4 ms·

Yeah, let's get that weather app engineer working on NTFS privilege flaws.

by joeyrobert 5y ago

maxrev17 5y ago
Haha yeah... I think it shows where their overall focus is placed.
spand 5y ago
What a silly straw man. Engineers may not be fungible but funding is.
- wvenable 5y ago
  So they shouldn't fund adding local weather to task bar while there are potential security flaws anywhere in the OS? This seems like a sillier straw man.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - celticninja 5y ago
    You have to look at the customers. If you push for Linux throughout your organisation and you got hit with a linux zero day, it's your fault. If you use MS, then it's Microsoft s fault, you won't be blamed because almost everyone was exposed to it and you got hit. These companies also have older workforce who are used to windows and the switch would be difficult. Yes I know some older users would be fine but that is not the majority. It's similar to the "no one got fired for buying oracle" situation
    - heurisko 5y ago
      You can push for Linux with paid support, from a vendor like RedHat. Being Linux-based does not preclude support.
      - hulitu 5y ago
        I don't think you can. MS offers a lot of things "for free".
tux3 5y ago
And why not :) People have different preferences for what they like to work on, but you seem to be implying the weather app engineers are incapable of doing that work. Like they're some kind of lower caste that must be kept away from working on security mitigations for filesystem drivers. I don't believe there's some category of human that's capable of shipping Windows 10 feature apps, and only that. People can move internally! People can leave and other people can be hired. It's all priorities and task allocation. The impression I get (and please correct me) is not really that there's an oversupply of news feed app builders on the market, but that the Windows team at Microsoft has been shifting to more user-facing features rather than internal deep kernel work.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  There are more than 1500 developers working on visual studio alone ( not VS code). I'm pretty sure that a developer that wants to switch can and not many kernel developers would be impacted in total. Besides, paint and notepad getting a make-over doesn't make a dent of difference for a company at this size.
coolspot 5y ago
There are many engineers who do super-boring stuff as main work, working on mind-bogglingly hard problems afterhours. Also that weather-widget engineer could do some basic tasks offloading more experienced engineer, who would offload even more experienced engineer until that chain of offloading makes enough time for NTFS-ninja to hunt down and fix that bug or write a fuzzer that finds new zero-days.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
waynesonfire 5y ago
absolutely. and if there is a skill gap then train them so they can.
- KMnO4 5y ago
  Training isn’t some magical way to transform an engineer with a skill set into one with a different skillset. I don’t think it’d be possible to train the React dev in kernel programming unless they had a serious interest in low level stuff to start with.
  - waynesonfire 5y ago
    how's the view from that tower?
  - bottled_poe 5y ago
    That’s a ridiculous claim. Kernel programming isn’t some fantasy world where only the most passionate developers can do effective work. Most software engineers are web engineers because that’s where the market says they should focus. It says nothing about talent or ability to learn. smh.

Yeah, let's get that weather app engineer working on NTFS privilege flaws.

maxrev17 5y ago

Haha yeah... I think it shows where their overall focus is placed.

spand 5y ago

What a silly straw man. Engineers may not be fungible but funding is.

wvenable 5y ago
So they shouldn't fund adding local weather to task bar while there are potential security flaws anywhere in the OS? This seems like a sillier straw man.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- celticninja 5y ago
  You have to look at the customers. If you push for Linux throughout your organisation and you got hit with a linux zero day, it's your fault. If you use MS, then it's Microsoft s fault, you won't be blamed because almost everyone was exposed to it and you got hit. These companies also have older workforce who are used to windows and the switch would be difficult. Yes I know some older users would be fine but that is not the majority. It's similar to the "no one got fired for buying oracle" situation
  - heurisko 5y ago
    You can push for Linux with paid support, from a vendor like RedHat. Being Linux-based does not preclude support.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      I don't think you can. MS offers a lot of things "for free".

tux3 5y ago

And why not :) People have different preferences for what they like to work on, but you seem to be implying the weather app engineers are incapable of doing that work. Like they're some kind of lower caste that must be kept away from working on security mitigations for filesystem drivers. I don't believe there's some category of human that's capable of shipping Windows 10 feature apps, and only that. People can move internally! People can leave and other people can be hired. It's all priorities and task allocation. The impression I get (and please correct me) is not really that there's an oversupply of news feed app builders on the market, but that the Windows team at Microsoft has been shifting to more user-facing features rather than internal deep kernel work.

NicoJuicy 5y ago
There are more than 1500 developers working on visual studio alone ( not VS code). I'm pretty sure that a developer that wants to switch can and not many kernel developers would be impacted in total. Besides, paint and notepad getting a make-over doesn't make a dent of difference for a company at this size.

coolspot 5y ago

There are many engineers who do super-boring stuff as main work, working on mind-bogglingly hard problems afterhours. Also that weather-widget engineer could do some basic tasks offloading more experienced engineer, who would offload even more experienced engineer until that chain of offloading makes enough time for NTFS-ninja to hunt down and fix that bug or write a fuzzer that finds new zero-days.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

waynesonfire 5y ago

absolutely. and if there is a skill gap then train them so they can.

KMnO4 5y ago
Training isn’t some magical way to transform an engineer with a skill set into one with a different skillset. I don’t think it’d be possible to train the React dev in kernel programming unless they had a serious interest in low level stuff to start with.
- waynesonfire 5y ago
  how's the view from that tower?
- bottled_poe 5y ago
  That’s a ridiculous claim. Kernel programming isn’t some fantasy world where only the most passionate developers can do effective work. Most software engineers are web engineers because that’s where the market says they should focus. It says nothing about talent or ability to learn. smh.