About this blog

My name is Doug Mahugh and I'm a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft specializing in Office client interoperability and the Open XML file formats.  I am also the moderator of the OpenXmlDeveloper.org web site, where Open XML developers share tips, techniques and source code for a variety of development platforms.

My background in software development started in the 70s, when I worked at The Boeing Company as a Fortran programmer. Through the 80s and 90s I worked in 80x86 assembly language and FoxPro as an independent consultant specializing in bar-code tracking systems for large corporate filerooms, and my clients included Ernst & Young, KPMG Peat Marwick, The Chicago Board of Trade, Marmon Group, Motorola, Helene Curtis, and Allstate. After a few years of developing and maintaining a custom line-of-business system for a a large wholesale auto auction starting in 2000, I joined Microsoft in 2005.

My interest in the low-level details of file formats started in the early 80s when I developed and published a drawing program for CP/M computers and needed to store bitmapped image data on 160K floppy disks with 8.3 filenames and no sub-folder support, from an application written entirely in Z80 assembly language. For those of us who remember those days, when every byte counted and a macro assembler was considered a high-level developer tool, today's well-documented XML-based formats are truly a miracle.

When I'm not playing around with Open XML, my interests include photography, golf, travel, history, and hiking. In addition to this blog, I have a personal blog, where I post post photos of my travels and random observations about random topics.  I currently live in the Seattle area with my wife Megan and our three cats Isaac, Fish and Murg.

If there's specific Open XML developer content you'd like to see covered on this blog or the OpenXmlDeveloper site, please let me know.