I'm startled to see actual use of Visual Studio. When I was there a few years ago, literally every dev I met shunned it in favor of vim (or rarely emacs) and build.exe and windbg, despite pleas from DevDiv for any feedback.
Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
81–90 of 171 posts
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for me, it hilighted some of what I've suspected for a while is wrong with Windows development. I own a small company that handles a lot of end-users' various issues. Although I spend most of my time now coding, I spent more than my fair share of time working one-on-one with individuals and companies that were having problems with their systems. I still spend around 10 hours a week doing it. My primary developmen…
I don't think that's actually the problem. Windows (and many other MS groups) have quite excellent performance and integration testing. They generally do a good job of keeping performance under control. I think the biggest problem is how they approach performance as a test signoff criteria, usually, rather than as a budgeted line-item with goals for improvement. As to situations like what you describe with file shari…
Treating performance as a minimum bar that has to be met rather than a goal in and of itself sounds exactly like the kind of development process that would produce Windows -- which always feels sluggish if you're using anything other than the latest hardware.
I don't think Microsoft realizes how enormously performance contributes to user dissatisfaction with their OS.
As a web developer, I know that adding just a second to a page load massively diminishes perceived usefulness of a system; Google spends enormous amounts shaving tens of milliseconds off their page displays.
At the level of an operating system, that kind of user sensitivity to performance must be at least the same if not magnified. It seems like performance, especially on older hardware, should be far more of a priority for Microsoft than it apparently is.
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#83Is it just me or he needed to use some Spell. Check? Oh he was on Windows, as buggy as it gets (code or writing).
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#84I turned down Microsoft when they recruited me in college. Wow, what a great decision. Now, I run a software firm where no one has an office, everyone pairs (including owners and interns), we have a /slightly/ better ratio than 1 test per 100 SLOC, etc.
I'm not understanding this comment. Which part of this post made you think that your decision was great? The fact that you started a software firm? the fact that no one has an office at your firm?
The fact that there is a culture; not cabins,
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#85I asked this in the comments section but it disappeared into thin air with no notification on what was happening(say, held for moderation etc).So I'll ask it here. Maybe an HN reader who works for MS might know the answer. From the article, "All managers have laptops. Most prety good ones." Do developers (testers etc) have laptops (pretty good ones)? Or are they "management only" perks? (fwiw all the bodyshopping com…
In the office I work out of, everyone has at least one laptop and a desktop. --Most people have at least 2 desktops, and of course there are plenty of servers as well (2 server rooms, in fact, one off-site).
I work in support, but I spend a lot of time looking at code and speaking with developers. My laptop is my primary machine, but I also have two desktops - quad core systems with 16GB RAM that I use to run VMs in Hyper-V (I have to use both Windows and Linux VMs). --Typically I'll have around 3 VMs running on each desktop, plus up to 3 more that I can switch on when needed. I also have access to a set of 3 servers (48GB RAM and about 9TB disk space) that I share with a team of 10 people for when we need to configure a larger cluster for problem reproduction and resolution. Developers tend to have similar setups here.
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#86I have interned at Microsoft. No intern has a private office. In fact, many interns do not work in offices at all.
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#87Reading this almost makes me want to cry. It's still all to common these days to find developers with 4 year old machines, comprised of scavanged parts (from people leaving) running Windows XP. A level of bureaucracy forcing you to maintain 3 tickets (at least) in 3 different systems to make even a typo fix in a production system with 3 day minimum turn around time. Servers with less RAM and resources then your 4 yea…
You choose were you want to work. Lots of places do this, my last few places in small firms bought me brand new computers when I started, and let 2 let me choose exactly what I wanted. It depends how important the company sees IT/how good a manager you have.
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#88I turned down Microsoft when they recruited me in college. Wow, what a great decision. Now, I run a software firm where no one has an office, everyone pairs (including owners and interns), we have a /slightly/ better ratio than 1 test per 100 SLOC, etc.
Can't tell if trolling or not...
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#89Is it just me or he needed to use some Spell. Check? Oh he was on Windows, as buggy as it gets (code or writing).
As much as this comment nosedived at the end, I have to agree that his typos and misspellings detracted from the article for me. A basic proofread would have prevented this from feeling like it wasn't too well thought out...
Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding
#90Reading this almost makes me want to cry. It's still all to common these days to find developers with 4 year old machines, comprised of scavanged parts (from people leaving) running Windows XP. A level of bureaucracy forcing you to maintain 3 tickets (at least) in 3 different systems to make even a typo fix in a production system with 3 day minimum turn around time. Servers with less RAM and resources then your 4 yea…
You choose were you want to work. Lots of places do this, my last few places in small firms bought me brand new computers when I started, and let 2 let me choose exactly what I wanted. It depends how important the company sees IT/how good a manager you have.
My manager is pretty good. The issue seems to be we are treated like a proper "development" shop, but not provided some of the basic tools due to strange funding decisions. Its not all bad, but there is enough smell there to take away a lot of the joy I usually get from code.