On Sat, 17 Aug 1996 07:03:32 +0200 (MET DST), Anonymous wrote:

...

There are many computer companies that are full of Bozos, Microsoft isn't one of them. Most of the people griping about Microsoft can't code any better.

Gee Phill, as I'm preparing to leave MS after 6 years, I have to disagree with you. Mediocrity and bureaucracy have eatten away at a lot of the core of the company. It is entirely marketing driven now, and the coders have definitely gone down hill since I first started in Apps. The "bozo" factor has steadily increased. Only those new hires without a sense of history think it's a real cool place to work. And, a few egocentric folks totally tripped on power and greed. (Apologies to any MSofties on the list I don't know personally.)

That would match my general impression of the way things have gone. Originally Microsoft was a small company that *had* to write good code (anyone remember DR DOS?) to survive. At the time, they had to do tons of work producing usable products out of IBM's code. (Apparently due to optimization, at one point MS was writing a negative total codelines for OS/2 1.x) Now, IBM is writing good code (Warp/Merlin/etc) and making usable products out of MS blunders (Win-OS/2. It may crash (not quite as much as the real Windows - separate sessions) but it doesn't bring down the whole house...

Talk to HR about the turnover of people with 5.5 to 8 years under their belts who are bailing with their stock options because it ain't a fun place to work anymore. Testers, developers, UE, you name it.

I can gripe because I was there. I never seem to recall seeing your name on any internal e-mail.

Oh yeah, this is coming through a remailer, because I'm reading the list at work. And I doubt BillG would appreciate my opinions being sent out over MS resources.

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