BitVent: Another Software Blog.

  • Open-ended Interview Questions

    One of my friends linked to Alex Yumashev’s essay about Jitbit’s SQL interview questions. The brunt of the essay is certainly true: that asking “trivia” questions in interviews isn’t such a great practice–despite its wide adoption. The set of questions about target queries given a little data model seems quite good for practicing candidates. (That…

  • Analyzing Swapping and CPU utilization in MySQL and Linux

    Measuring CPU load while Linux is swapping

  • Lessons from a MySQL Performance Question

    Investigating the questions and claims in a Reddit post about MySQL performance after changing hardware … and some other stuff.

  • debugging MSVC++ CRTL memory leaks

    It seems like none of the docs on this subject are quite complete. One of the most missed issues is that there can be multiple heaps in a single process. DLLs that use the CRTL, for example, can get a module-local heap. Each heap will get a separate run of the dump activity, so the…

  • Asking about Questions

    Over at The Ladders, career coach Lee E. Miller advises about a question lots of interviewees get: Tell me about yourself. Mr Miller is right about one thing: this question shouldn’t take an interviewee by surprise. An interviewee should be poised and confident, and shouldn’t hesitate to describe themselves or their experiences. After all, providing…

  • Outlook and Meeting Attendance

    If I schedule a meeting in Microsoft Outlook, I can optionally get responses to that meeting request. The responses are just messages from each invitee with a subject indicating their attendance. Someone might attend, so they’ll cause the Calendar to send a message with the subject “Accepted: FY2012 Budget Review”. Someone else might be tentative…

Got any book recommendations?