How Programmers at Microsoft comment

September 26th, 2006 9:17 am by BlackWhite

At first, I found this hilarious but when you think of it as a programmer, you can see the frustration that arises while coding, esp when things go wrong. Some comments by programmers at Microsoft (of the leaked Windows 2000 code). Old news, but still…

* !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* !!!!!!!IF YOU CHANGE TABS TO SPACES, YOU WILL BE KILLED!!!!!!!
* !!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOING SO FUCKS THE BUILD PROCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

private\inet\mshtml\src\site\layout\flowlyt.cxx:
// God, I hate this hack …

private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\nt6\user.h:
* The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that of the national debt. LOL

While surprisingly informal, there are limits to how far the programmers go. There are no derogatory references to Microsoft or Windows themselves. Bill Gates is never mentioned. There are no racist or homophobic slurs. I saw only one drug reference.

private\shell\ext\tweakui\genthunk.c:
* CallProc32W is insane. It’s a variadic function that uses
* the pascal calling convention. (It probably makes more sense
* when you’re stoned.)

In short, there is nothing really surprising in this leak. Microsoft does not steal open-source code. Their older code is flaky, their modern code excellent. Their programmers are skilled and enthusiastic. Problems are generally due to a trade-off of current quality against vast hardware, software and backward compatibility.

More at kuro5hin.org.

5 Responses to “How Programmers at Microsoft comment”

1
benjamin Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 10:14 am
M$t does not steal open-source code – When you take open source code, it’s not necessarily stealing. Look at BSD license, you are allowed to keep the change yourself.

Problems are generally due to a trade-off of current quality against vast hardware, software and backward compatibility.

– Excuse from Redmond. They should accept, “Our product is crap, we should fix it.”

Report this comment
2
BlackWhite Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 10:34 am
“When you take open source code, it’s not necessarily stealing.”
It is, when a client wants Intellectual Property rights for their product, e.g clients of major software companies prohibit their programmers to use open-source code (how much of it is practised is a different thing though…)
If you read the article, you’ll notice the following…

Microsoft’s vast compatibility strengths have clearly come at a cost, both in developer-sweat and the elegance (and hence stability and maintainability) of the code…

Sorry Ben, the article is not pro-MS and as someone commented in the article, “it’s fun to peek inside the brains of the guys who wrote this monster…”

Report this comment
3
J Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
This is so cute and so Microsoft just had to post it

Report this comment
4
J Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Report this comment
5
benjamin Says:
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:29 am
“When you take open source code, it’s not necessarily stealing.”
It is, when a client wants Intellectual Property rights for their product, e.g clients of major software companies prohibit their programmers to use open-source code (how much of it is practised is a different thing though…)

You don’t get the point. Stealing = License violation. If you use GPL’d code, you must make available the improvement and changes made. Whereas for BSD license, you can keep it.

Trolltech has dual license for QT library. QT is used for KDE desktop. It is GPL’d (or some other Open Source license) for Open Source apps. It is proprietory for proprietory application which means you need to buy license from Trolltech.

Report this comment