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I had the privilege to work on the windows kernel team in the NT5 then XP days. I really wish they could share some of his code. it was the cleanest, well segme
by ryanburk 10y ago
I had the privilege to work on the windows kernel team in the NT5 then XP days. I really wish they could share some of his code. it was the cleanest, well segmented, and commented code I've ever seen. it made the system much more maintainable and understandable, in areas that are inherently complex. great interfaces with a clear understanding of what was going in and coming out. and it helped all the other devs raise their game.
- closure 10y agoI was at Microsoft for over a decade and had access to the Windows NT source throughout. I couldn't agree more about Dave's code and the code of the other early contributors to the system. Extremely clean, clear, and simple code neatly partitioned into small understandable functions.
- wrs 10y agoAt Microsoft the joke, which was funny but also pretty much true, is that when MS invents a new "top of the ladder" engineering title (Distinguished Engineer, Fellow, Senior Fellow, etc.), Dave Cutler always gets it first. His influence on Windows is huge. As just one example, there basically wouldn't be a 64-bit Windows if he hadn't personally forced it into existence.
- ryanburk 10y agothere is exactly one "senior technical fellow" at the company - davec. while is wasn't entirely a solo effort - folks like forrest foltz, landy wang, etc were involved - it was amazing coming in on a monday morning and seeing the email that said "sync your enlistments and rebuild, you'll see a new amd64 version" and 95% of the system was now building and running for x64. it was crazy.