4 ms·

Dave Cutler is a legend, but he keeps a relatively low profile, so it was nice to watch the rare new video interview with him at the bottom. I especially liked

Dave Cutler is a legend, but he keeps a relatively low profile, so it was nice to watch the rare new video interview with him at the bottom. I especially liked what he said at the end: "I have this little saying that the successful people in the world are the people that do the things that the unsuccessful ones won't. So I've always been this person that, you know.. I will build the system, I will fix the bugs, I will fix other people's bugs, I will fix build breaks. It's all part of getting the job done." When I was a kid, I enjoyed reading "Show Stopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" that chronicled his move from DEC to build NT. Jeff Atwood has a quick review of it at http://blog.codinghorror.com/showstopper/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/showstopper/

mckilljoy 10y ago
I just started reading this book, maybe half way through, it's very interesting! Some of the technical analogies are a little weak, but all the quotes and anecdotes are great.
- mapgrep 10y ago
  Yes, I agree. It's also a fascinating window into what an achievement Windows NT was, and I say that as someone who does not use Windows anywhere. By mid 1993 Dave Cutler and his team released a multi-threaded, pre-emptive multi tasking pure 32 bit version of Windows that supported the Windows API and worked across three different hardware architectures (two of which were pure RISC processors). Apple, often lauded for being ahead of the curve, wouldn't release anything remotely matching those capabilities for eight years when OS X came out. When Apple developers were just starting to port over to Cocoa and Carbon, Windows had reached deep maturity and stability with NT and its successors (still labelled as NT versions intenrally) and basically all Windows software ran on it natively and had been doing so for years. Windows isn't exactly my cup of tea but Microsoft was way, way ahead of the curve with NT. It was a superb achievement and I strongly recommend reading Show Stopper to get a sense of what the team sacrificed, went through, and achieved.
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    Not to detract from the achievement, but the transition to NT wasn't quite as rosy at that. It took many years for apps written for Windows 3.x/95/98/etc. to catch up and run correctly on NT. In the early years, app and game producers had a distinct bias in favour of Win9x (popular consumer OS) and to the detriment of NT (esoteric, less shiny business/server OS). The game compatibility situation, in particular, was quite miserable until Windows 2000 ("NT 5.0"). 4.0 had adopted the Win9x UI, but Win2k was arguably the first version that managed to match the consumer-oriented experience of Win9x, in particular with regard to DirectX.
    - Joeri 10y ago
      I ran an NT4 / 98 dual boot system for years, and in practice the only applications that required rebooting into 98 were games and things that had a hardware component (scanner, digitizer, ...). So in my recollection the transition was actually quite smooth, games left aside.
      - scholia 10y ago
        One of the things that didn't run on NT4 was the AOL client, which was a pretty big thing for consumers at that time.
    - frik 10y ago
      > The game compatibility situation, in particular, was quite miserable Win 2000 already supported DX8 and most games worked fine. The step to WinXP was very small (and for games interesting: DX9 and "compatibility mode" shims). Only the setup routines were sometimes a problem because they checked for Win9x or even actively detected WinNT and aborted. Though many with low end hardware got bad performance, that was the problem. Win95 required 4MB memory. Win98 16MB. WinME 32 MB. People with an old PC tried WinNT4/2000/XP and it run slow, no wonder. The NT line was viewed as a resource hog and viewed as over-architecture with a HAL and Win32 running as sub-systems. In 1996 WinNT 4 already needed 32 MB. And Win 2000 128 MB. (I had a notebook with Win2000 with just 128MB and it wasn't flying, it barely run.) WinXP was also viewed as a resource hog by doubling the memory requirement within 1 1/2 years to 256MB as minimum requirement, only with 512MB it run really fine. (I bought a new PC with 512MB in 2001 and never looked back to Win9x DOS based Windows line. 99% of all games worked just fine, and for the rest there was Dosbox/Bochs/Quemu/VMware.) I wish one could buy a Win10 build that comes with Win10 kernel, the Win2000 shell and no spying & tracking crap. A modern OS still could be very fast and consume a lot less hardware resources.
teh_klev 10y ago
I read Show Stopper that when it first came out, it's a great read. It's up there with Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine", which I first read when I was a Data General apprentice, and whilst spending free time in college on the campus VAX clone (a Systime 8750).
- coleca 10y ago
  After reading this article I was inspired to read Showstopper again. Last time I read it was early 2000s. I must have lent it out so I had to order a new copy. Looks like they reissued it a few years back...
existencebox 10y ago
After reading this, I have so much I would give my right arm to ask him (similar to my sentiments on other luminaries). His focus on quality is a trait that often seems to go unrewarded in his very institution, and I often struggle to reconcile the success I see achieved with the merit based success often insinuated, and the act of "getting things done" often seems blocked with politics and bureaucracy. Clearly however he's found success through this, I can only hope he sticks around long enough that I may selfishly brush shoulders and share some of his wisdom, I find there to be far too few who have managed to succeed to that level of notoriety/accomplishment while maintaining the principles he seems to uphold, and would love to learn more from those who have on how they approached surmounting their environment. (on that note, thanks for the showstopper link, the review was more than sufficient to motivate a longer read)
- cm3 10y ago
  > His focus on quality is a trait that often seems to go unrewarded In most companies focus on quality is something you're precluded from having, and usually it's in the same category as security and maintainability (refactoring). I've been in various planning meetings where I wasn't able to convince the dev team manager to allow time for such things, because they stubbornly wouldn't accept that these things will pay dividends sooner than they believe. As a result in most code bases it's: prototype -> production -> patch, patch, patch. This is the norm but there are also places that know better and you don't have to convince anyone of the benefits.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    Refactoring can be its own source of problems. I've seen far too many refactorings that merely exchanged one mess for another. I'm a bit sympathetic to a manager who is skeptical of refactorings.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Definitely, I've seen those kind of refactorings too, but what I mean is that one isn't allowed to fix the architectural problems that make it hard or impossible to implement what's requested. The existing design didn't anticipate certain things which are now impossible to implement without compromising the architecture.
frik 10y ago
Show Stopper is a great book. And Dave Cutler is a very unique person. If you want to learn more about the WinNT kernel and Windows operating system in general, go no further than have a look at the compatible implementation (open source): http://reactos.org http://reactos.org (similar to what Linux is to Unix, ReactOS is to WinNT series)
noir_lord 10y ago
Which video interview is that quote from?
- moserware 10y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2GV_bCfnCw#t=6m23s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2GV_bCfnCw#t=6m23s
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    Thank you :).

mckilljoy 10y ago

I just started reading this book, maybe half way through, it's very interesting! Some of the technical analogies are a little weak, but all the quotes and anecdotes are great.

mapgrep 10y ago
Yes, I agree. It's also a fascinating window into what an achievement Windows NT was, and I say that as someone who does not use Windows anywhere. By mid 1993 Dave Cutler and his team released a multi-threaded, pre-emptive multi tasking pure 32 bit version of Windows that supported the Windows API and worked across three different hardware architectures (two of which were pure RISC processors). Apple, often lauded for being ahead of the curve, wouldn't release anything remotely matching those capabilities for eight years when OS X came out. When Apple developers were just starting to port over to Cocoa and Carbon, Windows had reached deep maturity and stability with NT and its successors (still labelled as NT versions intenrally) and basically all Windows software ran on it natively and had been doing so for years. Windows isn't exactly my cup of tea but Microsoft was way, way ahead of the curve with NT. It was a superb achievement and I strongly recommend reading Show Stopper to get a sense of what the team sacrificed, went through, and achieved.
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  Not to detract from the achievement, but the transition to NT wasn't quite as rosy at that. It took many years for apps written for Windows 3.x/95/98/etc. to catch up and run correctly on NT. In the early years, app and game producers had a distinct bias in favour of Win9x (popular consumer OS) and to the detriment of NT (esoteric, less shiny business/server OS). The game compatibility situation, in particular, was quite miserable until Windows 2000 ("NT 5.0"). 4.0 had adopted the Win9x UI, but Win2k was arguably the first version that managed to match the consumer-oriented experience of Win9x, in particular with regard to DirectX.
  - Joeri 10y ago
    I ran an NT4 / 98 dual boot system for years, and in practice the only applications that required rebooting into 98 were games and things that had a hardware component (scanner, digitizer, ...). So in my recollection the transition was actually quite smooth, games left aside.
    - scholia 10y ago
      One of the things that didn't run on NT4 was the AOL client, which was a pretty big thing for consumers at that time.
  - frik 10y ago
    > The game compatibility situation, in particular, was quite miserable Win 2000 already supported DX8 and most games worked fine. The step to WinXP was very small (and for games interesting: DX9 and "compatibility mode" shims). Only the setup routines were sometimes a problem because they checked for Win9x or even actively detected WinNT and aborted. Though many with low end hardware got bad performance, that was the problem. Win95 required 4MB memory. Win98 16MB. WinME 32 MB. People with an old PC tried WinNT4/2000/XP and it run slow, no wonder. The NT line was viewed as a resource hog and viewed as over-architecture with a HAL and Win32 running as sub-systems. In 1996 WinNT 4 already needed 32 MB. And Win 2000 128 MB. (I had a notebook with Win2000 with just 128MB and it wasn't flying, it barely run.) WinXP was also viewed as a resource hog by doubling the memory requirement within 1 1/2 years to 256MB as minimum requirement, only with 512MB it run really fine. (I bought a new PC with 512MB in 2001 and never looked back to Win9x DOS based Windows line. 99% of all games worked just fine, and for the rest there was Dosbox/Bochs/Quemu/VMware.) I wish one could buy a Win10 build that comes with Win10 kernel, the Win2000 shell and no spying & tracking crap. A modern OS still could be very fast and consume a lot less hardware resources.

teh_klev 10y ago

I read Show Stopper that when it first came out, it's a great read. It's up there with Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine", which I first read when I was a Data General apprentice, and whilst spending free time in college on the campus VAX clone (a Systime 8750).

coleca 10y ago
After reading this article I was inspired to read Showstopper again. Last time I read it was early 2000s. I must have lent it out so I had to order a new copy. Looks like they reissued it a few years back...

existencebox 10y ago

After reading this, I have so much I would give my right arm to ask him (similar to my sentiments on other luminaries). His focus on quality is a trait that often seems to go unrewarded in his very institution, and I often struggle to reconcile the success I see achieved with the merit based success often insinuated, and the act of "getting things done" often seems blocked with politics and bureaucracy. Clearly however he's found success through this, I can only hope he sticks around long enough that I may selfishly brush shoulders and share some of his wisdom, I find there to be far too few who have managed to succeed to that level of notoriety/accomplishment while maintaining the principles he seems to uphold, and would love to learn more from those who have on how they approached surmounting their environment. (on that note, thanks for the showstopper link, the review was more than sufficient to motivate a longer read)

cm3 10y ago
> His focus on quality is a trait that often seems to go unrewarded In most companies focus on quality is something you're precluded from having, and usually it's in the same category as security and maintainability (refactoring). I've been in various planning meetings where I wasn't able to convince the dev team manager to allow time for such things, because they stubbornly wouldn't accept that these things will pay dividends sooner than they believe. As a result in most code bases it's: prototype -> production -> patch, patch, patch. This is the norm but there are also places that know better and you don't have to convince anyone of the benefits.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  Refactoring can be its own source of problems. I've seen far too many refactorings that merely exchanged one mess for another. I'm a bit sympathetic to a manager who is skeptical of refactorings.
  - cm3 10y ago
    Definitely, I've seen those kind of refactorings too, but what I mean is that one isn't allowed to fix the architectural problems that make it hard or impossible to implement what's requested. The existing design didn't anticipate certain things which are now impossible to implement without compromising the architecture.

frik 10y ago

Show Stopper is a great book. And Dave Cutler is a very unique person. If you want to learn more about the WinNT kernel and Windows operating system in general, go no further than have a look at the compatible implementation (open source): http://reactos.org http://reactos.org (similar to what Linux is to Unix, ReactOS is to WinNT series)

noir_lord 10y ago

Which video interview is that quote from?

moserware 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2GV_bCfnCw#t=6m23s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2GV_bCfnCw#t=6m23s
- noir_lord 10y ago
  Thank you :).