Jeffrey Richter: MSDN Magazine Articles

Jeffrey Richter

Concurrent Affairs: Simplified APM with C#
Jeffrey Richter introduces his AsyncEnumerator class and explains how it harnesses some recent additions to the C# programming language that make working with the asynchronous programming model significantly easier.
Jeffrey Richter - November 2007
Concurrent Affairs: Asynchronous Device Operations
Jeff Richter uses the AsyncResult<TResult> class to implement the CLR’s Asynchronous Programming Model to perform hardware device operations asynchronously.
Jeffrey Richter - June 2007
Concurrent Affairs: Implementing the CLR Asynchronous Programming Model
Jeffrey Richter - March 2007
SideShow Gadgets: Get Started Writing Gadgets For Windows SideShow Devices
SideShow Gadgets for Windows Vista are cool. Writing your own is even better. Find out how it's done.
Jeffrey Richter - January 2007
Concurrent Affairs: The ReaderWriterGate Lock
Jeffrey Richter - November 2006
Concurrent Affairs: Concurrency and Coordination Runtime
What can a robot-programming toolkit do for you? Read on and find out.
Jeffrey Richter - September 2006
Concurrent Affairs: Reader/Writer Locks and the ResourceLock Library
If multiple threads concurrently execute code that writes to or modifies a resource, then obviously the resource must be protected with a thread synchronization lock to ensure that the resource doesn't get corrupted.
Jeffrey Richter - June 2006
Concurrent Affairs: Build a Richer Thread Synchronization Lock
In my last column, I showed the various thread synchronization mechanisms employed by the Microsoft® . NET Framework (see Concurrent Affairs: Performance-Conscious Thread Synchronization). I then examined the performance characteristics of all these mechanisms and determined that the Interlocked methods performed the best because the calling thread never has to transition to kernel mode.
Jeffrey Richter - March 2006
Concurrent Affairs: Performance-Conscious Thread Synchronization
In my career, I have architected and implemented many thread synchronization techniques. This has provided me with a lot of experience that has shaped the way I now think about thread synchronization problems.
Jeffrey Richter - October 2005
.NET Column: The CLR's Thread Pool
How does the thread pool work in the CLR?
Jeffrey Richter - June 2003
.NET Column: Safe Thread Synchronization
By far, the most common use of thread synchronization is to ensure mutually exclusive access to a shared resource by multiple threads. In the Win32® API, the CRITICAL_SECTION structure and associated functions offers the fastest and most efficient way to synchronize threads for mutually exclusive access when the threads are all running in a single process.
Jeffrey Richter - January 2003
.NET Column: Run-time Serialization, Part 3
This is the third part of my three-part series on serialization. In part one, I showed how to serialize and deserialize objects. I also showed how to define types that allow instances of themselves to be serialized.
Jeffrey Richter - September 2002
.NET Column: Run-time Serialization, Part 2
Jeffrey Richter - July 2002
.NET Column: Run-time Serialization
Jeffrey Richter - April 2002
.NET Column: Array Types in .NET
Jeffrey Richter - February 2002
.NET Column: Extolling the Virtues of Enumerated Types
Jeffrey Richter - October 2001
.NET Column: Implementation of Events with Delegates
Jeffrey Richter - August 2001
.NET Column: Delegates, Part 2
Jeffrey Richter - June 2001
.NET Column: An Introduction to Delegates
Jeffrey Richter - April 2001
.NET Framework: Building, Packaging, Deploying, and Administering Applications and Types-Part 2
Part 1 of this series discussed how types built for the common language runtime can be shared among applications in the Microsoft .NET Framework regardless of the .NET languages used to build them. This second part continues with building assemblies by first covering security, sharing assemblies, versioning, localization, and side-by-side execution. Because in .NET two DLLs with the same name can be loaded as long as another attribute-which can include the localization language-differs, versioning is much easier than it used to be, so DLL Hell may become a thing of the past.
Jeffrey Richter - March 2001
.NET Framework: Building, Packaging, Deploying, and Administering Applications and Types
Types that are built for the Common Language Runtime can be shared among applications in the Microsoft .NET Framework no matter which of the .NET languages they were built in, an obvious benefit to developers. This article describes the building, packaging, and deploying of applications and types for the .NET Framework, including the role and significance of assemblies, private and otherwise. The way metadata and assemblies help to solve some historical problems like versioning conflicts and DLL Hell, and how they improve system stability are also discussed.
Jeffrey Richter - February 2001
.NET Column: Special .NET Type Members
Jeffrey Richter - February 2001
Garbage Collection-Part 2: Automatic Memory Management in the Microsoft .NET Framework
The first part of this two-part article explained how the garbage collection algorithm works, how resources can clean up properly when the garbage collector decides to free a resource's memory, and how to force an object to clean up when it is freed. The conclusion of this series explains strong and weak object references that help to manage memory for large objects, as well as object generations and how they improve performance. In addition, the use of methods and properties for controlling garbage collection, resources for monitoring collection performance, and garbage collection for multithreaded applications are covered.
Jeffrey Richter - December 2000
.NET Column: Type Fundamentals
Jeffrey Richter - December 2000
Garbage Collection: Automatic Memory Management in the Microsoft .NET Framework
Garbage collection in the Microsoft .NET common language runtime environment completely absolves the developer from tracking memory usage and knowing when to free memory. However, you'll want to understand how it works. Part 1 of this two-part article on .NET garbage collection explains how resources are allocated and managed, then gives a detailed step-by-step description of how the garbage collection algorithm works. Also discussed are the way resources can clean up properly when the garbage collector decides to free a resource's memory and how to force an object to clean up when it is freed.
Jeffrey Richter - November 2000
.NET Framework-Part 2: Microsoft .NET Framework Delivers the Platform for an Integrated, Service-Oriented Web
This article completes the .NET Framework overview begun in the September issue. The common language specification and ILDasm, the MSIL disassembler, are discussed-as well as how metadata, manifests, and assemblies simplify deployment and versioning. Security, which is integral to the design of .NET, is examined extensively, followed by a walk through the development of a single assembly containing multiple files. Finally, the way managed and unmanaged code work together, and the benefits of using each, including interoperablity with unmanaged code, are described.
Jeffrey Richter - October 2000
.NET Column: Programming for the New Platform
Jeffrey Richter - October 2000
Microsoft .NET Framework: Delivers the Platform for an Integrated, Service-Oriented Web
The Microsoft .NET Framework is a new platform for building integrated, service-oriented applications to meet the needs of today's Internet businesses; apps that gather information from, and interact with, a wide variety of sources, regardless of the platforms or languages in use. This article, the first of a two part series, illustrates how the .NET Framework enables you to quickly build and deploy Web services and applications in any programming language. Microsoft Intermediate Language and JIT compiler, which make this reuse possible, are described as well as managed components, assemblies, and the Common Type System (CTS).
Jeffrey Richter - September 2000
Win32 Q&A: Handy Features in Windows, and Interlocked Functions
Jeffrey Richter - July 2000
Win32 Q&A: New C++ Classes for Better Resource Management in Windows
Jeffrey Richter - April 2000
Concurrent Affairs: Simplified APM with the AsyncEnumerator
Here Jeffrey Richter introduces his AsyncEnumerator class, which drives an iterator so that different thread pool threads can execute the same code at different times.
Jeffrey Richter - June 2008
Concurrent Affairs: More AsyncEnumerator Features
Jeffrey Richter shows you some additional cool features of his AsyncEnumerator class.
Jeffrey Richter - August 2008