7 ms·
Disclaimer: I'm currently interning at Microsoft. Y'know, I can't think of many companies that have as much support for open source programming language develo
by _hardwaregeek 7y ago
Disclaimer: I'm currently interning at Microsoft.
Y'know, I can't think of many companies that have as much support for open source programming language development. Between Roslyn, TypeScript, what's left of F#, the Language Server Protocol, Chakra, V8, etc., Microsoft has a veritable powerhouse of compilers and PL development. Google has Go and Dart, but as far as I can tell, the development process is contained in Google mailing lists. Apple has Swift and LLVM and Mozilla has Rust, but each of those footprints isn't as large as the combo of .NET and TypeScript.
I mean, ffs, Richard Stallman is coming to speak at Microsoft. Well, Microsoft Research. But still. Stallman. That's insane.
- breck 7y ago> Richard Stallman is coming to speak at Microsoft. Well, Microsoft Research. But still. Stallman. That's insane. Wait, what? That's very interesting. I love Microsoft's language tools (TS, Vs Code, C#, LSP, ...) and I used to work on Azure, but I'm still very skeptical. For these 3 reasons: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists 2. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_... 3. http://techrights.org/2009/06/25/bill-gates-office-patents/ http://techrights.org/2009/06/25/bill-gates-office-patents/ Until BillG himself comes out and says Intellectual Slavery laws should be changed, I won't fully trust MSFT's long term motives here.
- seph-reed 7y agoI've heard bad things about working at Microsoft. Perhaps from people masquerading as (ex)employees, though I suspect not. I do use TS, and it's enabled me to have a bit more peace of mind than I might otherwise have. It's also totally wrecked projects before (Loopback + TS = "as any" * 1000). In any case, the sun could shine out Microsofts ass and I'd still be skeptical of them. Windows has an abhorrent amount of code smell to it, and (as stated) I haven't heard good things about working there. Really would rather they weren't any more of a mega corp than they already are. Really don't trust them. But TS is nice.
- breck 7y agoI loved working there. The people are amazing and I made many great friends. But I was an engineer and not involved in business decisions. To me, making file formats hard to parse to the detriment of your users for business strategic advantage is smart business but wrong. I don’t want to judge people from the 90s by today’s standards, and maybe Microsoft brass really have changed their tune, but maybe they have some secret Ulterior plan, like in the past.
- zeusk 7y agoDo you know when? Also is it some internal MSR thing at 99 or inside-out in east campus?
- wwwigham 7y agoYeah, inquiring minds want to know.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoNext Wednesday in 99/1919. I actually can't attend cause I'm finishing my internship. If you haven't already, I'd sign up for the MSR Talks mailing list.
- jeromebaek 7y agowhat's the DG alias?
- libria 7y agoSo I'm guessing it's internal only? Bummer.
- ravenstine 7y agoYeah, I would love to see it. :(
- localhost 7y agoWow, it's true. Microsoft folks can look it up on resnet.
- jweir 7y agoApparently not the first time Stallman has had a visit to Microsoft Microsoft Welcomes Richard Stallman (2005) http://suseroot.com/rms.php http://suseroot.com/rms.php
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoHaha, that's actually a perfect example of how Microsoft has changed. 14 years ago it was literally an April Fools day joke to say Stallman would go to Microsoft.
- bcheung 7y ago> what's left of F# Has it been abandoned? What did you mean by this?
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoI don't know the actual status, but I do know that there aren't that many people at Microsoft officially working on F#. That could change, but I don't know the specifics.
- bcheung 7y agoBummer, I've been curious about learning it.
- UK-Al05 7y agoI don't think there's ever been many people working on f#...(compared to c#) Its good as it is anyway.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoYeah definitely don't take this as a reason to avoid F#. It's open source anyways, so it'll be maintained regardless. Plus the team has gone to heroic lengths to integrate an ML into .NET. Their unification process is insane and probably technically undecidable.
- bargl 7y agoI don't believe F# has been abandoned. It's actively being maintained. https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/ https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/
- xvilka 7y agoPlain OCaml is still a better and more powerful language. F# is like a poor relative to it. The only good thing of it is .NET integration. It lacks so many features of OCaml.
- groovebits 7y agoMicrosoft also have Microsoft Research Cambridge. Where I am pretty sure they have Simon Peyton Jones who works on Haskell there.
- vfjmcxg 7y agoAs an intern you should know that you're not privy to plans and should refrain from public speculation about future investment. Other people might confuse it with an official announcement which can land you in a lot of trouble.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoYou're right. Sorry. I'll remember that
- pvg 7y agoI don't think you have anything to be sorry for. You should be mindful of what you publicly say about your employer but being enthusiastic (if a bit uncritically) about your workplace is part of the point of interning. It's a lot less weird than someone making an account just to berate you about it.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoI mostly regret the comment on F#. It's not my place to say and it makes it seem like I know more than I actually do.
- dagmx 7y agoThe F# comment was the only thing I think that was out of place. It posed a definite non public position on a product. But you clarified it after the fact so minimized any damage. Microsoft will likely not care about it, but it is the kind of thing to be mindful of. Most of the big tech companies will have some kind of training explicitly calling out off the cuff comments and how to be mindful of them.
- jamesb93 7y agoI don't want to start an argument but you are splitting hairs. It is quite clear from his disclaimer that he is an intern and it is pretty obvious to most people around here what that means socially within his company. You don't need to be patronising about it.
- hoten 7y agoV8 is Google / Chromium.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoSince Edge adopted V8 as its new engine, Microsoft has been contributing to V8
- kabes 7y agoSure, but a bit silly to put it under Microsoft and not mention it in the Google list.
- mozey 7y agoReasons not to use Microsoft https://stallman.org/microsoft.html https://stallman.org/microsoft.html
- numlock86 7y agoI saw a photo of Stallman drinking bottled water once, which probably contradicts with his ideology that water wants to be free. Regarding the topic: I really love what TypeScript has done and where it is today. I wish more people would adopt it or at least support it with proper definition files. I mean there is DefinitelyTyped.org but it has its flaws. Unless it's not a first class language like within Angular I still find it somewhat hard to work with it because of interoperability with plain JS libraries, which always ends in some trade-offs.
- alexanderdmitri 7y agoI wonder if you're referring to his talk at ChasmWare '16? If so I remember that being a thing (potential licensing issues with the megacorp subsidiary that bottled it) so we dumped the bottle and filled it with tap to be on the safe side. Technically he didn't pay a dime and in the end it was us paying the company for the bottle and the venue (not Richard) who swallows the cost of the water and it's delivery as a utility. At the time I was of the opinion we over-thought it a bit and involving a $100/hr lawyer was crazy. Turns out my manager was right when she said "Alexander Dmitri, I say this to you: Never under-estimate the people who might try to call this ridiculous stuff out to detract. The haters must be met with diligence."
- sebe 7y agoI think V8 belongs in the google camp. "V8 is an open-source JavaScript engine developed by The Chromium Project for Google Chrome and Chromium web browsers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V8_(JavaScript_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V8_(JavaScript_engine) Seems google does a lot of opensource stuff as well. https://opensource.google.com/projects/explore/featured https://opensource.google.com/projects/explore/featured