2007 9:14 AM
> Posted To: microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.csharp
> Conversation: C# Memory Leak
> Subject: Re: C# Memory Leak
>
> Peter Duniho wrote:
> > In fact, I was a little surprised at the general lack of anti-MS
> > sentiment. Granted, I only read the first dozen or so comments; it
> > wouldn't surprise me to find that the comments eventually
degenerated
> into
> > the usual Microsoft bashing.
>
> Pete, I find the overall tone on slashdot to be anti-MS so this
doesn't
> surprise me. Pity, I really enjoy reading slashdot as they seem to
> have
> tech news days or even weeks before the (other) media folks pick up a
> story.
>
> Hilton

As an example:

>>>>We looked through the code on paper, literally line by line, and
just couldn't for the life of us imagine
>>>>what the problem was.
>>>>
>>>This may be the least effective method of debugging in existence.
>>>
>>No no, that would be something along the lines of printing out the
code and then throwing darts at the listing
>>to figure out the incorrect line. I hear it is popular in Redmond,
although they reputedly use chairs instead
>>of darts.
>>
>That makes sense: Since chairs are larger than darts, you have a much
greater chance to hit the bugs.

"Chris Mullins [MVP - C#]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:O$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Yea, that's the whole point.
>
> It's not a platform bug at all - not in any possible way. It is, 100%, a
> bug in the application code, and one that the development team was very
> open about.
>
> I just loved the /. spin, which implied it was the .Net platform that not
> only the cause of this bug, but the reason the team failed the DARPA
> challenge, and (quite possibly) the root of all evil in general.
>
> I do alot of presentations on GC, and then spend lots of time with people
> tracking down memory leaks in managed code. That really made this article
> funny to me...
>
> --
> Chris Mullins
>
>
> "Peter Bromberg [C# MVP]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> message news:269633FC-A2EA-4C2F-8B2B-(E-Mail Removed)...
>> When you get to the article itself we find that this is a very old and
>> common
>> problem (the cause of which is what is between the computer and the
>> chair):
>>
>> "We profiled the memory usage and saw the obstacle list blowing up. How
>> could this be? We called "delete" on those old obstacles! To our
>> amazement,
>> it was only minutes before we realized that our list of detected
>> obstacles
>> was never getting garbage collected. Though we thought we had cleared all
>> references to old entries in the list, because the objects were still
>> registered as subscribers to an event, they were never getting deleted."
>>
>> ----Peter
>> "Inside every large program, there is a small program trying to get out."
>> http://www.eggheadcafe.com
>> http://petesbloggerama.blogspot.com
>> http://www.blogmetafinder.com
>>
>>
>>
>> "Chris Mullins [MVP - C#]" wrote:
>>
>>> As someone who regularly gives presentations on Garbage Collection, and
>>> application profiling and tuning, I found this Slashdot article the
>>> other
>>> day to be really funny:
>>>
>>> http://developers.slashdot.org/artic.../11/17/0552247
>>>
>>> I especially loved the slashdot spin that it is a bug in C# or in the
>>> CLR.
>>>
>>> (I know, I know, but I like the title of the thread. How else to make
>>> sure
>>> everyone reads this? Plus, it's a slow day today. Everyone must be out
>>> on
>>> vacation...)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Chris Mullins
>>>

This article and the problems they had with their car go to show that you
can write crap in any language.

Mike Ober.