5 ms·

Raymond Chen is worth his salary at Microsoft if the only thing he does is blog. His blog has been so consistently good, for so long, posting so often, it gives

Raymond Chen is worth his salary at Microsoft if the only thing he does is blog. His blog has been so consistently good, for so long, posting so often, it gives me imposter syndrome thinking about how he could possibly have a day job on top of it.

agumonkey 4y ago
He also strikes that great balance between fun to read, low level and precise. Thankful for this articles, always a reflex click :)
mc32 4y ago
Him and Russinovich --before he joined MS.
- richsu-ca 4y ago
  "before" :)
shultays 4y ago
Also whenever I have a question, it feels like he has the answer. No matter how specific the question is
ilyt 4y ago
Well, I'd imagine the day job is why the blog is so good.
nikanj 4y ago
And every year or so Microsoft wrecks all links to his blog, so linking to old articles never works properly. It’s highly ironic that the blog talking about backwards compatibility moves urls constantly
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
int_19h 4y ago
There was also Michael Kaplan, who had a similarly informative and in-depth blog "Sorting it all out" about localization, text encodings, keyboard layouts etc in Windows. In fact, Raymond Chen specifically recommended him on these topics: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041217-00/?p=36963 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041217-00/?p=36... Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't exactly treat him kindly [1] in the end. And to add insult to injury, his blog was completely wiped. There are some archives around, but I haven't seen one that retained the images, which often makes the posts incomprehensible, unfortunately. [1] https://vsubhash.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/rip-michael-j-kaplan/ https://vsubhash.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/rip-michael-j-kapl...
alex_suzuki 4y ago
Raymond Chen is the OG of Windows development.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  To me that is Charles Petzold: http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/ http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/
throwaway9870 4y ago
In the 90s he would answer Windows programming questions on usenet.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
wheybags 4y ago
I wish Microsoft had more Raymond Chens, and less... whoever it is that makes decisions like "let's preinstall candy crush", and "let's break the start menu AGAIN". There's a real elegant core to windows, it's such a shame that a lot of the higher level stuff piled on top is so crappy.
- rayiner 4y ago
  NT is a nicely designed OS. I wonder how many people still at Microsoft really even grok it anymore. I hear Apple is having trouble finding enough developers who can do kernel work.
  - CoolGuySteve 4y ago
    When I worked on video systems at Apple I got dinged on a performance review for negatively comparing their kernel to Linux too many times. I’m pretty sure they still have a dogshit IO scheduler but I haven’t used a Mac in ages. I suspect it’s not that people can’t do the work and more that Apple’s silos mean their already employed engineers are not allowed to try or even talk about it.
    - AndriyKunitsyn 4y ago
      That's interesting, are there some benchmarks that prove the inferiority of the Mac scheduler? (Without getting you into an NDA trouble, of course.)
      - CoolGuySteve 4y ago
        I don't think it matters as much any more now that we don't have spinning disks with slow seek times. For things like Final Cut/iMovie with lots of video/audio/misc tracks, it was trivial to saturate the disk with dumb seeks when reading otherwise linear data streams due to a lack of knobs.
    - coldpie 4y ago
      > dinged on a performance review for negatively comparing their kernel... engineers are not allowed to try or even talk about it I wonder if it was possibly not that you compared the kernels but rather how you chose to express the comparison. For example this bit makes me think you possibly expressed your opinion combatively: > a dogshit IO scheduler Perhaps you were more polite in your day-to-day, I don't know. But your language here makes me wonder.

agumonkey 4y ago

He also strikes that great balance between fun to read, low level and precise. Thankful for this articles, always a reflex click :)

mc32 4y ago

Him and Russinovich --before he joined MS.

richsu-ca 4y ago
"before" :)

shultays 4y ago

Also whenever I have a question, it feels like he has the answer. No matter how specific the question is

ilyt 4y ago

Well, I'd imagine the day job is why the blog is so good.

nikanj 4y ago

And every year or so Microsoft wrecks all links to his blog, so linking to old articles never works properly. It’s highly ironic that the blog talking about backwards compatibility moves urls constantly

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

int_19h 4y ago

There was also Michael Kaplan, who had a similarly informative and in-depth blog "Sorting it all out" about localization, text encodings, keyboard layouts etc in Windows. In fact, Raymond Chen specifically recommended him on these topics: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041217-00/?p=36963 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041217-00/?p=36... Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't exactly treat him kindly [1] in the end. And to add insult to injury, his blog was completely wiped. There are some archives around, but I haven't seen one that retained the images, which often makes the posts incomprehensible, unfortunately. [1] https://vsubhash.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/rip-michael-j-kaplan/ https://vsubhash.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/rip-michael-j-kapl...

alex_suzuki 4y ago

Raymond Chen is the OG of Windows development.

actionfromafar 4y ago
To me that is Charles Petzold: http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/ http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/

throwaway9870 4y ago

In the 90s he would answer Windows programming questions on usenet.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wheybags 4y ago

I wish Microsoft had more Raymond Chens, and less... whoever it is that makes decisions like "let's preinstall candy crush", and "let's break the start menu AGAIN". There's a real elegant core to windows, it's such a shame that a lot of the higher level stuff piled on top is so crappy.

rayiner 4y ago
NT is a nicely designed OS. I wonder how many people still at Microsoft really even grok it anymore. I hear Apple is having trouble finding enough developers who can do kernel work.
- CoolGuySteve 4y ago
  When I worked on video systems at Apple I got dinged on a performance review for negatively comparing their kernel to Linux too many times. I’m pretty sure they still have a dogshit IO scheduler but I haven’t used a Mac in ages. I suspect it’s not that people can’t do the work and more that Apple’s silos mean their already employed engineers are not allowed to try or even talk about it.
  - AndriyKunitsyn 4y ago
    That's interesting, are there some benchmarks that prove the inferiority of the Mac scheduler? (Without getting you into an NDA trouble, of course.)
    - CoolGuySteve 4y ago
      I don't think it matters as much any more now that we don't have spinning disks with slow seek times. For things like Final Cut/iMovie with lots of video/audio/misc tracks, it was trivial to saturate the disk with dumb seeks when reading otherwise linear data streams due to a lack of knobs.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    > dinged on a performance review for negatively comparing their kernel... engineers are not allowed to try or even talk about it I wonder if it was possibly not that you compared the kernels but rather how you chose to express the comparison. For example this bit makes me think you possibly expressed your opinion combatively: > a dogshit IO scheduler Perhaps you were more polite in your day-to-day, I don't know. But your language here makes me wonder.