Mark Mullin's Professional Blog

+5 Insightful

2008-04-17T23:41:54Z

For the most part I try for original content ….. but then I found this and I couldn’t have said it better – actually, I didn’t say it at all, and I am envious http://www.wolfgilbert.com/Main/Blog/Entries/2008/4/17_SOA_as_the_Uber-Container.html...(read more)

Entity Framework Gripe

2008-02-10T18:06:23Z

I’m learning about Entity Framework (the Beta 3 drop) by implementing an app to manage my collection of DVDs – in general I like Entity Framework and will continue to use it, but every once in a while, there’s something that makes me go ‘huh???!!!’ Here’s one such case. Each DVD record can have multiple attribute records associated with it, which allows me to attach attributes to DVDs without having to have these attributes part of the base DVD tuple...(read more)

XAML Databinding Issue ?

2008-02-03T01:27:05Z

Recently, I started having problems with the error "Items collection must be empty before using ItemsSource" popping up after I’d made a few changes to my UI. I think I understand the root trigger, but I haven’t got time to reason through the entire cause and effect chain. So here’s my best guess….. In simplest terms, I have a list of widgets, and when any widget is selected, the selection handler then causes another list to get populated with the attributes...(read more)

Working offline with TFS - Making Files Editable

2008-01-30T03:25:59Z

Working offline with TFS is different than with Visual SourceSafe. On the one hand, VSS is better integrated with Visual Studio, so its pretty easy to unlock files for editing offline, you just begin editing them. On the other hand, VSS can often get easily confused, and will then trot off and unlock everything in your solution. When you go to reconnect to VSS, this can be annoying if other team members have edited files that you have checked out, but not modified. TFS in general...(read more)

Adventures with Team Foundation Server - Installation, Part 2

2008-01-17T23:56:46Z

As I mentioned in my previous post, I reluctantly decided to plow my server under and start afresh with a new installation. There were still a couple of issues that came blazing in from far out in the mindless reaches of the productization effort. I found two of them especially enlightening. That said, the fundamental genesis of this (expected to be a long) series of posts is that I have lost my patience with being enlighten by a steady stream of WTF moments, and I’m doing...(read more)

Adventures with Team Foundation Server - Installation, Part 1

2008-01-17T23:55:28Z

Introduction I’ve begun the (forced) conversion to Team Foundation Server with my recent (desired) transition to VS 2008. It’s been an interesting experience to put it mildly. As with the great majority of my interactions with Microsoft these days, it leaves me both impressed and appalled. Impressed with the line staff for their insightful achievements and superhuman efforts to compensate in all those areas they have been so tragically let down, and appalled with the...(read more)

Adventures with Team Foundation Server 2008 - The VSS 2005 Bait and Switch

2008-01-17T23:54:28Z

Before launching into the gory details of my recent conversion to TFS I feel its necessary to address an issue that I consider to be completely reprehensible on Microsoft's part. It’s not a technical issue so much as a product and market decision, and as such, lies squarely within the most disfunctional zone of the organization. The issue involves the migration of VSS 6.x databases into TFS, or rather, the inability to do so. Background If you are currently using VSS 2005, I think...(read more)

2008-01-07T02:50:11Z

vista...(read more)

Very funny (profane, but very funny)

2007-12-18T12:59:00Z

The googleplex is now grubbing around inside code distros and indexing them - of course, someone immediately got the bright idea to look for comments containing profanity - and this is the result - quite funny - Thanks JeffD!...(read more)

Frameworks are a classic Make/Buy Decision

2007-12-18T03:23:10Z

I’ve been wrestling with an issue at work and thought I’d publish some results. I’ve run this by a few peers, and needless to say am exercising the great irresponsilbe freedom afforded by having one’s own blog, I’m publishing the work to the wider world before my peers tell me I’m an idiot. I was recently asked by a client to revisit the assumption we had made to build a framework from scratch, and to determine whether this was in fact the best course. ...(read more)

So what's with Internet Explorer ?

2007-12-15T15:56:06Z

The latest version of IE (7) defies description – I’d love to say that it runs like a pig, but that would imply that it runs more often than it does, and in general would be an insult to pigs everywhere. Its not like the developers at MSFT are stupid, they’ve done some truly brilliant work over the last few years. And it’s not like I haven’t read all the stupid posts about disabling all of the various phishing philters and the like. But the bottom...(read more)

Slides from Microsoft GameDevDay 07 talk at Harvard

2007-12-02T20:00:07Z

On Saturday, December 01, 2007 Dan Scherlis and I gave a talk about how game companies work at the Microsoft GameDev day at Harvard. We both had a lot of fun giving this talk, and equally enjoyed the presentation from the folks at Second Life and Mike Cummings presentation of the basics of XNA programming. I hope that the attendees liked this talk, and that there is more to come. I’ve posted my slides for the talk here. ...(read more)

The Shell Game with the Risk Pea - A group decision anti-pattern

2007-10-23T11:23:06Z

In many, if not all, projects there are a few key pieces of software technology, where much of the risk and the reward in the project are found. These pieces are quite rightly subject to scrutiny during the initial architecture and design phases, where tradeoffs between the benefits offered and the risks presented are considered. Problems arise when attempts are made to acquire the benefits of a new technology without incurring the risks, by moving the risks around while trying to keep...(read more)

Extension Methods - Nice. but not sufficient

2007-10-16T01:18:48Z

I am going to do a longer posting on problems of extending value types, but since I just had to complain on Connect after bumping into the decision not to support operators as extension methods, I had to complain now. In essence, the restriction on .net not to allow any subclassing of value types is not a good thing, Vector3D being an exceptionally nasty glaring example of the problems this can cause…….. Here’s what I said I think you need to review this sooner, rather...(read more)

Switching to [DebuggerNonUserCode]

2007-09-03T17:36:00Z

I’m starting the switch to using the [DebuggerNonUserCode] attribute instead of [DebuggerStepThrough] attribute, and noticed a small annoying behavior. (For why I’ve decided to do this, this is what set me off). When using [DebuggerStepThrough], you’ll be caught if you try and attach the attribute to a property, instead of the getter or setter for the property. You won’t be caught if you attach the [DebuggerNonUserCode] attribute to a property, but it won’t stop the debugger from stepping...(read more)