Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding • Hacker News Board

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#151

Post by Afton » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:08 PM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #146

Using whatever editor or CLI you want sounds like a nice touch, might not be so expected in such a big company. Does this extend to browsers? Is it open to use Firefox or Opera or Chrome as your main personal web browser, or is there a corporate mandate to use Internet Explorer on every desktop within Microsoft? (I know the OP on wordpress may not read this here, but any other input is welcome)

There's no mandate (that I know of), but there is a strong culture of dogfooding that tends to push one to using IE. There's also many intranet sites that won't work without ActiveX.

But certainly no one's dropped by my office to ask me to stop using my alternate browser (I tend to separate my usage by my usage patterns. Work stuff on IE, personal stuff on the non-IE browser).

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#152

Post by daviding » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #148

My paint job is well done and tasefull and failities didn’t fuss at me about it. They key point is tha tthis is up tot the team (or team’s) that own the code. This all sounds great, but everthign isn’t unicorns and ponies every day: There are problems to be sure – somtimes the bug data base is slow, Would have been cool if he had spell-checked this before posting it.

I'm not sure what is the more naff joke; to go with 'And this is why Windows needs a native spellchecker' or 'Obvious over-reliance on static language compilers'. I'll go with neither, as it's a good read.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#153

Post by seanalltogether » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #74

seanalltogether wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm right there with you. The informal collaboration possible in an open space is so much more productive for me.

Why do you imagine that informal collaboration isn't possible with offices? It happens all the time. Maybe you're just being prejudiced against a situation you have no experience with?

Because I've worked in both environments. I say informal because in open spaces you get involved in conversations and collaborative efforts that normally you have to go out of your way to be involved in. Here's a good example.

I was having a conversation with a dev about building an iPad app in my spare time and another dev sitting near by jumped in and argued that I should focus my efforts on the Mac App Store since it would be new and relatively easier to get noticed. 3 months later and I have an app selling well enough to quit my job if I really wanted to. This golden little side comment would not have happened if we all had offices.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#154

Post by stevenbedrick » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:24 PM UTC

jdp23 wrote: post #134

The "individual offices" aspect is interesting. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Microsoft went from success to success and the corporate culture got really established, software engineering research showed that developers were more effective with individual offices and big monitors. By 2005/2006, when I was looking at corporate culture at MS, things had changed: with the advent of pair programming and agile m…

I just started a post-doc position, and for the first time in my career have my own office, and quite a nice one, at that. It is absolutely fabulous. Besides the obvious benefits, the biggest unexpected positive aspect of having my own office is that I can have a discussion with a student or co-worker without worrying about disturbing those around me.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#155

Post by encoderer » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:09 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #57

boyter wrote: post #9

Reading 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…

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 can see where you're going but it sounds to me like the entrepreneurial spirit in you has done what it tends to do in all of us: Look for a way to make lemons into lemonade.

But my perspective is that I would probably prefer not to have those particular lemons! My time is valuable to me, and so is my patience. And as a software developer, I spend far more time using other peoples software (IDE, DB clients, etc) than I do using my own.

The best way I can better my products, I think, is to devote as much time as possible to fixing bugs and adding features. Time spent waiting for my IDE to load is time spent not adding value.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#156

Post by ejames » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #146

Using whatever editor or CLI you want sounds like a nice touch, might not be so expected in such a big company. Does this extend to browsers? Is it open to use Firefox or Opera or Chrome as your main personal web browser, or is there a corporate mandate to use Internet Explorer on every desktop within Microsoft? (I know the OP on wordpress may not read this here, but any other input is welcome)

It's typical for Microsofties to use IE, search on Bing, etc. simply for dogfooding purposes, but it's not a specific requirement.

It does draw some raised eyebrows if you show up at the office with, say, a personal laptop that's a MacBook and a paired iPhone, but it's at the level of good-natured ribbing rather than actual managerial disapproval or job problems. I would usually say "Yes, but I convinced a family member to buy an XBox 360, so my corporate loyalty karma evens out!"

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#157

Post by andrewflnr » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:26 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #38

dikbrouwer wrote: post #13

I'm a bit confused by this post. The author seems to celebrate a private office. I strongly prefer open work spaces that you share with others, as do many companies I've worked with/seen. Care to share your opinion? I'm curious...

Ideally, I'd like both: an open space to collaborate in, and a quiet place tucked away from interruptions and distractions to code in.

This. People get hung up on this type of debate when there's a perfectly obvious hybrid solution.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#158

Post by lovskogen » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:30 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #101

lovskogen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do over at Google?

Very broadly, Search Features. I worked on the visual redesign that launched last May, and before that some of the search tools (particularly Wonder Wheel and Related Searches) and a bit on the move from having separate search properties (books.google.com, blogs.google.com, video.google.com, etc.) to a single search app. Then I spent about 6 months doing some infrastructure stuff with the webserver, and I'm now doing…

Cool. What tools do you use for daily design? I've been slowly moving from Photoshop to CSS, and want to start using stuff like Antetype early in the process. I've also figured out that Photoshop is good for finalizing a design that's been moved around, tested and iterated upon.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#159

Post by dpritchett » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:34 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #149

jdp23 wrote: post #134

The "individual offices" aspect is interesting. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Microsoft went from success to success and the corporate culture got really established, software engineering research showed that developers were more effective with individual offices and big monitors. By 2005/2006, when I was looking at corporate culture at MS, things had changed: with the advent of pair programming and agile m…

>with the advent of pair programming and agile methods, many designers and developers are more effective in shared spaces I'd be interested in seeing a source for this. I personally believe any creative endeavor is better performed in isolation.

The great thing about offices is that you can go sit in someone else's half the day if you need to collaborate on something.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#160

Post by kprobst » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

checoivan wrote: post #18

plinkplonk wrote: post #17

I 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…

Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.

I remember being at the MS Redmond campus for an MVP summit shortly before .NET was released (ca. 2000). Some of the devs in the VB.Net team would amble in to participate in discussions and whatnot (it was very informal). Most of them had laptops and did email and even coding while they were in the conference room.

Again, this was 10 years ago or so, but I'd expect that developers can still get a laptop if they want to.

Personally I've always preferred a desktop machine to code, because a laptop means I can take work home.