I've implemented a solution based on Live Maps, and I was pretty happy. Not having used Google's, I can't provide tit-vs-tat comparison, but I know enough to tell you that MS's API is intuitive and easy to pick up.
You should check out his Has Been record. The music was written/produced by Ben Folds, and Shatner doesn't take himself seriously on the album. It's really quite good.
I also really, really love how every Microsoft employee has it drilled into them from an early age that any decision made, in reality for the pure benefit of Microsoft, is actually a decision made for the benefit of customers and as a result of extensive customer feedback! This is so deeply embedded in them I'm sure they believe it themselves now:
Nope. This guy's a tool, and he's putting spin on the WinFS team's failure. As for this Microsoft employee: I don't believe the lies that come from Windows anymore. They need to focus on getting Vista crapped out the door, let Sinofsky clean house in Windows' upper management, and quit promising the moon to everyone and their goddamn mother while the features are just a gleam in some PM's eye.
Sorry for the negativity. News like this makes me cranky.
A lot of comments so far have been about the author of the article making a big deal out of 1000 lines of code per year for Vista developers. Microsoft doesn't care about how many lines of code any given developer writes. It doesn't factor into performance reviews, managers don't berate each other's teams with "you've only written 2500 lines this month", or anything of the sort. I've had many a code review where I was told to trim down the change. Devs at Microsoft try to write tight, efficient code. Honest.
The reason that the author is using lines of code as a metric: how the hell else are you going to make generalized conclusions when 2000 developers touch the code? I imagine that when aggregated over 2000 developers, lines of code is relatively accurate measure of average productivity. The devs that write loose, big code will average out those who write tight code. He's attempting to make a generalization, and the usual metrics that ARE used at Microsoft (review scores, teams/devs making their commitments, bug glidepaths) are meaningless outside of Microsoft or difficult to quantify.
Whether or not you're happy at Microsoft depends on a number of factors: your team, your boss, your product, etc. Working on a small team on a brand-new product is usually fun (you get a lot of impact on the product, lots of room for promotion). Working on an old product with a huge team with lots of bureaucracy is generally bad. The big benefits cuts and culture changes (no more foosball tables, way fewer morale evets, etc) in the last couple years have contributed to a general downtrend of morale at the company.
Is it (generally) a good place to work? Yeah, it is. Is it as good as Google, or MS of 6 years ago? Nope.
How long ago was this? I worked there from 2001 to last year, and I think that may have been true a _long_ time ago (Word is over 20 years old). Office will dogfood unreleased VS compilers (and feedback does go into refinements for VS), but no one ever mentioned an Office-specific compiler.
I don't know the specifics of Excel, but Outlook does make use of MFC. It's a crazy mish-mash of MFC, with Win32 API windowing calls, and here and there is new UI technology. InfoPath and OneNote, both new products, are probably 100% new stuff. Word and Excel certainly have less MFC (and possibly none), because the codebase is so old. It's relatively rare that MS will re-write giant chunks of UI just to support a new technology. Why spend tons of dev time to make the app have the exact same set of features and appearance it had? They (usually) spend the dev dollars on improving features or writing new ones.
I'm a former Office Developer (now happily at a start-up). I can tell you with certainty that Office is compiled with the VC compiler. Not everyone in Office uses VS as their IDE, but it's compiled with VC.
It applies. Until recently, I was a developer at Microsoft, and we had anti-trust training as well. We received quite the lecture on not using militant or aggressive product code names, team names, etc. We couldn't even name the dev who volunteered for process enforcement.
Everything except peer to peer software. I had installed BitTorrent to download some big movie trailers, and a couple days later, I got a nasty email from an automated network gnome telling me to uninstall it immediately, and pave my machine as soon as possible.
I contacted helpdesk and asked them if that was really necessary, and they didn't budge.
I'm a developer for Microsoft Outlook, and we've got a funny anecdote about China/Taiwan. When the beta for Outlook 97 (98 maybe?) was released, one of our Program Managers was travelling in Asia for vacation. The beta was mis-localized for Chinese, and it showed Taiwan and China as seperate countries. This wasn't intentional--it was a bug. China was furious however, arrested our PM over there, called Microsoft and threatened to keep him in jail until we sent them new 'correct' copies of the beta.
We had some sent over in less than a week. Still, it's just a bug (in a damned beta, no less).
(warning: this happened before I started working at MS, so I'm retelling all this second-hand. minor details may be wrong)
I think you're incorrect, as Linux doesn't save any 'time' for me or anyone I know. There are very few tasks that are simpler on a Linux machine than a Windows box, and many that take much longer.
You're right. The magic in the Tablet is the software...using handwriting recognition and ink in your apps (along with a rich support infrastructure for developers to write Tablet-aware applications). Just throwing Linux on one gets you a laptop running linux with an extra mouse device (if you have drivers that work).
Except that the DirectX "standard" only works on Windows-based platforms
Yep. I say: Big Whoop. The non-windows gaming market share is what, %2? 5%? It costs a lot of money for the engineering and testing to ensure your game is cross-platform. It's generally not worth the cost to gain that meager 2-5% of market. And surprise! most game studios don't bother.
A standard that is only a standard on one type of platform (like DirectX being a standard only on windows platforms) is not a standard in the truest sense of the word.
Google doesn't agree with you. I'll specifically point to:
a basis for comparison; a reference point against which other things can be evaluated; "they set the measure for all subsequent work"
commonly used or supplied; "standard procedure"; "standard car equipment"
regularly and widely used or sold; "a standard size"; "a stock item"
I don't remember what we were originally debating:) I'll agree that XBox (like Sony) is fundamentally a proprietary technology that requires licensing.
Your post to which I originally replied: By "standard", you mean Microsoft's standards. Which is fortunate since this is a Microsoft product. An obvious advantage to this is being able to develop a tittle for both the Windows and Xbox (or "pc" and "console" if you prefer the misnomer) markets. But in the end, this "standard" is not any more special as any other existing standard. When you code for Sony, you use their tools. And when you code for Microsoft, you use their tools.
I think what I was pointing out is that Microsoft's "standard" really is a standard. The fundamental technology (DirectX) is widespread, accessible and mature enough to be considered the standard on which the gaming industry can me built. (Yes I know OpenGL is used as well, and I'm not trying to belittle it).
It's something of a non-argument to try to shoot down XBox's "standards" advantage just because you still have to license your game. XBox's "standards" really does make XBox more accessible, easier to use, cheaper to develop for, etc. which is an advantage.
By the time the you're ready to publish a game, licensing is not what's going to hold you back. The development, art and testing resources required dwarf the licensing so much it's ridiculous. XBox will win game titles over time, because the development and testing resources required are much lower.
Thanks for the intelligent conversation BTW. No one says that often enough here:)
I was just listing a bunch of things that I could see someone getting really worked up over. I buy the cheap corporate-farmed food from Safeway, don't give a damn about where my shirt comes from, and happily drive my sports car at 85 mph knowing that it's less efficient. (I do donate to United Way, regularly donate time and effort to a Ukranian orphans project, and try to be an otherwise nice guy)
The notion that someone should hurt Microsoft, because it's evil, and therefore does some good for the world strikes me as extremely odd. I can see not buying Windows because you like Linux better, or just don't like Microsoft--people buy Chevies because they don't like Fords. But carefully planning and crafting your buying habits, _only_ to hurt Microsoft?
I think someone should re-evaluate their priorities, and rethink where they need to expend their energies if they are thinking like this.
Changing topics: Several generations up the thread, someone was talking about buying an XBox because MS loses money on it, and then only buying used games. That's just hypocritical--if you don't like a company, you should just refuse to use its product. Additionally, it's counter-productive to your goal, as you're still pumping money into the industry which XBox benefits. For every friend that sees you playing the XBox you hurt Microsoft by buying, MS just won a little bit. It only takes one or two of them to buy a game or two to offset any "pain" you've inflicted.
Also, do you understand that the day Microsoft quits writing interesting features for its products is the day it quits making money? For both Windows and Office, MS's biggest, by far, competitor is the last verion of Windows or Office.
If MS doesn't make versions of its software that is worth the price over the old versions, MS quits making money.
The idea that Microsoft is hell-bent on taking over the entire software industry only to stop it dead in its tracks is so patently false it's ridiculous.
Slashdot Mirror
I've implemented a solution based on Live Maps, and I was pretty happy. Not having used Google's, I can't provide tit-vs-tat comparison, but I know enough to tell you that MS's API is intuitive and easy to pick up.
FYI, the propeller image(s) was not taken from a satellite. The Bird's Eye View photography is shot from planes.
You should check out his Has Been record. The music was written/produced by Ben Folds, and Shatner doesn't take himself seriously on the album. It's really quite good.
Sorry for the negativity. News like this makes me cranky.
A lot of comments so far have been about the author of the article making a big deal out of 1000 lines of code per year for Vista developers. Microsoft doesn't care about how many lines of code any given developer writes. It doesn't factor into performance reviews, managers don't berate each other's teams with "you've only written 2500 lines this month", or anything of the sort. I've had many a code review where I was told to trim down the change. Devs at Microsoft try to write tight, efficient code. Honest.
The reason that the author is using lines of code as a metric: how the hell else are you going to make generalized conclusions when 2000 developers touch the code? I imagine that when aggregated over 2000 developers, lines of code is relatively accurate measure of average productivity. The devs that write loose, big code will average out those who write tight code. He's attempting to make a generalization, and the usual metrics that ARE used at Microsoft (review scores, teams/devs making their commitments, bug glidepaths) are meaningless outside of Microsoft or difficult to quantify.
Whether or not you're happy at Microsoft depends on a number of factors: your team, your boss, your product, etc. Working on a small team on a brand-new product is usually fun (you get a lot of impact on the product, lots of room for promotion). Working on an old product with a huge team with lots of bureaucracy is generally bad. The big benefits cuts and culture changes (no more foosball tables, way fewer morale evets, etc) in the last couple years have contributed to a general downtrend of morale at the company.
Is it (generally) a good place to work? Yeah, it is. Is it as good as Google, or MS of 6 years ago? Nope.
How long ago was this? I worked there from 2001 to last year, and I think that may have been true a _long_ time ago (Word is over 20 years old). Office will dogfood unreleased VS compilers (and feedback does go into refinements for VS), but no one ever mentioned an Office-specific compiler.
I don't know the specifics of Excel, but Outlook does make use of MFC. It's a crazy mish-mash of MFC, with Win32 API windowing calls, and here and there is new UI technology. InfoPath and OneNote, both new products, are probably 100% new stuff. Word and Excel certainly have less MFC (and possibly none), because the codebase is so old. It's relatively rare that MS will re-write giant chunks of UI just to support a new technology. Why spend tons of dev time to make the app have the exact same set of features and appearance it had? They (usually) spend the dev dollars on improving features or writing new ones.
I'm a former Office Developer (now happily at a start-up). I can tell you with certainty that Office is compiled with the VC compiler. Not everyone in Office uses VS as their IDE, but it's compiled with VC.
It applies. Until recently, I was a developer at Microsoft, and we had anti-trust training as well. We received quite the lecture on not using militant or aggressive product code names, team names, etc. We couldn't even name the dev who volunteered for process enforcement.
done
Any real advantage to putting Linux on it?
Keeps girls away.
Everything except peer to peer software. I had installed BitTorrent to download some big movie trailers, and a couple days later, I got a nasty email from an automated network gnome telling me to uninstall it immediately, and pave my machine as soon as possible.
I contacted helpdesk and asked them if that was really necessary, and they didn't budge.
If you've got SP2 and an AMD64 chip, this is one great reason to use the no execute bit. I'll assume GDI+ won't mark picture data as executable.
Here's one.
I'm a developer for Microsoft Outlook, and we've got a funny anecdote about China/Taiwan. When the beta for Outlook 97 (98 maybe?) was released, one of our Program Managers was travelling in Asia for vacation. The beta was mis-localized for Chinese, and it showed Taiwan and China as seperate countries. This wasn't intentional--it was a bug. China was furious however, arrested our PM over there, called Microsoft and threatened to keep him in jail until we sent them new 'correct' copies of the beta.
We had some sent over in less than a week. Still, it's just a bug (in a damned beta, no less).
(warning: this happened before I started working at MS, so I'm retelling all this second-hand. minor details may be wrong)
Media Center 2004 SDK Imagine that :)
I think you're incorrect, as Linux doesn't save any 'time' for me or anyone I know. There are very few tasks that are simpler on a Linux machine than a Windows box, and many that take much longer.
You're right. The magic in the Tablet is the software...using handwriting recognition and ink in your apps (along with a rich support infrastructure for developers to write Tablet-aware applications). Just throwing Linux on one gets you a laptop running linux with an extra mouse device (if you have drivers that work).
That would be so damned cool. Imagine the Slashdot responses...
"Microsoft didn't have that idea first. They are just copying NASA. Embrace and extend, eh?"
"They'll probably build the Mars rocket using their own 'standards' instead of open ones."
"A morally defunct company announces a morally defunct Mars mission."
"The rocket won't run Linux."
So, how many companies can you invest in, ethically?
Yep. I say: Big Whoop. The non-windows gaming market share is what, %2? 5%? It costs a lot of money for the engineering and testing to ensure your game is cross-platform. It's generally not worth the cost to gain that meager 2-5% of market. And surprise! most game studios don't bother.
A standard that is only a standard on one type of platform (like DirectX being a standard only on windows platforms) is not a standard in the truest sense of the word.
Google doesn't agree with you. I'll specifically point to:
I don't remember what we were originally debating :) I'll agree that XBox (like Sony) is fundamentally a proprietary technology that requires licensing.
:)
Your post to which I originally replied:
By "standard", you mean Microsoft's standards. Which is fortunate since this is a Microsoft product. An obvious advantage to this is being able to develop a tittle for both the Windows and Xbox (or "pc" and "console" if you prefer the misnomer) markets. But in the end, this "standard" is not any more special as any other existing standard. When you code for Sony, you use their tools. And when you code for Microsoft, you use their tools.
I think what I was pointing out is that Microsoft's "standard" really is a standard. The fundamental technology (DirectX) is widespread, accessible and mature enough to be considered the standard on which the gaming industry can me built. (Yes I know OpenGL is used as well, and I'm not trying to belittle it).
It's something of a non-argument to try to shoot down XBox's "standards" advantage just because you still have to license your game. XBox's "standards" really does make XBox more accessible, easier to use, cheaper to develop for, etc. which is an advantage.
By the time the you're ready to publish a game, licensing is not what's going to hold you back. The development, art and testing resources required dwarf the licensing so much it's ridiculous. XBox will win game titles over time, because the development and testing resources required are much lower.
Thanks for the intelligent conversation BTW. No one says that often enough here
I was just listing a bunch of things that I could see someone getting really worked up over. I buy the cheap corporate-farmed food from Safeway, don't give a damn about where my shirt comes from, and happily drive my sports car at 85 mph knowing that it's less efficient. (I do donate to United Way, regularly donate time and effort to a Ukranian orphans project, and try to be an otherwise nice guy)
The notion that someone should hurt Microsoft, because it's evil, and therefore does some good for the world strikes me as extremely odd. I can see not buying Windows because you like Linux better, or just don't like Microsoft--people buy Chevies because they don't like Fords. But carefully planning and crafting your buying habits, _only_ to hurt Microsoft?
I think someone should re-evaluate their priorities, and rethink where they need to expend their energies if they are thinking like this.
Changing topics: Several generations up the thread, someone was talking about buying an XBox because MS loses money on it, and then only buying used games. That's just hypocritical--if you don't like a company, you should just refuse to use its product. Additionally, it's counter-productive to your goal, as you're still pumping money into the industry which XBox benefits. For every friend that sees you playing the XBox you hurt Microsoft by buying, MS just won a little bit. It only takes one or two of them to buy a game or two to offset any "pain" you've inflicted.
> Supressing technology
Also, do you understand that the day Microsoft quits writing interesting features for its products is the day it quits making money? For both Windows and Office, MS's biggest, by far, competitor is the last verion of Windows or Office.
If MS doesn't make versions of its software that is worth the price over the old versions, MS quits making money.
The idea that Microsoft is hell-bent on taking over the entire software industry only to stop it dead in its tracks is so patently false it's ridiculous.