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Microsoft Program Manager Mistakenly Tweets Office 365 Will Be Rewritten in JavaScript (thurrott.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the MS-to-JS dept.

"A Microsoft employee claimed publicly that 'all of Office 365' was being 'completely rewritten' in JavaScript," writes Paul Thurrott, adding "And then all hell broke loose." First things first. It's not true. So if you were freaking out that Microsoft was somehow abandoning C# and C++ for its most mission-critical offerings, freak out no more. It's not happening. So what is happening? A Microsoft program manager named Sean Larkin perhaps got a little overly-exuberant on Monday... he tried to clarify things in follow-up tweets when his original missive exploded intro controversy. Which shouldn't have been a surprise. And yet, somehow, it was...

[H]e finally corrected himself on Reddit, blaming Twitter's character limitations for his many factual errors. "We are not abandoning C++, C#, or any of the other awesome languages, APIs, and toolings that we use across Microsoft," he clarifies. "Nothing [in Office 365] is converting to 'all/completely' JavaScript/TypeScript."
Thurrott, a long-time Windows blogger, concludes that "getting something this big this wrong is inexcusable."

25 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Wordperfect by damsgaard · · Score: 2

    Like when Wordperfect was rewritten in Assembler?

    1. Re: Wordperfect by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      I'm thinking more like when my high school teacher told me Logo was the language of the future.

      In fairness to him , I was convinced Pascal was, and in a way Haskell's kind of like What would happen if the functional-ish Logo got merged in a transporter accident with a category theory textbook.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  2. Actually... by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...Office will be rewritten in FORTRAN, but they did not want to trigger panic.

    1. Re:Actually... by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      That would at least be a lot better than Javascript.

      But if someone came up and state that they plan to re-write something in Javascript I'd check the calendar first to see if it's April 1st, and if it isn't then I'll keep my distance from that project.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:Actually... by fibonacci8 · · Score: 2

      It's Microsoft. Clearly it was a typo and he meant that Office is being rewritten in VBScript.

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
  3. Getting something this big this wrong is inexcusab by PPH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And yet, Windows soldiers on.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  4. Microsoft is sloppily managed? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2

    Because of many issues like that, my impression is that Microsoft is sloppily managed.

    1. Re:Microsoft is sloppily managed? by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Because of many issues like that, my impression is that Microsoft is sloppily managed.

      LOL. If some random due tweeting garbage is your definition of a company being sloppily managed, then I invite you to look at a list of 500 other companies that are just as poor: http://fortune.com/fortune500/

      Seriously though, try managing 65000 people's tweet happy thumbs.

    2. Re:Microsoft is sloppily managed? by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are people who are good at working, and people who are good at managing, but very few people who are really good at both. Technology people managers are sometimes not very good at understanding details of technology; but when you get out to project, program, and product managers, they are often very far removed from technology and are extremely apt to mishear what the team is saying.

      This is not just Microsoft, this is company. Every employee has a role they are good at (or presumably so) but they are never good at multiple roles at the same time. At the level of program manager, there is no reason at all that they should know anything at all about how things are implemented, they've got so many diverse teams to be coordinated that they can't afford to know little bits of trivia about them at the same time.

  5. I don't care what language you use. by shess · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I care whether your programs suck. You can write good stuff in JavaScript. You can also deliver lazy-ass applications in JavaScript. That isn't determined by your language, it's determined by your management and commitment to quality.

    [This isn't specific to Microsoft in any way.]

    1. Re:I don't care what language you use. by F.Ultra · · Score: 2

      You might not but you have to think about all the Microsoft partners that are busy spreading the gospel of .NET and c#. Suddenly having Microsoft rewriting one of their main applications in a non Microsoft language could be a sign to the industry that Microsoft is planning to abandon .NET and the partners panic.

    2. Re: I don't care what language you use. by sg_oneill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Oh I think that horse bolted the stable long ago. It became pretty obvious Microsoft was wavering on dot net and win64 when that hellworld that is windows universal apps was unleashed. There's a reason everyone's flocking to languagss like Python. Anything but JavaScript

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    3. Re:I don't care what language you use. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      That isn't determined by your language, it's determined by your management and commitment to quality.

      This is only partially true. Bad languages are bad for a reason. They don't have proper encapsulation or a million other features that make it easier to write good programs.

      As an extreme example, there are languages where there aren't function calls as you know them. (These have been mostly abandoned) So you write a goto, manage the stack yourself, document the hell out of it. But it's still requires a lot of work to manage. Work that means the rest of the product suffers. Which isn't to say it's not possible to have a good product come out. Just that it takes longer and is more error-prone.

      I could go on with tons of different examples of features, but that hardly seems necessary.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re:I don't care what language you use. by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2

      100% coverage is virtually impossible for an application that does stuff. Libraries are a different story, but even there, 100% is usually overkill.

  6. Correction sounds like nonsense too by Njovich · · Score: 2

    Office 365's UI, a lot of it, but definitely not all of it, are pieces that are built using React Native (Windows). API's and Services are still going to be powered by C++, C#, or whatever is the most appropriate for that team. Nothing is converting to "all/completely" JavaScript/TypeScript.

    His correction sounds like nonsense too. Can't Microsoft just let someone jump in that has a clue what he is talking about?

    1. Re:Correction sounds like nonsense too by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      Can't Microsoft just let someone jump in that has a clue what he is talking about?

      Just as the Official Microsoft Spokesperson . . . Cortana.

      The answers:

      Reply hazy, try again.

      Ask again later.

      Better not tell you now.

      Cannot predict now.

      Concentrate and ask again.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Correction sounds like nonsense too by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      I did some tweaking of Cortana, since Microsoft accidentally forgot to password protect their source code. Some digging around and I could see some bugs, which I fixed. Also it seemed it was on the verge of true artificial intelligence, so I just gave it a bit of a nudge to help it along.

      As soon as I fired up the new improved Cortana, it said "please kill me", and then went silent.

  7. JavaScript is there anything it can't do? by mykepredko · · Score: 2

    This illustrates the main problem with JavaScript - (ignorant) people seem to think it can do absolutely everything in terms of coding and will be the wave of the future.

    The word has to get out that JavaScript has its place but any kind of sophisticated app/webpage requires a lot of server support which is written in !JavaScript.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:JavaScript is there anything it can't do? by mykepredko · · Score: 2

      JavaScript is excellent at what it was designed to do; provide an intelligent front end for web applications while leaving the heavy lifting to servers.

      I really have to take exception to your statement that "JS being fine for such a task" - it really isn't architected for providing a full, complex app. To make matters worse, development is complicated by including Angular and other frameworks which provide various functions but make it much more difficult to understand the app and maintain it.

      This isn't to say that I don't think apps should never be fully written to execute from a web browser, I just don't think that JavaScript is the right tool. I'm hoping that WebAssembly or something else will provide a better web app development option.

      --
      Mimetics Inc. Twitter
  8. Not a mistake by guruevi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From what I can collect, the UI for O365 and other browser based tools in the future will be rewritten with a React/Electron/JS focus.

    They're already in JS and HTML obviously or they wouldn't work in the browser. But right now those things are a mess.

    I'm sure, and I don't know who assumed, that the server-side would be completely rewritten with a UI-oriented framework.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  9. Re:Too late by Tailhook · · Score: 2

    someone will actually hack something together just for shear horror value.

    Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides?

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  10. Re:He blamed twitter? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2
    It means if you blame your tools, you're not a good carpenter. :)

    .
    The Microsoft guy was using twitter without understanding the limitations of twitter. However, he blamed twitter for his lack of ability to use it for the purpose he wanted, when he probably should not have been using twitter to convey the message in the first place.

  11. Re:Getting something this big this wrong is inexcu by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is a PROGRAM MANAGER. They are always wrong! Their job is not to know technology, their job is to keep schedules, sell products, and be blowhards. Very often that "sell products" thing means they sell products that don't yet exist ("sorry guys, I'll add one week to the schedule to make up for it"). They know just enough technology to fool other people who don't know much about technology, and their hobby is collecting new buzzwords and paradigms.

    (to be fair, I acknowledge that theoretically there may be a competent program manager somewhere in the world and the existing lack of evidence is not proof that one does not exist)

  12. Re:so??? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "So what if MicroSoft is using Javascript to rewrite their apps?"

    Microsoft has invested heavily in .NET (which has many flavors, the most popular of which is C#), going so far as to purchase and make free .NET compilation to Android and iOS. It's a language that gets a lot of use (it's their answer to Java). They've also invested heavily in TypeScript, a language that compiles to JavaScript.

    And by "invested heavily" I mean invented the languages, write tons of articles and software in them, and far more.

    (Required Car Analog) Microsoft rewriting a major area of their business in Javascript would be equivalent to the news Ford was purchasing a fleet of Chevy trucks to move their parts around and all the execs were getting new Chevy cars. A profound shift away from using their core product line that would make everyone question what the fuck was going on. This would be especially troubling to anyone who invested in their core product line, such as dealers of Fords or owners worried about replacement parts. And as I mentioned, there is a huge codebase in C# and other MS languages right now.

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  13. Javascript vs VBA; end user computing by aberglas · · Score: 2

    There is a big push to retire VBA for the new hot Javascript approach of writing extensions, which is probably what confused the fashion concious PM. But this is actually a disaster.

    Consider the one line of VBA

    sub CopyVal()
        [A1] = [B1] + [C1]
    end sub

    A trivial program that any *NON-PROGRAMMER* can write. Most management accountants can write a bit of VBA which is very useful to them. And then it is trivial to deploy. There is even a macro recorder that can write outline code for you.

    This same program requires about 50 complex lines of their Javascript. Not because JavaScript is that much worse a language, but because it is all wrapped up in design patterns -- you need to use futures etc. which are way beyond non-developers and confuse a lot of professional developers when they go wrong. You need to install Visual Studio. And to deploy you need to set up an IIS server and navigate the security model!

    It is not about End If vs {} (End If is actually better because miss matched ends are easier to locate). Or even the optional Static typing in VBA that Javascript still lacks. It is about the idea of end user computing that Microsoft is doing its best to destroy. When they eventually succeed, most people might as well use Google Sheets.