dotnet

Back in a previous company (the same place as where Debugging GDI Handle Leaks happened), there was an interesting convention in the database: all tables had a unique 3-letter prefix assigned to them, and all columns in that table must start with the prefix, which I’ve written about before. For example, a person table would have the prefix PEO, and the columns would be PEO_PersonID, PEO_FirstName, PEO_DateOfBirth, etc. When you wanted to create a new table, you opened the shared Excel sheet, added your table to the bottom, and made up a prefix that wasn’t already in the sheet....

Many years ago, I was working on a dotnet Windows Forms application. The application had many issues overall: memory leaks, random crashes, data loss, and in this case, the “red x” problem. The problem showed up at random, and instead of a window, dialogue, or control being rendered, it would be replaced with a white box with a red outline and red diagonal cross, and I think some error text in one corner, saying something about GDI handles....