6 ms·

Good. Maybe they can open a cafe on their campus to sell recreational versions so their people can test their tech and try the product. It'd make many develop

Good. Maybe they can open a cafe on their campus to sell recreational versions so their people can test their tech and try the product. It'd make many developers I know want to work for Microsoft.

tacos 10y ago
The biggest pothead team at Microsoft was the Internet Explorer guys. So if you want another 20 years of calculating bounding rectangles incorrectly, by all means let's get the rest of the company baked.
- harlanlewis 10y ago
  Of course, the old IE box model is what everyone else overrides the default to match nowadays. Maybe they were on to something!
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    A lot of old IE things were pretty nice¹. The only real problem was the abysmal support for actual standards, along with a myriad of weird bugs. ¹ See: XMLHttpRequest, innerHTML, box model, CSS filters, CSS behaviors², VML, etc ² Well, behavior: was probably a terrible idea, but it did allow hacking oldIE to support an awful lot of CSS3.
    - ethbro 10y ago
      Incidentally! I thought about this the other day. Given that it's been about 15 years, is there anyone in the HN community / internet that's spoken about the design decisions with IE 6? Specifically, was it incompatible by design or simply by incompetent management?
      - Analemma_ 10y ago
        > was it incompatible by design or simply by incompetent management? "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Seriously, what a dumb question. The answer is "neither": at the time of its release, IE6 was great. It was way better than its only real competition, Netscape 6, which hadn't seen updates in years. Yes, it had bugs, but all software does. If Microsoft had just given it regular updates, it would've been fine. The issue with IE6 was not that it was bad ab initio, it was that Microsoft abandoned development when they felt they had no competition, so it slipped farther and farther behind web standards.
        sillysaurus3 10y ago
        Please don't call questions dumb. It discourages thoughtful conversation. There's a guideline somewhat related to this: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
        slededit 10y ago
        Unfair questions should be called out. Perhaps "dumb" isn't the most appropriate term, but I do think its fair to challenge the premise of the question. To prevent this leaves a whole rhetorical category immune from challenge.
        kefka 10y ago
        No, there are very dumb question/statements. And it is indeed correct to call them out. Why is it dumb? Because it packs in an assertion that is implied true, without asking. An appropriate answer is "Mu". Or 'unask the question'.
        elbear 10y ago
        You can use a word or words that is not offensive to express the same point. Like how you explained the use of the word.
      - tacos 10y ago
        IE was the centerpoint of a lot of turf wars between Jim Allchin and Brad Silverberg. Lots of tech was mishandled as nobody could agree what was personal, what was business and what was consumer. A browser had to reach all three, Microsoft tried to apply its existing technologies that talked to all three audiences in a haphazard fashion, and even the government decided it had to stick its thumb into the pie.
      - spinlock 10y ago
        As an observer I always assumed it was purposeful. MS was _not_ a company that conformed to other people's standards. After all, they're just now putting a POSIX compliant shell in their OS. They were playing a monopoly game not trying to offer an alternative.
        Zelphyr 10y ago
        Agreed. One of their first tag lines was, "We Set The Standrd." It's in their DNA to avoid conforming to standards they didn't define.
        sblom 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem
      - matwood 10y ago
        I don't think it was purposeful. When IE6 was released, it won. It was so much better than the alternatives that MS simply didn't have to do anything, so they didn't. The antitrust thing was also in full swing, so bundling/unbundling was in question. The web version of Outlook was one of the, if not the first AJAX application. IIRC, IE added XMLHttpRequest to support web Outlook.
      - manigandham 10y ago
        There's a question on Quora with some great answers from the original team members that shows what happened with IE: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Internet-Explorer-up-until-version-9-get-to-be-so-bad-relative-to-Chrome-Safari-and-Firefox https://www.quora.com/How-did-Internet-Explorer-up-until-ver...
- bcherny 10y ago
  Actually? This would explain a lot.
- kbenson 10y ago
  I would really like to believe you worked on this team at that time, and that's where you got your username from. :)
- Roboprog 10y ago
  Sorry you got voted down. I thought it was funny, even if it is (or isn't?) complete fiction.
- colemickens 10y ago
  Really? This? Again? There's a reason tech companies don't drug test and I'd argue that flies in the face of the tired stereotype you're offering up. edit: It's funny to watch HN's reactions to anything related to cannabis. You'd think people here watched Reefer Madness and haven't bothered to inform themselves about any actual facts or know any actual consumers of cannabis since then. The implication that someone smoking pot in the evening would affect their ability to type a very basic mathematical expression the next day is absolutely farcical.
  - ChristianBundy 10y ago
    The FBI found the same thing: http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/05/fbi-director-dont-let-weed-stop-you-from-applying-to-the-fbi/371279/ http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/05/fbi-director-dont-le...
  - tacos 10y ago
    I personally told these numbskulls multiple times that width = x2 - x1 PLUS one. Maybe it was the weed, maybe they just sucked at coding, maybe you didn't notice that FAXes were blurry in Windows for 20 years either. The real problem at late 90s Microsoft was cocaine. Didn't see much of that among the engineers though.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
13of40 10y ago
There's a weed store about 4 blocks from the Lincoln Square and City Center (Microsoft) buildings in Bellevue. Or so I've heard.
- edoceo 10y ago
  That store uses GreenBits
- aphextron 10y ago
  There's a weed store about 4 blocks from any given point in Washington state.
  - shivsta 10y ago
    There are actually regulations limiting the number of stores and their placement in relation to other public buildings like schools.
  - hsod 10y ago
    I assume you're being glib, but if anyone was wondering this is very untrue. Restrictive zoning laws mean there are many large neighborhoods in Seattle with zero. Most of the shops are concentrated in a few non-residential neighborhoods.
    - 13of40 10y ago
      Technically, maybe, but if you go to one of those locator sites [1] and zoom out to where you can see Bremerton, Seattle, and Bellevue in one screen, you can see that those neighborhoods are the exception. [1] http://weedmaps.com http://weedmaps.com
      - hsod 10y ago
        these sites include medical dispensaries (there are still a ton) and delivery services so are somewhat misleading. I live and work in two different large mixed-use (residential/retail) neighborhoods and there isn't a rec shop within 20 blocks of either.
int_19h 10y ago
FWIW, there's already a place in Kirkland - pretty close to main MS campus, and even closer to the local Google campus - that gives discounts to employees.

Good. Maybe they can open a cafe on their campus to sell recreational versions so their people can test their tech and try the product. It'd make many developers I know want to work for Microsoft.

tacos 10y ago

The biggest pothead team at Microsoft was the Internet Explorer guys. So if you want another 20 years of calculating bounding rectangles incorrectly, by all means let's get the rest of the company baked.

harlanlewis 10y ago
Of course, the old IE box model is what everyone else overrides the default to match nowadays. Maybe they were on to something!
- PeCaN 10y ago
  A lot of old IE things were pretty nice¹. The only real problem was the abysmal support for actual standards, along with a myriad of weird bugs. ¹ See: XMLHttpRequest, innerHTML, box model, CSS filters, CSS behaviors², VML, etc ² Well, behavior: was probably a terrible idea, but it did allow hacking oldIE to support an awful lot of CSS3.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    Incidentally! I thought about this the other day. Given that it's been about 15 years, is there anyone in the HN community / internet that's spoken about the design decisions with IE 6? Specifically, was it incompatible by design or simply by incompetent management?
    - Analemma_ 10y ago
      > was it incompatible by design or simply by incompetent management? "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Seriously, what a dumb question. The answer is "neither": at the time of its release, IE6 was great. It was way better than its only real competition, Netscape 6, which hadn't seen updates in years. Yes, it had bugs, but all software does. If Microsoft had just given it regular updates, it would've been fine. The issue with IE6 was not that it was bad ab initio, it was that Microsoft abandoned development when they felt they had no competition, so it slipped farther and farther behind web standards.
      - sillysaurus3 10y ago
        Please don't call questions dumb. It discourages thoughtful conversation. There's a guideline somewhat related to this: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
        slededit 10y ago
        Unfair questions should be called out. Perhaps "dumb" isn't the most appropriate term, but I do think its fair to challenge the premise of the question. To prevent this leaves a whole rhetorical category immune from challenge.
        kefka 10y ago
        No, there are very dumb question/statements. And it is indeed correct to call them out. Why is it dumb? Because it packs in an assertion that is implied true, without asking. An appropriate answer is "Mu". Or 'unask the question'.
        elbear 10y ago
        You can use a word or words that is not offensive to express the same point. Like how you explained the use of the word.
    - tacos 10y ago
      IE was the centerpoint of a lot of turf wars between Jim Allchin and Brad Silverberg. Lots of tech was mishandled as nobody could agree what was personal, what was business and what was consumer. A browser had to reach all three, Microsoft tried to apply its existing technologies that talked to all three audiences in a haphazard fashion, and even the government decided it had to stick its thumb into the pie.
    - spinlock 10y ago
      As an observer I always assumed it was purposeful. MS was _not_ a company that conformed to other people's standards. After all, they're just now putting a POSIX compliant shell in their OS. They were playing a monopoly game not trying to offer an alternative.
      - Zelphyr 10y ago
        Agreed. One of their first tag lines was, "We Set The Standrd." It's in their DNA to avoid conforming to standards they didn't define.
      - sblom 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem
    - matwood 10y ago
      I don't think it was purposeful. When IE6 was released, it won. It was so much better than the alternatives that MS simply didn't have to do anything, so they didn't. The antitrust thing was also in full swing, so bundling/unbundling was in question. The web version of Outlook was one of the, if not the first AJAX application. IIRC, IE added XMLHttpRequest to support web Outlook.
    - manigandham 10y ago
      There's a question on Quora with some great answers from the original team members that shows what happened with IE: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Internet-Explorer-up-until-version-9-get-to-be-so-bad-relative-to-Chrome-Safari-and-Firefox https://www.quora.com/How-did-Internet-Explorer-up-until-ver...
bcherny 10y ago
Actually? This would explain a lot.
kbenson 10y ago
I would really like to believe you worked on this team at that time, and that's where you got your username from. :)
Roboprog 10y ago
Sorry you got voted down. I thought it was funny, even if it is (or isn't?) complete fiction.
colemickens 10y ago
Really? This? Again? There's a reason tech companies don't drug test and I'd argue that flies in the face of the tired stereotype you're offering up. edit: It's funny to watch HN's reactions to anything related to cannabis. You'd think people here watched Reefer Madness and haven't bothered to inform themselves about any actual facts or know any actual consumers of cannabis since then. The implication that someone smoking pot in the evening would affect their ability to type a very basic mathematical expression the next day is absolutely farcical.
- ChristianBundy 10y ago
  The FBI found the same thing: http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/05/fbi-director-dont-let-weed-stop-you-from-applying-to-the-fbi/371279/ http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/05/fbi-director-dont-le...
- tacos 10y ago
  I personally told these numbskulls multiple times that width = x2 - x1 PLUS one. Maybe it was the weed, maybe they just sucked at coding, maybe you didn't notice that FAXes were blurry in Windows for 20 years either. The real problem at late 90s Microsoft was cocaine. Didn't see much of that among the engineers though.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

13of40 10y ago

There's a weed store about 4 blocks from the Lincoln Square and City Center (Microsoft) buildings in Bellevue. Or so I've heard.

edoceo 10y ago
That store uses GreenBits
aphextron 10y ago
There's a weed store about 4 blocks from any given point in Washington state.
- shivsta 10y ago
  There are actually regulations limiting the number of stores and their placement in relation to other public buildings like schools.
- hsod 10y ago
  I assume you're being glib, but if anyone was wondering this is very untrue. Restrictive zoning laws mean there are many large neighborhoods in Seattle with zero. Most of the shops are concentrated in a few non-residential neighborhoods.
  - 13of40 10y ago
    Technically, maybe, but if you go to one of those locator sites [1] and zoom out to where you can see Bremerton, Seattle, and Bellevue in one screen, you can see that those neighborhoods are the exception. [1] http://weedmaps.com http://weedmaps.com
    - hsod 10y ago
      these sites include medical dispensaries (there are still a ton) and delivery services so are somewhat misleading. I live and work in two different large mixed-use (residential/retail) neighborhoods and there isn't a rec shop within 20 blocks of either.

int_19h 10y ago

FWIW, there's already a place in Kirkland - pretty close to main MS campus, and even closer to the local Google campus - that gives discounts to employees.