4 ms·

The thought of porting a decades old, 50 million line code base from windows to Unix, one that was deemed too complex to retrofit 64 bit support, makes me put m

The thought of porting a decades old, 50 million line code base from windows to Unix, one that was deemed too complex to retrofit 64 bit support, makes me put my own insignificant development hassles of the past few days in perspective. No matter how bad it seems, at least I'm not on that team.

revelation 12y ago
I recently had this very same realization after opening some crusty PPTX on Android and seeing those awful animations. The poor soul that had to port that stuff..
- akoeplinger 12y ago
  There's a pretty interesting video of how the Office team uses C++ for their cross-platform efforts from CppCon 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HROqnw-nf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HROqnw-nf4
- api 12y ago
  "Welcome to hell. Here's your 15 year old MSC code base to port to OS X." You couldn't pay me enough... not because I wouldn't want a fat salary, but because I literally do not think I could actually bring myself to do it. It would require drugs.
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    You could still take the fat salary until they found out it's not working (because, of course, it cannot possibly work). If they decided the code base is too crufty (instead of deeming you incompetent) you could still keep the fat salary and land in another realm of the company. Unfortunately for you, the odds of them deciding the codebase is too crufty (and, therefore, that the very senior exec sitting on it managed its aging poorly) are not good.
- kabdib 12y ago
  I worked with an ex-Microsoftie who was responsible for getting Excel onto the Mac, in the 1990s. He quit and swore off computers for a couple of years, and we had to convince him that (a) we were a great company and he should definitely interview with us, and (b) we weren't going to treat him the way Microsoft had. He was pretty good, but there were parts of his psyche that seemed . . . damaged.
  - tacos 12y ago
    True: hiring non-programmers from top schools and then giving them tasks like "fake out multifinder enough that WinHelp runs" is a unique form of cruelty. But most work in the 1990s was like that. He should be glad he landed at Microsoft instead of Commodore or 3DO or half a dozen other places.
  - devsquid 12y ago
    Stack ranking will do that too you, its like working in 1940 era USSR

revelation 12y ago

I recently had this very same realization after opening some crusty PPTX on Android and seeing those awful animations. The poor soul that had to port that stuff..

akoeplinger 12y ago
There's a pretty interesting video of how the Office team uses C++ for their cross-platform efforts from CppCon 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HROqnw-nf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HROqnw-nf4
api 12y ago
"Welcome to hell. Here's your 15 year old MSC code base to port to OS X." You couldn't pay me enough... not because I wouldn't want a fat salary, but because I literally do not think I could actually bring myself to do it. It would require drugs.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  You could still take the fat salary until they found out it's not working (because, of course, it cannot possibly work). If they decided the code base is too crufty (instead of deeming you incompetent) you could still keep the fat salary and land in another realm of the company. Unfortunately for you, the odds of them deciding the codebase is too crufty (and, therefore, that the very senior exec sitting on it managed its aging poorly) are not good.
kabdib 12y ago
I worked with an ex-Microsoftie who was responsible for getting Excel onto the Mac, in the 1990s. He quit and swore off computers for a couple of years, and we had to convince him that (a) we were a great company and he should definitely interview with us, and (b) we weren't going to treat him the way Microsoft had. He was pretty good, but there were parts of his psyche that seemed . . . damaged.
- tacos 12y ago
  True: hiring non-programmers from top schools and then giving them tasks like "fake out multifinder enough that WinHelp runs" is a unique form of cruelty. But most work in the 1990s was like that. He should be glad he landed at Microsoft instead of Commodore or 3DO or half a dozen other places.
- devsquid 12y ago
  Stack ranking will do that too you, its like working in 1940 era USSR