Ian Reay

Mark Russonovich

• http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/sessionh.aspx?videoid=993
  • Discusses the various security boundaries and outlines which ones are hard and which are soft.

Rafal Lukawiecki

• Introduction to Data Mining (Video Presentation)
  • This is the first of 5 presentations given by Rafal on the topic of Data Mining. A great crash course in a rapidly developing technology sector.

Microsoft Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting Blog

• Basics of NT Debugging
  • Discusses debuggers such as ntsd.exe, cdb.exe, and windbg.exe. A great post for anyone getting started in native windows development.

Jonathan Edwards

•  Too Many Cores, Not Enough Brains
  • A very interesting take on the whole Concurrent Programming movement in software development. Argues that “Giving a multicore CPU to a programmer is like giving a drink to an alcoholic” which do agree with to a point ;). People developing concurrent applications should at least be aware of this critique.

Mark Roberts

• Advanced Debugging Techniques With Visual Studio
  • A solid crash course on native debugging. Discusses how symbol and source servers can aid debugging. Tips and tricks for x86, x64, optimized debugging techniques.

Anthony Williams is playing a major role in the development of concurrency concepts in C++0x. Below is a link to a book he is writing regarding this topic. Looks like it should be a good one.

http://www.justsoftwaresolutions.co.uk/news/c++-concurrency-in-action-early-access.html

Slides from a recent talk he have at ACCU 2008 regarding C++0x concurrency changes are available at:

http://accu.org/content/conf2008/Williams-future_of_concurrency.pdf

Nynaev

• Why hooking system services is more difficult (and dangerous) than it looks

Microsoft Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting

•  What are the odds?
  • Discusses the thought process used when tracking down defects in one component which manifest as a failure in another, sometimes distantly related, component.

Herb Sutter

• Constructor Exceptions in C++, C#, and Java
  • Herb discusses issues related to throwing exceptions within an objects constructor and why this can be extremely dangerous. All developers using libraries which throw exceptions must be familiar with how exceptions affect object and member component lifetimes.

Andrei Alexandrescu

• Memory Allocation: Either Love It or Hate It. (Or Just Think It’s OK.) (Video Presentation)
  • Gives good arguments for when you should, or should not create your own memory allocators in C++. Andrei also describes the basic functionality of heaps and the run time overheads associated with them.

Bartosz Milewski

• The C++ Memory Model (Video Presentation)
  
  • Bartosz discusses the C++ memory model in depth. Why the current model isn’t appropriate in multi-threaded applications (especially cross platform applications) and how C++0x plans on resolving these issues.
  • I found this really eye opening. I was not familiar with how processor optimizations with respect to memory writes can create such pervasive race conditions.
  • For all of you who think c++ pointers are difficult, your going to be in for a rude shock. In addition to determining where your data is stored, you must now specify when it will be stored.