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Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

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Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#131

Post by jenscow »

shantly wrote: post #129
bcrosby95 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Surface line was the first time since the original iPhone that I was actually excited about a piece of hardware.

I finally got to use one (I think it was a bottom-tier gen 2? Whatever was current at the time) about a year and a half ago when we got one for testing stuff in IE/Edge. When I first heard of the Surface, what I thought it'd be: a bad laptop and a worse tablet. After I read and heard people raving about how great it was for years , what I thought it'd be when I finally got to use one: a great laptop and a good-enough…

Same here. I got one from work for testing with. I was completely underwhelmed.

I think it's a combination of astroturfing and owners trying to convince themselves they made the right decision.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#132

Post by Nimitz14 »

JohnFen wrote: post #72
martin1b wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. Many of Microsoft's products are simple and boring at first glance. However, when you really want to flex it to do something powerful, the features are usually there. Their products have so many years of development in them and it shows because their products stand the test of time, particularly in the enterprise. I'm glad there are lot of other vendors enter…

> Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. I've used it heavily for years, and I disagree with this assessment. I avoid it whenever I have the option.

So you just accept using a 2nd rate C++ IDE? Because there isn't any debate, Visual Studio is the best.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#133

Post by ensiferum »

Is every MS employee now writing these "my career at microsoft) pieces? Looking for clicks for their blogs ? Seems like a recurring phenom. Topic X features on the front page of hacker news and then everyone imitates it probably just trying to get clicks.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#134

Post by kirse »

Someone1234 wrote: post #65
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call me skeptical, but there's not a whole lot of products I willfully pay Microsoft for. I have met many, many people who gladly pay for Office (specifically, Excel) or Visual Studio, so much does it increase their productivity. I'm not one of them, but I'm not an accountant and the code bases I work with are small and don't require VS's incredible tooling. There are also adherents of the cult of Visio, but I hone…

I strongly agree on Office/Excel. Fantastic product suite (except maybe Outlook which is long in the tooth/essentially unimproved for the last ten years). Visual Studio I'll slightly disagree on. I resent it. When VSCode, an electron application, can run lag/stutter/micro-freeze free and Visual Studio an IDE written in C++ cannot you know the codebase has become unmaintainable. This isn't a recent phenomenon either.…

Do you have AV interfering with any intermediate files, etc? I know for MVC/ASP.NET once I blacklisted the overbearing AV scans on a few of those directories all my woes disappeared.

For whatever reason I have the opposite experience, VScode input lag is painful at times and VSPro is minimal. As you know once you master an IDE, keyboard shortcuts and common keywords are typically being entered at 200wpm+ in bursts and its quite noticeable. Initial startup is definitely poor for both.

> I don't need a forms builder, server explorer, EDMX designer, test explorer, and all the other bells and whistles VS offers.

Same. CodeLens gets immediately disabled. Makes me wonder if there would be a way to hack up a stripped down "VS Lite".

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#135

Post by kerng »

JohnFen wrote: post #72
martin1b wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. Many of Microsoft's products are simple and boring at first glance. However, when you really want to flex it to do something powerful, the features are usually there. Their products have so many years of development in them and it shows because their products stand the test of time, particularly in the enterprise. I'm glad there are lot of other vendors enter…

> Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. I've used it heavily for years, and I disagree with this assessment. I avoid it whenever I have the option.

There are many arguments, but Visusl Studio is the best IDE for the last two decades. Same is true for the Office suite.

In my current job we don't have either and its utterly frustrating how bad the alternatives are.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#136

Post by munchbunny »

jenscow wrote: post #131
shantly wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally got to use one (I think it was a bottom-tier gen 2? Whatever was current at the time) about a year and a half ago when we got one for testing stuff in IE/Edge. When I first heard of the Surface, what I thought it'd be: a bad laptop and a worse tablet. After I read and heard people raving about how great it was for years , what I thought it'd be when I finally got to use one: a great laptop and a good-enough…

Same here. I got one from work for testing with. I was completely underwhelmed. I think it's a combination of astroturfing and owners trying to convince themselves they made the right decision.

What did you find underwhelming?

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#137

Post by kerng »

>> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity.

This statement is so true, its golden.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#138

Post by davidgay »

com2kid wrote: post #77
vezycash wrote: post #10

>The Microsoft of the 2000s, under Steve Ballmer, was almost exactly the opposite (of gates). >Bruised and battered by the consent decree handed down by the DoJ for the very same ambition that brought it to dominance, Ballmer’s Microsoft was sales-forward and CAUTIOUS. >It was... nervously clutching its pearls at the approach of Google in its rearview mirror People bash Steve Ballmer for missing Search, Social Networ…

> Microsoft was Caged. Had it's wings clipped. Had a huge target on its back. In case you did't know, any complaint by say Google in its early days and Microsoft would have been broken up! So much this. During orientation on my first day a representative from legal came in and told us, among other things, what types of metaphors we were allowed to use in emails. "No football metaphors, no explicit or implied violence…

> we do not 'crush the competition'

All employees of large (tech?) companies have received exactly the same message from legal.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#139

Post by dwoozle »

dlp211 wrote: post #43
dwoozle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Jobs model works when you have a Jobs, or Gates, or Musk, someone whose inherent talent is so strong that the organization can look to him for all decisions. But the strategy for running a company in the long term cannot assume such a pope. If you have Michael Jordan on your basketball team your strategy can be “give him the ball” — if you are just five ordinary guys you will need a philosophy.

That was distinctly not the philosophy of the Chicago Bulls and Phil Jackson.

I’m talking about a pickup game of basketball with Michael Jordan on one team. That obviously doesn’t work when your opponents have 90% of the skill of Jordan.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#140

Post by solidasparagus »

throwaway0889 wrote: post #90
random_19980 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>This is the real reason behind's Ballmer's failure. Yes, I am sure it had nothing to do with him lacking the basic vision one would expect in any tech CEO and saying idiotic things like "no one would buy such an expensive phone" (about the iPhone). If you look like a buffoon, you act like a buffoon, and you talk like a buffoon...

> saying idiotic things like "no one would buy such an expensive phone" (about the iPhone). This is something that people keep saying but he way actually right and at this point this is just an Internet meme. I remember that moment. The iPhone costed $800 with a phone plan. Insane. Nobody does that even today, so in that regard he was right. Only after the iPhone 3 and $200 phone with a contract did it ever start sel…

The original iPhone did $745M in revenue before the iPhone 3G was released (not 100% sure if that the one you're talking about since there was never a phone called the iPhone 3). Not exactly 'nobody'...
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