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Stob Thursday
Medals 0 Rep 0

Need to write code to hash some passwords.

Hmm.

Troubled by the suspicion that this has been done before. Wonder if there are any functions in the Windows API to do this that a) aren't insanely complicated to call, or b) are .NET-only, or c) are reserved exclusively for Raymond Chen's use.

Googled a bit. As you do.

Likely hits come from the orange-coloured Code Project, ExpertsExchange, and a newer site called Stack Overflow.

Code Project looks promising, but it renders itself unto me erratically. Also, I somehow associate its busy fake sun-tanned layout with the memory of Robert Kilroy-Silk. Put it to one side.

Am not frightfully keen on ExpertsExchange, in all honesty. Whenever you click through there, you have to scroll through a toilet roll's length of 'greeked' text and disingenuous guff that implies that you have to pay money to see a discussion which is, in fact, in plain text at the bottom of the page.

There is some reverse Darwinism going on here. The way you get to post on ExpertsExchange is by giving them your credit card number. I reckon the only reason to do this is to see an 'answer', which implies you were too trusting and unsuspicious to scroll to the bottom. Therefore that subset of the programming population which chooses to post answers on ExpertsExchange is self-selected as the most gullible tools in the box. This consideration makes SuckersExchange's expertise resistible.

Stack Overflow looks more promising - no pretence that you need to sign up to read it - but seems to have combined the idea of providing useful information with an ad hoc game of Dungeons and Dragons. The D&D character attributes of Strength, Constitution, Dexterity and Personal Hygiene being replaced by Reputation and three kinds of Badge. Not sure I am going to like this.

Friday
Medals 1 Rep 12

Actually, Stack Overflow game not too bad, if ridiculous.

Find quite good crypto function to half-inch for my password hash and, while I am there, notice somebody asking an easy-peasy Delphi question. Reluctantly sign up - in my case the About Me field reads 'Mind you own bloody business'- and receive a bronze medal for being an 'Autobiographer'. Accept this in the breathless and out-of-breath style of a victorious British athlete being interviewed on the radio ('S'unbelieve-ball... Never fort this would 'appen... Dahn to me investin' in myself, which I 'ave been doin' more an evah this summah... Unbelieve-ball...')

I post my answer to the Delf query and some time later discover that I have been upvoted, and have gained a positive reputation among my peers. Oooh, fancy them voting for little me. How sweet of them. So kind. They needn't have bothered to do that.

Experience a warm, guilty-but-pleasurable sensation, like doing a wee while swimming in the sea. Apparently.

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