Why Vista Release Date Really Slipped

anzev writes "A team manager for Windows for 5 years has decided to write a blog-essay about what caused Windows Vista project to miss the due date. Philip tells us in the blog, that Windows developers are writing an average of 5000 lines of code (which is *only* 1200 lines less than the national average of 6200 lines of code per year). He addresses issues like the Vista code being too complicated, the processes the developers have to follow too complex and a lot more. All in all it gives a nice insight into why Vista will be late, from a different perspective. Oh, and Slashdot gets mentioned too ;-)."

Comments

Summary == Wrong

[ahsile]

The article says the monkeys in Redmond only write 1000 lines of code a year:

Vista is said to have over 50 million lines of code, whereas XP was said to have around 40 million. There are about two thousand software developers in Windows today. Assuming there are 5 years between when XP shipped and when Vista ships, those quick on the draw with calculators will discover that, on average, the typical Windows developer has produced one thousand new lines of shipped code per year during Vista.

5000 lines per year is mentioned as a joke...

5,000 lines per year?

[Sowilo]

Philip tells us in the blog, that Windows developers are writing on average of 5000 lines of code (which is *only* 1200 lines less than the national average of 6200 lines of code per year).

No, actually, he doesn't tell us that at all. From TFA:

... those quick on the draw with calculators will discover that, on average, the typical Windows developer has produced one thousand new lines of shipped code per year during Vista. Only a thousand lines a year. ... Lest those of you who wrote 5,000 lines of code last weekend pass a kidney stone at the thought of Windows developers writing only a thousand lines of code a year, realize that the average software developer in the US only produces around (brace yourself) 6200 lines a year.

Rather than the paltry "1200 line" decrease suggested by the writeup, what we actually have is a 5000 line decrease, and the MS developers are on average each producing less than 17% of the national average. Most of this is probably due to various factors of bureaucratic bloat and Windows bloat in general, but if I had a company full of workers whose pace was less than 20% of the national average, I'd be gravely concerned. Of course, it'd almost be fine if that 20% was QUALITY code, but, well... Consider the source. Reviewing its history, I somehow doubt that Windows code is in any way "bug-free" or "easily maintainable"...

Re:Give Vista Developers A Break

[TheGreek]

Tell that to all of the Software Assurance customers whose deal ends in December of '06.

Microsoft doesn't guarantee updates every two years (or whatever your term length is). They just guarantee that you get any updates that occur during the term of your agreement.

Also, it'll be available to volume license customers in November, which you should already know.

Tard.

Re:Lines of Code?

[hlh_nospam]

[bmongar] Wow, who uses lines of code as a metric.

This brought back a memory of an event that I still find amusing after all of these years. Back in 1978, I was working for a defense contractor. I remember a department meeting in which one of the managers brought in a stack of graybar printout and proudly held a ruler next to it. He proclaimed that his group had produced 9 "side-inches" (the depth of the paper stack) of software, and outlined several items that were to be given to his group as a reward for such an outstanding accomplishment. Next meeting, all the managers brought stack of graybar and rulers. And surprise! surprise! surprise!, every one of those stacks was even more than 9 inches deep.

Within a year, over half of the projects represented by those stacks of graybar had been cancelled, unfinished. Today, that company is no longer in business.

As has been pointed out by many authors on the subject, you get what you measure.

Re:Give Vista Developers A Break

[JonathanBoyd]

I'm waiting for the little light bulb to go off in your mind that explains to you the reason why Macs have a 4% worldwide market share.

Historical reasons laregly rooted in their reufsal to license the OS. Not issues with backward compatability. Their market share was low way before that came up.

My company does have a few Macs for specific tasks, and we couldn't even upgrade to OSX at all until a few months ago - let alone any "latest version" - because one of the apps we use, Media 100i, wouldn't work properly on OSX

Didn't they release a new version almost 4 years ago that took advantage of the features of Mac OS X?

If you have to upgrade your hardware and apps at the same time as you upgrade your OS, that is both a huge expense and a huge disruption to any company.

We've used quite a few iMacs and Powermacs which have gone from OS 8 up to 10.4.6. Occasisonally the software does change, but the vast majority of it has run fine in Classic. There are very applications that have problems with it. The one you use may be one of them, but they brought out an OS X native version years ago.

(I never tried it in compatibility mode, but was told not to) [...] Apple does not believe in backward compatibility

So, Apple has a compatibility mode (called Classic, by the way), but doesn't believe in backward compatability? That sounds a little contradictory. And you've heard of Rosetta haven't you? It features superb compatability across a different processor architecture.

mirror because author removed post

[moochfish]

Note: the author has edited his entry and removed most of it. the mirror:

http://mirrordot.org/stories/fb474e7cf3aa2bdcb1590 091564cac59/index.html