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Software Engineering at Microsoft

Posted by michael on from the how-the-big-boys-work dept.

an_mo writes "A link to a google cached document is floating around some mailing lists containing some info about microsoft software engineering. In particular the document contains juicy bits about the development of a large project like NT/2K. Some examples: Team size went from 200 (NT3.1) to 1400 (Win2k). Complete build of win2k time is 8hrs on 4way PIII and requires 50GB of hard drive space. Written/email permission required for checkins by the build team." The HTML version on Usenix's site is much nicer than Google's auto-translated version.

9 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. Did they use a big enough font? by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Geez, I run at 1600 by 1200 and I still had to scroll every 10 lines or so. I got people yelling at me down on the street because I read slow.

  2. 8 hours? by hatrisc · · Score: 4, Funny

    it may have taken 8 hours, because they had to reboot twice.

    --
    I write code.
  3. Re:I don't know much about build times.. by phong3d · · Score: 3, Funny

    40 gigs of RAM? That's some Twinkie.

  4. Re:4 P3 by PacoTaco · · Score: 3, Funny
    and 512k RAM

    Maybe adding some RAM would help. :)

  5. Re:standard linux praise... by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 3, Funny
    Depends on the starting stage. Stage 1 is literally a minimum system that builds absolutely everything. Stage 2 has GCC and some other things (IIRC) built, and stage 3 has a prebuilt base system of the more common packages.

    All for wimps. I always start from stage -3. This means no machine-readable media whatsoever and a blank system EPROM. Nothing but source code printouts.

    After 36 hours of entering bootstrap code via a bank of toggle switches, you can get to stage -2 (TTY keyboard and video on a temporary BIOS). After this, you've still got a long road to hoe before you get to a login prompt. It's well worth it though, if you want to know exactly what your system is running.

  6. Re:4 P3 by kubrick · · Score: 3, Funny

    They don't need much more though -- after all, 640 KB should be enough for anyone. :)

    --
    deus does not exist but if he does
  7. Re:SourceDepot = Perforce != VSS by Phexro · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, but CVS is licensed under the GPL, which means that all Microsoft code in CVS would have to be copylefted, too! This is because the GPL is a viral cancerous anti-american pac-man. A document imbued with pure satanic evil, created by the twisted genius of Richard M. Stallman, who stands poised to destroy the world economy at the drop of a hat.

    Or so I've read.

  8. 8 hours? Forgot something? by DarkHelmet · · Score: 4, Funny
    Complete build of win2k time is 8hrs on 4way PIII and requires 50GB of hard drive space.

    Some goofy Microsoft Intern forgot to put -j 4 along with compliation.

    Either that, or they compiled it on Win9x (which has NO multiprocessor support).

    --
    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
  9. Software Engineering at Microsoft by epsalon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, that's an oxymoron for you!

    --

    Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org