ScottGu's blog continues to be an excellent source of ASP.NET and Atlas info. Some good stuff coming soon, including an Atlas update and an Atlas Control Pack.
Microsoft: March 2006 Archives
The New York Times has an article today "Windows Is So Slow, but Why?". Among other things, the article mentions that there are thousands of engineers on the Windows team today. Even without the enormous complexities caused by the need to maintain compatibility with existing hardware and software, a software project this large is extremely difficult to schedule and manage. Delays are pretty much inevitable.
Gnashing of teeth aside, there's a history of Microsoft seriously underestimating the time it takes to get out a new release. It goes all the way back to the first version of Windows, when we finally shipped Windows 1.01* more than a year late. There were about twenty engineers working on Windows then. Like the Vista project (but on a much, much smaller scale), there were a couple points during the project when a major component had to be rethought and rewritten. Ultimately, of course, the product got out the door, in November 1985.
* Windows 1.0 was "Windows Premiere Edition" and shipped a couple months earlier to certain customers; it did not go to the retail channel.
Microsoft is running a couple interesting contests for application builders:
Mash-it-up with “Atlas” -- build a mash-up application using Microsoft's "Atlas" Ajax technology, and win an Xbox 360.
Made in Express Contest -- build an application using one of the (free) Visual Studio Express tools, and win $10,000.
I've got a bunch of ideas for stuff that would be fun to build for these contests. Now if only I had some time!
Mark Cliggett at Microsoft shares his thoughts about Embedded Windows. Mark was one of my colleagues on the Windows 1.0 project in the mid-80's -- he wrote the original Windows "shell" (MUSH). It would be interesting to see how many other members of that team have blogs. Mark must be the only one at Microsoft today (unless you count Steve Ballmer)! One of these days I'll post the story of my time on the Windows team at Microsoft.
