The answer to “Why doesn’t this feature exist?” is usually “By default features don’t exist. Somebody has to implement them.”It’s not like every feature you can think of comes out of your brain fully tested and implemented, and then some PM somewhere files a bug to have your feature removed. Features start out nonexistent and somebody has to make them happen.
Raymond Chen
23-JUN-2005
Raymond Chen is one of the two guys I really missed in my time away from Microsoft (the other was Mike Blaszczak). Why? The spice they add to internal mailing lists. Examples:
How to make a good doc bug report:
1. Don’t embed pictures. … This isn’t Highlights magazine.
Raymond Chen
19 APR 2005
And (a little longer, sorry):
Q: Is there a way to determine at compile time, whether a C# project/code is being built within the VS.NET IDE (versus being built on the command line using csc.exe)?
A: This is bad engineering practice that is sure to make your successor hang you in effigy.
Build lab: “We are hitting a BVT failure in XYZ.”
Developer: “It works fine on my machine.”
Build lab: “It’s not working here, though, Please come down and investigate it.”
Developer heads over to the build lab, confirms that XYZ is failing, takes bits from developer’s machine, runs them on BVT machine, those bits work. Developer painstakingly [diffs] bits on both clients, windiffs them, they’re all identical — yet one set of binaries works and the other does. Four hours later, they discover your little hack that makes the code behave differently depending on how the compiler was invoked. The developer uses the IDE to build; the build lab uses nmake.Raymond Chen
01 APR 2005
I will add others as they pop up.
Unorganized Militia