Scott Beaudreau's Weblog

I just burned an hour chasing down a JSON serialization issue in .NET 3.5.  Watch out for trying to serialize DateTime values that are MaxValue or MinValue.  This is an issue whether you are using the DataContractJsonSerializer directly or if Read More...

In my last post , I described the maze generator I developed in C#.  This was trivial to build as to be expected.  The larger challenge for me was to learn enough about the simulator in MSRS 1.5 to build a 3D maze and let me virtual robot navigate Read More...

I was recently talking with Marc about some potentially interesting challenges in robotics programming that we could implement using the Microsoft Robotics Studio 1.5 Simulator.  We discussed a number of scenarios that ranged from simple to insanely Read More...

I found an interesting site with information of the origins of XYZZY in Adventure , and later Zork . It's also use as a cheat code for a number of products in the market. So was "XYZZY" defined randomly, or does it have some deeper meaning? You'll have Read More...

I found a number of interesting links to solid work around debugger visualizers. Scott Nonnenberg has an excellent blog with quite a few posts around this topic. He's a PM on the Debugging group within Visual Studio. Scott's building an index of debugger visualizer entries, and some of them are very compelling. Read More...

Visual Studio 2005 allows you to extend your debugger's visualization capabilities by creating a new DebuggerVisualizer class. This class simply registers itself with an appropriate assembly-level attribute, and when it is invoked by the debugger, it displays a custom form, control, or dialog that can render the passed type. It must be installed in a specific subfolder at either the user or the machine level. It's simple enough that you can build one in 5 minutes. Read More...

U.K. Trip I am currently flying back home after 6 days in the U.K. I'm on a plane for 10 hours, so this is an ideal time for a blog entry. I was there to collaborate with some of our internal team members and partners on an interesting project involving Read More...

Introduction I'm finally starting my blog. I have deferred this activity for a number of reasons, some of which were valid, but all of which were well formed. For those who don't know me, I am an Architectural Consultant working for Microsoft within the Read More...