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18 Years in Software Tools, an Insider's View

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the learning-from-history dept.

calumtdalek writes "Newsforge (Also owned by VA) has an article on a talk given by Rico Mariani, an eighteen-year veteran at Microsoft, in which he speaks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club, sharing his unique take on the history of, and controversies surrounding, Microsoft and the industry in general. Particularly illuminating are his responses to advocates of free/open-source software. The talk can also be download from the csclub's media server"

5 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by bgog · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good talk but man that guy is whiney. He sound's like my four-year-old.

  2. Wow by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 3, Funny
    > The talk can also be download from the (University of Waterloo Computer Science Club) csclub's media server

    They could've saved time and simply set fire to their server themselves.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  3. UWCSC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I attended Waterloo for a few years back in 96-99, and just as an interesting side note (since I can't seem to access the CSC media server, probably due to the /. effect), while a lot of people were members of the CSC to have access to another UNIX system and the tools they provided, the active CSC members were perhaps the most looked down upon people in the entire Math and Computers building. They epitomized everything negative about being a CS geek: essentially, they were a group of perhaps six guys and one girl, and while they were all incredibly savvy, they required emergency remedial lessons in personal hygiene (people actually avoided the stretch of 3rd floor hallway off which the room was located because the... aroma... was so potent), and even more amusingly, the girl, who was perhaps the antithesis to Natalie Portman (think grotesquely overweight, sporting a healthier quantity of facial hair than one would want in a woman, and entirely lacking any grooming whatsoever) was the entire focus of the males, who appeared to be trying to woo her in some sort of hyperCS ritual which involved much talk of network topologies, UNIX, and computer programming.

    I don't know if the author is admitting an active membership in that club (as I still can't seem to be able to access the server), but if so, it's nothing I think I'd be bragging about :-).

  4. Re:18 Years? Wow... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Funny

    My guys. My friends. My paisans. They're very smart guys. Wise, even. You could call them my wiseguys.

    Now, Don Stallman, he's a very smart guy too. And you know, me and my guys, we got respect for him and his guys. Cause you gotta have respect.

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  5. Re:He seems to resent users by drsmithy · · Score: 3, Funny
    To me, he seems like a perfect example of a really smart person who doesn't understand that software is judged by how much easier it makes the user's life, not by how impressive the work is to his geek friends.

    So you're saying he moonlights as an OSS developer ?

    (Sorry, cheap shot - but I couldn't resist.)