bugfox blog

Mark’s latest list of software he considers essential for a Linux desktop.

Here’s one of those things that “can’t possibly happen” but does. The project builds fine under the Visual Studio 2008 IDE, but if I run it directly under MSBuild.exe it fails with the error

error BC31094: Implementing class 'MMCLTSVCS.FooClass' for interface 'MMCLTSVCS.Foo' cannot be found.


The key is that the error involves calling a COM object. The project contains a reference to the interop for that COM object: Interop.MMCLTSVCS.dll. However it does not contain a reference to the interop for one of the other COM objects that Interop.MMCLTSVCS.dll uses. Apparently this works fine under the IDE but fails with an obscure error message under MSBuild.

Visual Studio’s “Unused References” function provides an easy way to get this error. It will helpfully remove any references that are not used by your .NET code, without considering whether they are used by any of the referenced interops.

Consumers of digital hardware, software and services lost their most tireless advocate last week when Ed Foster died of a heart attack.

EFF’s Fred von Lohmann provides an obituary:

In Memoriam: Ed Foster, 1949-2008

For those who were wondering whether the new Congress might be just a little bit friendlier to open-source software, small developers, independent creative types and consumers in general, Lawrence Lessig thinks he has found the answer: Dems to the Net: Go to hell.

A while ago Ron Garret wrote a widely-read article called Top ten geek business myths. Personally I’m not planning to start a business, but the article contains a throw-away remark that offers a plausible answer to a question that I find interesting: Why don’t businesses use LISP?

Ironically, C programmers understand this much better than Lisp programmers. One of the ironies of the programming world is that using Lisp is vastly more productive than using pretty much any other programming language, but successful businesses based on Lisp are quite rare. The reason for this, I think, is that Lisp allows you to be so productive that a single person can get things done without having to work together with anyone else, and so Lisp programmers never develop the social skills needed to work effectively as a member of a team. A C programmer, by contrast, can’t do anything useful except as a member of a team. So although programming in C hobbles you in some ways, it forces you to form groups whose net effectiveness is greater than the sum of their parts, and who collectively can stomp on all the individual Lisp programmers out there, even though one-on-one a Lisper can run rings around a C programmer.

(via Elliotte Rusty Harolde.)

Ars Technica: Primary and early e-voting problems point to gathering storm

According to my sources, many election officials…have now come to a private understanding that they blew it, big-time, by buying these systems and rushing them out in what amounts to an untested alpha (not even beta!) state. But if they publicly admit that they were wrong, then the voting machine vendors will withdraw their support and the counties will be left to fly solo on election day. Because of the kind of inadequate training outlined in the ESI report, this would basically shut down the mid-term elections, because county election workers at all levels from poll workers to sysadmins to Board of Elections officials would be unable to run an election without massive vendor support.

In short, don’t expect to hear any mea culpas or backpedalling from county or state election officials at any point before Nov. 7th. These folks are now on the hook for tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment that simply does not, and cannot, work as advertised, and if they own up to this publicly then what little hope they still have of holding real elections on the 7th will go right out the window along with the withdrawn vendor support.

The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0)
The latest revision of Joel Spolsky’s classic essay. From Joel on Software.