What's crazy about this is that it sounds like the people writing the code haven't got the slightest hope of even compiling it, let alone running it. They're just writing code, crossing their fingers, and committing it.<p>It's a wonder the thing ever worked at all.
MarkL's latest move - leaving Google, after changes in the VR/AR org at Google - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-head-of-ar-software-quits-citing-unstable-commitment-and-vision/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-head-of-ar-s...</a>
Can’t imagine how these Windows engineers feel about the enshitification of their baby. So much time invested into it - must be hard to see it taking this current trajectory.
Transcript of slides at <a href="https://danluu.com/microsoft-culture/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://danluu.com/microsoft-culture/</a>
Source Depot was still a thing in Office as of last year when they finally transitioned to Git. Windows started transitioning to Git 5 years ago.<p>Also, they have about 10k people working on Windows (and devices) and about 10k people working on ads nowadays (that paints a good story of priorities).<p>Source: 2nd hand from MS friends
Zachary's Show Stopper covers this ground in a very readable manner, and gives a lot of useful detail on Dave Cutler's design ideas, and DEC VAX VMS background.
This has certainly whetted my appetite for a deeper dive - what's a good book on the history of Windows (or even Microsoft), from the earliest days up until at least Windows 95?
There are details here no one else would know. Why would there be only a single mention of Xenix, when Microsoft bet the farm on it, only to vapor it for 4+ (79 to 84) years and outsource it less than 3 years later. (87)
Another great source is Show Stopper, a book about creating Windows NT. I read it years ago, it was the first time I saw the term dog fooding to describe using what you are building as you are building it.<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1416925" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1416925</a>
Plug for Dave Plummer's youtube channel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@DavesGarage">https://www.youtube.com/@DavesGarage</a><p>Dave was an engineer on NT and creator of Task Manager and zip folders. Lots of interesting stories and anecdotes from that period on that channel.
> Source control system (Windows 2000)
> Branch capability sorely needed, tree copies used as substitutes, so merging is a nightmare<p>Ouch, and it looks like they only had version control with branching for the last nine months of development.