Grant Winney

I write when I've got something to share - a personal project, a solution to a difficult problem, or just an idea. We learn by doing and sharing. We've all got something to contribute.

Articles of Grant Winney

programming reflection

Oct 10, 2020

The transient nature of code

I just did one of the worst things a dev can do to another dev. I deleted his code! It was good code, covered by dozens of tests... but it wasn't needed anymore. The nature of our work is that it's a progression, and any individual code is transient by nature. Today's code is tomorrow's refactoring....

c#exception handling

Sep 17, 2020

Does rethrowing an exception in C# still reset the stack trace?

All programming languages have gotchas to trip you up. In C#, one of them is the subtle (but significant) difference between "throw" and "throw ex"....

reflection carousel dev question

Sep 14, 2020

How will I know when I'm a programmer?

How do you know when you've finally arrived, and are officially a programmer? Is it a set of skills, a certain amount of time? Can you ever really arrive, when it's a race of one with no finish line?...

retro html5 nodejs zelda

Sep 09, 2020

Run Link Run (saving Zelda for 30+ years)

A few years ago, on the 30th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda, Scott Lininger and Mike Magee open sourced a 3D version of the original LoZ. The site was taken down, but the code's still available to run!...

pandemic remote work reflection

Sep 05, 2020

Neat Little Boxes

The last 6 months have seen a complete shift in how I work. My life was separated into a series of neat little boxes, I realize, but everything's blended now. Some of it's been great, but other parts, well.. it's a work in progress....

archives webring

Sep 04, 2020

Whatever happened to the webring? And what was the point?

Once upon a time, search engines stunk, and web surfers couldn't find awful sites. So website owners joined hands in solidarity, and linked to one another's sites. And the webring was born....

privacy microsoft

Jun 23, 2020

Microsoft respects our privacy, shows it by invading our privacy

If you have new software and want to let people know while simultaneously respecting their privacy, there's a long list of things you might do. Abusing your position as their operating system provider isn't on it....

data presentation programming dev question

Jun 04, 2020

What's a word cloud and how can I make one?

You've most likely seen word clouds before, like in the sidebars of blogs, even if you didn't know what they were called. Learn how they're made.. and how you can make your own!...