Microsoft Helicopter Joke

[Michael C]

It must have been at least 10 years ago I read this joke and it still
applies more than ever. I'm reading the help for the DeflateStream class and
one of the parameters for the constructor is leaveOpen. All the help file
states is "true to leave the stream open; otherwise, false". Great. For a
start I'm opening a stream and passing in another stream so the term "the
stream" is ambiguous and it's pretty obvious it's talking about a stream
anyway. What I'd really like to know Microsoft is when. Can anyone shed
any light on this.




A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an
electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic
navigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and haze
the pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to the
airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew
a handwritten sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The sign
said "WHERE AM I ?" in large letters.

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a
large sign and held it in a building window. Their sign said, "YOU
ARE IN A HELICOPTER." The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map and
determine the course to steer to SEATAC (Seattle/Tacoma) airport and
landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the
"YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The
pilot responded, "I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building
because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless
answer."

 

[Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]]

Michael,

The stream is whatever class that derives from Stream that you pass to
the DeflateStream. As for when it gets closed, it is when you call Dispose
on the DeflateStream.

 

[Doug Semler]

Michael,

The stream is whatever class that derives from Stream that you pass to
the DeflateStream. As for when it gets closed, it is when you call
Dispose on the DeflateStream.

For DeflateStream (and GZipStream), not if the parameter leaveOpen value is
true in the constructor...



--
Doug Semler, MCPD
a.a. #705, BAAWA. EAC Guardian of the Horn of the IPU (pbuhh).
The answer is 42; DNRC o-
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erpbtavmrf fvzcyr guvatf yvxr ebg13 nalzber. Fnq, vfa'g vg?

 

[Michael C]

For DeflateStream (and GZipStream), not if the parameter leaveOpen value
is true in the constructor...

Thanks, that answers my question.

Michael