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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.

7 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. read a book by johnjones · · Score: 5, Informative

    Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows Nt and the Next Generation at Microsoft by G. Pascal Zachary

    very funny about the head guy throwing chairs out of windows ( the phyical ones ironic really )

    and the black team....

    read it and Mythical Man-Month, and then you might have a small background

    regards

    john jones

  2. Old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Guys, the PowerPoint slides for the Lucovsky presentation has been publicly downloadable for almost 2 years. I always find it sad when Slashdot reports something old as something new.

    Go get the slides at http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/tech.h tml

  3. Re:nope by m_pll · · Score: 4, Informative
    Win2K was built using VC5. XP is VC7.

    You can see the linker version using this command:

    dumpbin %systemroot%\system32\ntdll.dll /headers

  4. 4 P3 by thopo · · Score: 5, Informative

    sometimes it makes sense to read the article before you comment. (i know the chance is smaller to get modded up ...). the article says:

    Complete build time is 8 hours on 4 way PIII Xeon 550 with 50Gb disk and 512k RAM

    --
    keep it simple.
  5. Re:Can't pull IE from Windows, huh? by patchmaster · · Score: 5, Informative

    Those claims are clearly gross exaggerations intended to fool idiots and judges into thinking IE is an integral part of the OS. They define "IE" as every line of code exercised by IE in doing its thing, including mundane things like writing to the screen or saving a file. Then they discover if you pull out all the code for "fwrite" suddenly the system stops working. Duh! It's like claiming your car won't run without the windshield wipers, defining the windshield wipers as everything needed to make them work, including the battery. So you pull out the battery and, what do you know, the car won't start.

  6. Reading the Slideshow you'll find... by sweede · · Score: 4, Informative
    that the 8 hour, 4 way p3, 50 gig drive compile was the OLD WAY of doing Windows 2000 based on how the developed Windows NT.

    the later slides describe the NEW project resource management and development processes for the continuing development of Windows 2000 (before and up until after the release?)

    Slides 23 and up tell you what they did and how well everything works on a project as large as Windows 2000 is.

    This slide gives a sumary of the new build processes http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/invite dtalks/lucovsky_html/sld033.htm

    --
    I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
  7. Re:A recipe for disaster by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 5, Informative

    The proper care and feeding of trolls...

    Eitehr you're a troll, or you've never done any real development.

    UML, can't comment on. Never did any. What I can say is that design is important, and shooting from the him on 20million lines of code won't get you very far. If UML helps you design, use UML.

    Formal checkins. In large complex projects, you need to be absolutely sure about your units. So many places for things to interact, if you don't have them as solid as you can get it, you'll get so many interaction bugs you'll never get anything done.

    Developer time costs $20-40 an hour. Ha, now I know you've never done real programming. Developer wages start maybe at $30/hr (not $20), up to $100/hr at spots. Thats just wages, not benefits, taxes all that stuff. If you have no experience in big projects, don't talk.

    Code review Code review is easily the best way of debugging. Study after study find that Code reviews find more bugs per unit of time than any other technique. as side benefits, it also transmits techniques from developer to developer. This comes from developers who want to learn and 1) too shy to ask 2) don't know that there is a better way. I learned something in code reviews, some techniques I never thought of.
    Can it be a power trip? yeah. CAn it lead to a clash of egos? yeah, but thats up to the review lead to control. A good review lead will keep that in check.

    Large, geographically concentrated development teams
    Not surprisingly, this is the model that Linux and most Open Source software uses
    They have no option because they can't pay developers, so no chance to get them in a concentrated area. There are plusses and minusses with the concentration.
    why OSS is phenominally successful compared with any of its proprietary competition
    Sales? No contest. MS.
    On what definition of success? Bugs? I've seen some really shitty OSS software. yes, the kernel is high quality, Apache, FreeBSD, others.