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Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

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Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#41

Post by wanorris »

wright wrote: post #38
wanorris wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taste is also orthogonal to skill at programming. Apple had better taste then Microsoft even when their code was absolute crap under the hood.

You can have taste without being able to program well, but you can't program well without good taste. The original point was that MS had smart people so a lack of smarts couldn't be the problem. The salient points are 1) smarts don't guarantee programming skill, and 2) smarts don't guarantee taste.

> You can have taste without being able to program well, but you can't program well without good taste.

Fair enough. In that sense, then, I wouldn't say that programmers at Microsoft lack taste by definition.

There are things at Microsoft that have demonstrated solid taste: the original NT kernel comes to mind, as do early iterations of Word and Excel (starting back when they were primarily developed for Mac). LINQ. WCF. The DLR. There are also smaller pieces of tools that seem elegant, even when there are issues with the larger design. Active Patterns in F#. Attributes in C#. The ADO.Net CommandBuilder and DataAdapter.

I'm not convinced that it's that everyone at Microsoft is individually defective as much as that their methods of collaboration, like those of most large corporations, usually yield results less effective than good individuals or small teams could have produced with sufficient autonomy.

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#42

Post by wanorris »

wright wrote: post #39
wanorris wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a lot of really smart people who can't program worth a darn. Like I said, they may not be typical, but most of the Microsoft people I've met work on compiler design, static verifiers, and things like that. If where you come from that's considered trivial stuff, feel free to make your own judgements accordingly. > If you want to work at MS you're already lacking in the taste department. Really? Last I checked…

> I've met work on compiler design, static verifiers, and things like that Not on the heavy consumer apps, eh? > Last I checked, there are openings on the F# team. So you're saying they have positions open that need people with taste to work on them. In other words, they have a shortage of people with taste ;) > Done away with, last I heard. What's the process now?

> Not on the heavy consumer apps, eh?

No, the Microsoft people I've met tend to be from the language teams, mostly because I'm working a lot with IronPython and F# in my codebase, so that's the kind of thing I go to conferences about.

And, to be honest, working on language implementations in small teams for Microsoft sounds a lot more appealing than working on Windows or Office in ginormous bureaucratic teams. Then again, being a tiny cog in the AdSense machine doesn't sound appealing to me either.

> What's the process now?

Doesn't sound all that different from a Google interview.

"I've told folks that my MS interview was on par in difficulty as my Ph.D. candidacy oral examination, partly due to the fact that it was much, much longer. (A Ph.D. oral exam is done by 3-5 professors vs. you in a room and they decide whether you continue in your studies or whether they kick you out). Mine started at 10am and ended at 6:30pm or so when I sat down with Scott Guthrie at the end of my loop."

http://www.iunknown.com/2008/03/steve-yegge-on.html

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#43

Post by pg »

wright wrote: post #31
steveblgh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, building a working OS is a gigantic effort. Last time I checked Xobni was regex-ing phone numbers and names from e-mail texts, plus some fancy GUI of the kind that you said in one essay that you hate (messing around with obscure Windows APIs). Following your reasoning, the Xobni guys could have more easily built a full OS, which, with all respect, I seriously doubt.

My next YC idea: A plugin for Vista that makes it work.

You know, that might be just on the right side of crazy. Could one build some kind of layer on top of Vista that would make it tolerable to users?

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#45

Post by mattmaroon »

random1 wrote: post #20
mattmaroon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more to replicating something like Xobni in a megacorporation like MSFT than just the programming. In a lot of cases it's easier to get an acquisition signed off on than a new department to make a new product. And they get more than just code, and people who write code. They get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup. They get people who have vision, which MSFT app…

I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter" than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of "intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves... yes some of you are probably pretty sma…

I didn't say anything about intelligence. I just said better engineers. Being a great engineer requires many qualities, of which intelligence is only one.

MSFT wants great engineers, and most of the people there probably aren't. Surely some are, but for a very long time now the kinds of people who make great engineers have shifted en masse either to going their own way (startups) or to working at Google, Facebook, or a number of other places.

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#46

Post by mlinsey »

pg wrote: post #43
wright wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My next YC idea: A plugin for Vista that makes it work.

You know, that might be just on the right side of crazy. Could one build some kind of layer on top of Vista that would make it tolerable to users?

Depends on why users think it's intolerable, I suppose. The most common complaints I hear about Vista, even from casual users, are about performance, and I'm not sure what you could do about that.

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#47

Post by mattmaroon »

fleaflicker wrote: post #23
mattmaroon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess it gets leaked to the press by people who will eventually want favors in return. Sometimes it might be founders who want to prod other potential acquirers.

Often a letter of intent will frobid the seller from negotiating with anybody else.

Yeah, that's true. I meant more leaks in general.

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#48

Post by yters »

mattmaroon wrote: post #45
random1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter" than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of "intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves... yes some of you are probably pretty sma…

I didn't say anything about intelligence. I just said better engineers. Being a great engineer requires many qualities, of which intelligence is only one. MSFT wants great engineers, and most of the people there probably aren't. Surely some are, but for a very long time now the kinds of people who make great engineers have shifted en masse either to going their own way (startups) or to working at Google, Facebook, or…

[citation needed]

Seriously though, that seems to be a self talk thing in the hacker community, making me skeptical it's true. Places like Slashdot and the like seem to be echo chambers of ego boosting phrases.

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#49

Post by yters »

pg wrote: post #11
steveblgh wrote: post #2

I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook.

Really? Building an OS that works is a solved problem, and they don't seem to be able to do that. The reason big companies buy startups is because they can't do what they "could" do.

Isn't the real cause of their problems maintaining backwards compatibility? As I understand it, Apple doesn't do this, making it easier for them to create a good OS.

Re: Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni

#50

Post by yters »

wright wrote: post #33
alaskamiller wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also know a lot of dumb people that can't program worth a damn. What's your point? Wanting to work a corporation that has big revenues with job security, stability, steady paychecks, interesting projects (yes, there are still interesting projects everything from online, web, to Xbox), big campus treatment, vacation, healthcare benefits, and et al. Yeah, that's just an outright dumb move.

> I also a lot of dumb people that can't program worth a damn. What's your point? Try to keep up here, Freddo. Try following the context :) Smart is orthogonal to skilled at a particular endeavor. > Yeah, that's just an outright dumb move. Funny how you twisted "lacking in the taste department" into "dumb". It's a computer industry truism that MS lacks taste, whereas Apple has good taste. This is also amusing: http:/…

I think an emphasis on taste can be good, but not when it leads to a holier than thou attitude. Not only in terms of decency, but it also means less efficiency and aesthetics.

Say efficiency and aesthetics are two sides of the same coin. So, if you put them at odds with each other you won't ever reach the epitome of either.

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