Winterdom

After working with Windows Communication Foundation for a while, I've reached the conclusion that the two features in WCF that I like the most are: 1. Generic Service Contracts: That is, the combination of using simple contracts with a single, catch-all operation and untyped data contracts (a.k.a. the System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message class)....

Jeremy Miller asked about switching from NAnt to MSBuild and if it would be worth it. I've thought about this in the past, and here's what it always comes out for me: In raw power and flexibility, I don't think there's a clear winner. MSBuild has the advantage of being...

Ayende has been very vocal about his opinion of SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) in the past, and, to be fair, he has some good points and indeed working with SSIS can be a pain in the neck many times. However, I've discovered that I despise SQL Server Reporting Services...

Here's another Color Scheme for Visual Studio 2005. This one has a dark (almost black) background, but high contrast, playful colors for the most common uses: </p> It's also my most complete color scheme yet, as it includes very usable configurations not only for the usual (Code, XML, HTML and...

I was setting up my Orcas VM again to play a bit with some VS2008 stuff. As part of my usual rituals, one of the first things I'll do is import my old VS2005 settings from a .VSSETTINGS file I keep around. Mostly it works fine, and much better in...

I've been doing some work this week working on SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services using MDX to query OLAP Cubes. It's the first time I had a serious project (that is, do anything significant) using MDX, and it's been an interesting experience. After a while, MDX starts to sort of make...

Today was my 30th birthday! Had a great time hanging out with my family at lunch and then later during the evening for dinner and got some cool presents (including some books, which I always love, and a new Wii game!). A good day all around :-)

Walter Michel commented on my recent entry on the BizTalk and WCF Messaging Models and asked if I had some guesses as to what the architecture of a future BizTalk version might look like in regards to WF/WCF integration. I think that, at this point in time, it is anybody's...

I've been doing some little Java work the last few days (and have a bit more coming down the pipeline (nothing big, just a few small changes and additions to existing applications), and decided to look again at Eclipse. It had been a while since I had used it last...

After writing my last post, I realized that an even better way to do this is to actually formalize the binding as a custom binding: public class OneWayBinding : CustomBinding { public OneWayBinding(Binding baseBinding) : base(baseBinding) { } public override BindingElementCollection CreateBindingElements() { BindingElementCollection bec = base.CreateBindingElements(); bec.Insert(0, new OneWayBindingElement());...