5 ms·

Microsoft is the complete opposite of Facebook's "Move fast and break things". And that's a good thing, in a lot of ways. When entire companies (industries?)

Microsoft is the complete opposite of Facebook's "Move fast and break things". And that's a good thing, in a lot of ways. When entire companies (industries?) are dependent on you: slow & steady to get it right is much, much better than moving quickly to integrate the newest technology.

martydill 13y ago
Interestingly, many companies including mine are dependent on Facebook and their APIs. They do move fast and break things, and we feel the pain of it practically every day.
infinitone 13y ago
How is Microsoft slow and steady when he just told you they have poor code quality, no docs, etc.
- jussij 13y ago
  > no docs I suggest the OP just fire up the MSDN.
- JonFish85 13y ago
  Granted I don't work at Microsoft so I don't see their internal code. I have worked a bit with their .NET and older Visual Studio suites, and found that their documentation there was probably some of the best I've ever seen (better than Analog Devices, which I've used as a hardware documentation standard for a while). MSDN is a fantastic resource, and is extremely well organized (or was 10 years ago, I imagine it hasn't changed a ton since then). And I more meant that they have to stick with technologies that they know work for two reasons: legacy & reliability. If Microsoft changes something within their legacy code, that could cause absolutely massive problems around the globe. If reliable features in their code breaks, same problem. [Edited to fix redundant sentence].
- cobrausn 13y ago
  Where did he mention poor code quality? Out of date documentation is all I see mentioned.
  - Draiken 13y ago
    I'd say that's implicit, if code that doesn't deliver business value (refactoring, documenting, etc.) is wasted, people won't do it.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      I don't think code quality and documentation quality are strongly correlated, they are just complementary.
      - Draiken 13y ago
        I'd say without documentation any code loses quality. I'm not talking about giving a manual for every piece of code you write, but any code that will be used by others (specially in big companies) should be well documented. If good code is not documented, it will probably cause the same amount of trouble for people using it, than a bad piece of code. People often forget that their code normally ends up outliving them.
        seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        People also often forget that a lot of code doesn't survive the week, which is common in an agile setting. Documenting code is something you do when you know it can live for awhile. Also, if the focus is on maintainability, the person documenting the code shouldn't be the same person who wrote it, who already has biases on what is obvious or not. Rather, it should be someone with access to the author(s) who can ask questions and document what they didn't get right away.
  - myko 13y ago
    He mentioned copy/pasting code and skipping reviews were popular things to do. The first one is definitely a sign of poor code quality, and the second isn't as definite but is surely a practice that makes room for poor code quality.
- dclusin 13y ago
  Internal documentation of functionality/features/whatever and documentation of externalized API's & protocols meant to be consumed by any johnny come lately are two separate beasts. If the QA/validation process that is applied to external documentation was also imposed as a requirement on internal documentation then nothing would get done.
pm 13y ago
Sure, it's "move slow and break things". As judged by my experiences with most Microsoft products over the last twenty years, and reinforced by my current experience with Windows Azure's bizarre engineering choices and instability issues (the team to which the OP was assigned).
- lostlogin 13y ago
  I drive an MRI scanner or 2 that are built on windows 2000. It's so very painful that modern scanners use such old OSs. The OS is masked from the user, but as soon as you try to do something complex (real complex, like getting images onto a memory stick) you have to use a series of crude hacks to get an explorer window up, then work around the disabled functions to get data off the scanner without using the network port.
  - pm 13y ago
    Heh, that reminds me of all the bad scanner software I've ever dealt with in my time, and wondering how dead inside that person truly must be to have had to write it in the first place.

martydill 13y ago

Interestingly, many companies including mine are dependent on Facebook and their APIs. They do move fast and break things, and we feel the pain of it practically every day.

infinitone 13y ago

How is Microsoft slow and steady when he just told you they have poor code quality, no docs, etc.

jussij 13y ago
> no docs I suggest the OP just fire up the MSDN.
JonFish85 13y ago
Granted I don't work at Microsoft so I don't see their internal code. I have worked a bit with their .NET and older Visual Studio suites, and found that their documentation there was probably some of the best I've ever seen (better than Analog Devices, which I've used as a hardware documentation standard for a while). MSDN is a fantastic resource, and is extremely well organized (or was 10 years ago, I imagine it hasn't changed a ton since then). And I more meant that they have to stick with technologies that they know work for two reasons: legacy & reliability. If Microsoft changes something within their legacy code, that could cause absolutely massive problems around the globe. If reliable features in their code breaks, same problem. [Edited to fix redundant sentence].
cobrausn 13y ago
Where did he mention poor code quality? Out of date documentation is all I see mentioned.
- Draiken 13y ago
  I'd say that's implicit, if code that doesn't deliver business value (refactoring, documenting, etc.) is wasted, people won't do it.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    I don't think code quality and documentation quality are strongly correlated, they are just complementary.
    - Draiken 13y ago
      I'd say without documentation any code loses quality. I'm not talking about giving a manual for every piece of code you write, but any code that will be used by others (specially in big companies) should be well documented. If good code is not documented, it will probably cause the same amount of trouble for people using it, than a bad piece of code. People often forget that their code normally ends up outliving them.
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        People also often forget that a lot of code doesn't survive the week, which is common in an agile setting. Documenting code is something you do when you know it can live for awhile. Also, if the focus is on maintainability, the person documenting the code shouldn't be the same person who wrote it, who already has biases on what is obvious or not. Rather, it should be someone with access to the author(s) who can ask questions and document what they didn't get right away.
- myko 13y ago
  He mentioned copy/pasting code and skipping reviews were popular things to do. The first one is definitely a sign of poor code quality, and the second isn't as definite but is surely a practice that makes room for poor code quality.
dclusin 13y ago
Internal documentation of functionality/features/whatever and documentation of externalized API's & protocols meant to be consumed by any johnny come lately are two separate beasts. If the QA/validation process that is applied to external documentation was also imposed as a requirement on internal documentation then nothing would get done.

pm 13y ago

Sure, it's "move slow and break things". As judged by my experiences with most Microsoft products over the last twenty years, and reinforced by my current experience with Windows Azure's bizarre engineering choices and instability issues (the team to which the OP was assigned).

lostlogin 13y ago
I drive an MRI scanner or 2 that are built on windows 2000. It's so very painful that modern scanners use such old OSs. The OS is masked from the user, but as soon as you try to do something complex (real complex, like getting images onto a memory stick) you have to use a series of crude hacks to get an explorer window up, then work around the disabled functions to get data off the scanner without using the network port.
- pm 13y ago
  Heh, that reminds me of all the bad scanner software I've ever dealt with in my time, and wondering how dead inside that person truly must be to have had to write it in the first place.