By adding a couple of breakpoints, the debugger should stop when an unhandled exception is thrown.   Start by going to the Run | Show | Breakpoints menu.  First, create a symbolic breakpoint named “objc_exception_throw” in the Location “libobjc.A.dylib”.  The symbolic breakpoint is important, otherwise, the debugger won’t catch anything.

Then, create a 2nd breakpoint called “-[NSException raise]” in the Location “CoreFoundation”.  You should be all set!  Run your app, and viola!  If it throws an exception, you’ll be in the debugger with a nice, beautiful stack trace!

One final suggestion I’d make is to make them global breakpoints instead of project breakpoints.  By doing that, they will be set for all your apps from the beginning, saving you tons of time and frustration.

For me, the thing that I love is that it takes me back to the days of what software engineering used to be.  Back in the days of the Tandy Radio Shack 80 (commonly called the “Trash 80″), you had a very limited supply of memory, processing power, and storage (anyone remember floppy disks or tape drives?).  Today, we have so much power on our desks or even in our lap (I’m still talking computers here!).  Combine that with the new programming languages we have these days such as C# and Java that have “garbage collectors” in them so the developer doesn’t have to worry about cleaning up after himself and writing efficient code.

The end result is instead of it being “easier” to write good software, it has become easier – if not encouraged – to write bad software.  We have bloated software on our computers that take several seconds or even minutes to start, and things often feel sluggish and unstable.  Even the “best” of applications suffer from these symptoms.  Then, the universities don’t bother teaching good practices such as memory management because “Java takes care of that for you.”

And then, mobile app development became a hit, and everything changed…at least for now.  Now, good iphone developers can really shine because they already know the tricks of the trade.  Android developers can, too, but I still think it was a mistake to use Java as the language of choice.  However, in both cases, mobile developers are more focused on making their apps quick and lightweight because they have to.  You have to be efficient with your network access because it’s usually a slow cell network that you have to deal with.  So, no downloading several megabytes at a time if all you need is a few kilobytes of data.

The Objective-C language is good, bad, and ugly sometimes.  For the most part, it’s good.  The only bad I’ve really found is the syntax for calling methods in objects.  Apple calls these messages, and they look like this:

[someObject someMethod:arg1 anotherParameter:arg2];

In C++, it would look like this:

someObject->someMethod(arg1, arg2);

Does it make sense?  Not really, but it’s what they chose.  I’m guessing it had to do with the timeline of when Objective-C was created vs. when C++ was, or that NextStep (Steve Job’s other tech company) wanted to compete with C++ for market dominance.  In the end, developers like me have gotten used to it, and it gets ugly when other developers go crazy with nested calls and weird names.

Finally, you’re probably wondering about the Dallas part.  My wife and I moved to Texas a year ago because there was a better job market here.  I’m from California, but I didn’t want to deal with their economy…or lack thereof.  We love Dallas because there’s so much to do here, and with Plano nearby, there’s a ton of opportunity here.  I think the only thing left for me to do is to go buy some cowboy boots, hat, and a pack of Skoal.  Ah, Texas…the only place you can where a cowboy hat and boots to work…no matter where you work!

After searching, I found out only that they were planning locations in Garland and Ft. Worth.  Nobody mentioned any opening date or where they were going to be.

So, I called up In-N-Out’s headquarters and asked if they could tell me when they were planning on opening up in Texas.  The friendly lady on the other end of the line informed me that the plans were still “preliminary”, but that they’re hoping to open sometime next year.  Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything more than that.

I wish I knew more, but that’s the latest official word.  I’ll definitely post updates when I hear more.

As a side, I did find another article that specified the first location to be at Central Expressway and Caruth Haven, but I think it’s still too soon to tell for sure until they break ground somewhere.

Here’s the latest scam email I received this morning:

Dear Friend,

I guess this letter may come to you as surprise since I had no previous correspondence with you.

I am the Chairman of the Electoral Commission Ghana (EC). I got your contact in my search for a reliable person to handle a very confidential transaction involving the transfer of the sum of $14.500.000 Dollars (Fourteen Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) the above fund is not connected with arms, drugs or money laundering. It is the product of an over invoiced contract awarded in 2008 by (EC) to a foreign company for the supply of electoral materials that were used for conducting the 2008 elections.

The contract has long been executed and payment of the actual contract amount has been made to the foreign contractor leaving the balance of $14.5 million which my colleagues and I now want to transfer out of Ghana into a reliable foreign account for our personal use.

As civil servants we are not allowed to run foreign accounts. Hence we have chosen to front and support you as the beneficiary to this funds. If you are interested in the proposal kindly get back to me by sending me your letter of acceptance along with your direct telephone and fax numbers, we have decided to share the money in the following percentage, 60% for us 30% for you the account owner and 10% for all local and international expenses that may arise in the course of this transaction. Further details about this transaction will be discussed in subsequent correspondence.

Note also that the particular nature of your business is irrelevant to this transaction and this transaction is expected to be concluded within 5 working days since all local contacts and arrangements are in place for a smooth and successful conclusion of this transaction.

Contact me via email with your contact telephone and fax numbers, so that I can call you for a discussion.

Thank you as I await your response.

You can reach me on my private email account afari@in.com

yours faithfully,

Dr.Kwadwo Afari

If I had never seen this before and got this in my email, I’d be asking at least the following questions:

1. Why is someone offering little old me 30% of $14,500,000?
2. Isn’t it illegal for an election official in Ghana to take those funds for his personal use?
3. Are they really going to trust a complete stranger to transfer such a large amount of money in 5 days?
4. What’s the risk for me?
5. Is it legal for me to do this?

I mean, duh!  Of course, the answer is that it’s a scam designed to get you, the victim, to pay them m0ney before they send you anything…which they won’t.

Seriously, we’re in sad shape as a country, if not the world, if so many people are dumb enough to fall for this.

The trick is to move to an area that doesn’t have coverage, especially if another carrier does, like Verizon.  In my case, AT&T said they had coverage here, but, in reality, they don’t for about a mile in each direction.  So, you’re technically not breaching the contract if they can’t give you coverage.  In fact, legally, they’re not living up to their end of the bargain.

If you live in an area without coverage, they may still ask you to talk to their technical support team to try and fix the problem.  They’ll probably create a case for it so their engineers can look into it.  However, it’s just a formality, and well worth a couple days wait in my opinion.

If you want AT&T to waive the early termination fee, this is definitely the way to go…and one way they obviously don’t advertise.