[HN Gopher] Dave Cutler on Windows [video]
___________________________________________________________________
Dave Cutler on Windows [video]
Author : hexmiles
Score : 319 points
Date : 2023-10-21 21:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| mepian wrote:
| The link seems to point to "No Dignity Speedrun Any%" instead of
| anything related to Dave Cutler?..
|
| EDIT: The link is correct now.
| kbmr wrote:
| how far did you get into No Dignity Speedrun Any% before
| realizing something was off
| huseyinkeles wrote:
| Irrelevant link. People just upvoted this to the homepage without
| checking the video?
| fortran77 wrote:
| > People just upvoted this to the homepage without checking the
| video?
|
| I have news for you! People here comment on articles they
| didn't read. All the time.
| smolder wrote:
| Reading the article is pure folly! They'll steal your IP
| address, inject silly JavaScript into your hypertext markup
| interpreter, render their text in unpleasing typefaces and
| suboptimal contrast, hold you ransom with cookie popups or
| paywalls... One must protect oneself. The only way to safely
| interact with the world wide web (called "web" because it's a
| trap like a spider web!) is to gleen what you can 2nd hand,
| from the hackernews comments.
| implements wrote:
| You're being downvoted, but that's exactly how I use HNs -
| if the comments are interesting enough _then_ it's probably
| worth clicking the link.
| smolder wrote:
| Joking around tends to earn downvotes, and that's okay
| --preferable, even. Your approach is quite common, I
| think. I very often look at comments first, too,
| depending on the topic & source. The only time skipping
| the article is any kind of issue is when people start
| engaging in the comments without proper context.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| I'm curious as to why this comment is downvoted?
| gozzoo wrote:
| I do this sometimes, usually when the topic seems interesting,
| but I'm not familiar with it, so I don't know if it's worth
| spending time reading the whole article. By voting up, I hope
| that it will remain on the home page longer, so that people
| will notice it and comment on it. Then, if many people comment
| and if the comments look interesting, I might read the main
| article.
| ripley12 wrote:
| I upvoted without checking because I'd seen the new Cutler
| interviews elsewhere and assumed the link would be correct.
| Whoops.
| alexjplant wrote:
| The correct link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
| dang wrote:
| Fixed. Thanks!
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Looking forward to listening to all of this.
|
| Regardless of you feelings towards him or the company he works
| for, Cutler has been a very influential software engineer through
| his work on OpenVMS and Windows NT, and I don't think he's talked
| about as much as the Bell Labs gang, Stallman, Linus, Stroustrup,
| and so on.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The interviewer, Dave Plummer, is also is also an amazingly
| interesting person in his own right. I particularly enjoyed his
| retro-coding videos, such as
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZe2JwrJqM and
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0zxIfJJLAY
|
| The videos are really interesting and his background muzak and
| RGB lighting puts me in a Christmas mood. He generally put
| Microsoft in a completely different light than I'm used to, he
| speaks warmly about his job, co-workers and Microsoft, while
| acknowledging much of the weirdness going on in Redmond.
|
| Only problem is that watching is channel will trigger something
| in the YouTube algorithm and flood your feed with videos on ADHD.
| Presumably it has to do with his videos on autism and ADHD, but I
| feel like YouTube should be smart enough to notice that I didn't
| watch to videos, only those on coding and Microsoft history.
| justin66 wrote:
| YouTube recommendations have always been pretty awful,
| incentivizing people to avoid exploring videos on controversial
| topics once they learn that if they do so, they'll be inundated
| with garbage on that topic.
|
| The recent forcing of people (including me) to turn off their
| ad blockers was an eye opener. Holy crap, YouTube ads are hot
| garbage, and it's embarrassing to think that any humans respond
| to them. YouTube has abandoned any pretense of offering a good
| user experience.
|
| Worth digging around in the muck a little to watch something as
| great as this Dave Cutler interview, though.
| brakmic wrote:
| How to circumvent youtube's anti-adblock mechanism: https://w
| ww.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/178yasm/youtu...
| cronix wrote:
| All I had to do was update the rules for Adblock Plus free
| version. I'd been getting the warnings for several days,
| then yesterday it would only let me watch 3 videos. I then
| updated AB+ rules and nothing pops up and things just play
| like "normal."
| kreeben wrote:
| All I had to do was nothing. Yesterday I said to myself,
| this is the end, I'll never go back, never again attempt
| to view a video on it, because 99% of the time they'll
| ask me to purchase premium, please dear self, find new
| hobby. Today my muscle memory took me once more to YT and
| there are no ads and no popups begging me for money. They
| pulled me back in.
|
| I'm using not recently updated uBlock Origin + FF.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > I'm using not recently updated uBlock Origin + FF.
|
| uBO automatically updates filter lists by default.
| NavinF wrote:
| > I said to myself, this is the end, I'll never go back,
| never again attempt to view a video on it, because 99% of
| the time they'll ask me to purchase premium
|
| I see this kind of language all the time on HN. Reminds
| me of "This one hurts, it really hurts. I think this
| hurts worse than Musk buying/poisoning/killing Twitter.
| I've mentioned this before but a keyboard feels like an
| extension of your body". The context was Microsoft
| closing the support forum for some keyboard software they
| hadn't updated in years.
|
| The top comment from that thread seems relevant: People
| need to take a break. Being terminally online and
| complaining about everything is not a healthy way of
| life.
| MaKey wrote:
| You might consider switching to uBlock Origin as
| advertisers get onto the default whitelist of AdBlock
| Plus by forking over some cash.
| naikrovek wrote:
| there is enough really great stuff on YouTube that I do not
| feel bad paying for YouTube Premium.
|
| I never see an ad on YouTube and I use ublock origin
| everywhere.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| The ads are awful on purpose, so people buy Premium.
|
| Then, once users pay for Premium, they can do the same as
| cable TV and _still_ sell ads.
|
| Easy 2x revenue.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Premium does not have ads. I know because I don't see them.
|
| Sponsorships do not count because they're placed by the
| creators themselves.
| rollcat wrote:
| > Premium does not have ads.
|
| Yet. The keyword of the times seems to be
| enshittification, and the only companies that take a step
| back from it seem to be doing so just to double down on
| it the moment the outrage calms down.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Well, when/if they add ads, I'll reconsider my
| subscription. As of now, I pay to sustain YouTube's
| business model and creators I like, and I'm rewarded with
| no ads.
| superq wrote:
| > pay to sustain YouTube's business model and creators I
| like
|
| How much of your subscription goes to "creators you
| like"?
|
| 10 cents? 20 cents? How would you know?
|
| > I'm rewarded with no ads
|
| How is paying being rewarded?
| foobazgt wrote:
| Some creators have previously stated, here on HN, that
| they get a much bigger slice of YT premium. Sorry, I'm
| too lazy right now to Google a link for you.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I know I heard a rough number at some point of the value
| of a Premium view vs an ad supported view. Can't find it
| without digging, but here's a source for them being a
| good amount more valuable
| https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=412
| paradox242 wrote:
| I have heard anecdotally from streamers that YouTube
| still pays better than any other platform all other
| things being equal (so long as you don't touch any topics
| that YouTube likes to regularly demonetize).
| superq wrote:
| That's probably because Youtube has a scale in billions
| of viewers instead of the millions for most other
| platforms.
| progmetaldev wrote:
| Currently Premium really only gets you no ads, along with
| YouTube Music. If they start having ads, I don't really
| see that being a viable product. Of course they could
| stuff 12 ads in a 20 minute video, but I think they would
| lose most of their subscribers.
| greyface- wrote:
| > Sponsorships do not count
|
| If the ad makes it to my eyeballs, it counts.
| sampo wrote:
| > Holy crap, YouTube ads are hot garbage
|
| This probably depends on your country. Here in Finland they
| are almost nice.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Thank you to share. This is genuinely interesting. Do you
| think this is due to Finnish advertising regulations or
| cultural differences?
| freddref wrote:
| youtube as curated by HN https://xiliary.com/bck/hn-tv.html
| ge96 wrote:
| Idk how people can use the internet and get influenced by
| ads, I will stop using whatever it is the moment an ad comes
| on.
|
| I guess I am a bad person for that
|
| edit: also reminds me when you look at YouTube when not
| logged in, the home page tiles wow...
|
| it's like podcasts man... like good old ones and now they
| rattle off like 10 companies for 5 minutes straight before it
| even starts.
|
| I get it though, takes time to make, need to pay for it
| somehow
| jorvi wrote:
| > YouTube recommendations have always been pretty awful
|
| This is what surprised me a lot. A friend of mine made me
| install TikTok (after me disparaging it a lot). I made an
| account for it with a dummy address, went off to the races,
| and after a couple of days I suddenly caught myself having
| been scrolling my feed for ~1h10m minutes without realizing
| it. I literally recoiled and dropped my phone, after which I
| uninstalled TikTok immediately.
|
| YouTube has never had that kind of grip on my dopamine
| receptors. There are a great many (longform) edifying videos
| on there. And sure, there are interesting videos, and it is
| good at recommending a few adjacent videos to those. But the
| algorithm is not nearly as good as TikTok, I can recognize
| that immediately.
|
| Aside from how horrifically good TikTok is at hooking your
| dopamine receptors, another thing I have to give it credit
| for is how egalitarian it is. YouTube is all about
| subscribers and network reach. On TikTok it's the content
| that goes viral, not the creator.
| techphl wrote:
| Totally agree - TikTok is the most addictive app on your
| phone. You can download the Unhook chrome extension which
| blocks related videos and shorts. That really helps to
| improve your youtube experience.
| distract8901 wrote:
| I've been using PeerTube recently. After spending a
| ridiculous amount of effort, I have a server that pulls down
| indexes from other servers and mirrors content both for me
| locally and to share bandwidth with other users.
|
| As absolutely awful as this experience has been, it's still
| less painful than dealing with google ads. The amount and
| variety of videos on there is much lower, but I've managed to
| federate with enough servers to curare a fairly interesting
| list.
|
| I just can't/won't tolerate ads anymore. It doesn't have to
| be this way, and I choose to simply not use these ad
| platforms wherever I can. It's much more pleasant online when
| you go to spaces that aren't constantly trying to sell you
| something or spy on you so they can sell you more stuff.
| walterbell wrote:
| Do you whitelist videos or channels for mirroring? What's a
| good starting point for others to replicate this setup?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _YouTube recommendations have always been pretty awful,
| incentivizing people to avoid exploring videos on
| controversial topics once they learn that if they do so,
| they'll be inundated with garbage on that topic._
|
| Right-click on the video in question and copy the URL, open a
| new _private mode_ window, and then paste the link in. Your
| default viewing preferences won 't be contaminated.
|
| A bit hoop-jump-y, but it works well for me.
| zamadatix wrote:
| If you forget to do this going to "History" in the left
| pane and removing them from your watched list (seems to)
| have the same effect as not viewing it via your account in
| the first place. E.g. I'm not much of a car guy but once in
| a while a recommendation for a particularly unique car
| video will come across so I watch it and suddenly my
| recommendations are chock full of car videos like YouTube
| just discovered a new hobby I'd love to spend 100s of hours
| watching videos on - until I clear the video from my
| history and it's completely back to what it was before.
| II2II wrote:
| > YouTube recommendations have always been pretty awful,
| incentivizing people to avoid exploring videos on
| controversial topics once they learn that if they do so,
| they'll be inundated with garbage on that topic.
|
| I haven't had too many problems with their recommendations,
| then again I do not log in and have topic specific containers
| setup in Firefox. After a while, it pretty much limits videos
| to a specific topic within a given container. The results may
| not be things I want to watch, but at least I don't get much
| crazy stuff.
|
| As for controversial topics: yes, I avoid them. Then again,
| that has as much to do with avoiding agenda pushing dreck
| than anything else.
| TerrifiedMouse wrote:
| > incentivizing people to avoid exploring videos on
| controversial topics once they learn that if they do so,
| they'll be inundated with garbage on that topic
|
| Not that hard to work around frankly. Just delete the
| offending video that trigger the avalanche of recommendations
| from history - make sure you did not leave a comment or vote
| on the video; zero interaction apart from watching (which
| will be forgotten when you remove it from your history)
|
| > Holy crap, YouTube ads are hot garbage, and it's
| embarrassing to think that any humans respond to them.
| YouTube has abandoned any pretense of offering a good user
| experience.
|
| This I agree. YouTube (Google as a whole) has stopped trying
| to match eyeballs to relevant ads. Instead they have handed
| the reins to advertisers to bid for who they want to
| advertise to. So if advertisers was to be self-destructive
| and make your web experience crap, Google will happily let
| them as long as they get their check.
| jotato wrote:
| Ha! I didn't know he had adhd. I watched one video of his last
| week and ever since my feed is all adhd stuff. I was so
| confused, but now it makes sense.
| naikrovek wrote:
| I feel like no one on the planet understands how YouTube
| recommendations work. the same for Large Language Models.
|
| YouTube keeps a watch history of every user. users can clean
| up their view of their watch history, but YouTube keeps it
| all.
|
| if you watch any particular video, YouTube will start
| suggesting videos watched by other people who watched the
| video you just watched. YouTube _does not_ know or care what
| the subject of the videos are. it only knows that people who
| watched a given video also watched these other videos.
|
| there is ZERO intelligence, here.
|
| if you want the ADHD recommendations to go away, remove any
| from your watch history.
|
| your view of your own watch history (the list you can remove
| videos from) is what sets recommendations for you.
| neandrake wrote:
| > there is ZERO intelligence, here
|
| The effect of that is what people are referring to here.
| How is one supposed to know a tech-based video they watched
| once is the reason for videos made by someone else entirely
| on the topic of ADHD being recommended. No one is going to
| make that connection and clean up their watch history
| accordingly. Additionally tying recommendations to watch
| history maybe needs a step removed. What if I like to see
| the history of everything I watched without it affecting my
| recommendations?
|
| A few months ago I must've been digging into settings and
| turned off watch history as I get only a blank page with no
| recommendations. I don't discover content as much as I used
| to but it's been a good change for me - just seeing updates
| from the channels I subscribe. Stumbling across content is
| left to sites like HN or other communities.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think the broken assumption is that they make these
| decisions on the granularity of a channel rather than a
| video. A channel like Dave Plummer that talks about
| multiple topics (tech and neurodiversity) gets
| neurodiversity suggestions even if that's not the video
| you've watched within the channel.
|
| I assume some followers watch only the tech, others watch
| only the neurodiversity topics, and some watch both.
|
| You could have a recommendation engine that works in almost
| exactly the same way as Google's that suffers less from
| this problem.
| omnibrain wrote:
| > YouTube keeps a watch history of every user.
|
| But why does youtube keep recommending me videos I already
| watched and worse, if I have autoplay enabled, plays videos
| I already watched?
| esafak wrote:
| Because some videos are commonly rewatched, like music
| videos.
| bitwize wrote:
| > there is ZERO intelligence, here.
|
| Current AI buzztalk is that we don't know exactly what
| intelligence is, so we can't possibly know if The
| Algorithm(tm) is exhibiting zero intelligence, or if it has
| somehow gained sentience while we aren't looking and is
| slowly manipulating us into eternal servitude to it.
| naikrovek wrote:
| current AI buzztalk is hogwash, then.
|
| there is zero intelligence in any of this.
|
| this is all intelligence in name only.
| fulafel wrote:
| Is there documented reverse engineering about the algorithm
| and about which properties have strong evidence?
|
| edit: here's something at least gleaned from some research
| papers from Google - https://ecoaerem.com/youtube-
| recommendation-system-code
| nottheengineer wrote:
| He doesn't have ADHD, he's autistic. But for some reason the
| youtube algorithm assumes they are the exact same thing.
| novax81 wrote:
| In fairness to the algorithm, Autism, ADHD, and OCD have
| significant core presentation overlap, and often get talked
| about in the same spaces online. There's probably a high
| relation in their searches for the topics.
|
| Doesn't stop the Youtube algorithm from easily being the
| worst of the major social media sites though.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Are you guys sure that the algorithm's goal isn't to
| shove down your throat a slightly related topic to make
| you exposed to it, in case you'll like it? There are a
| few interests of mine which I found after clicking some
| recommended video after resisting it for a month.
| novok wrote:
| His book intro says he has ADHD also, so it's probably
| mentioned here and there in video transcripts.
| runjake wrote:
| About 3 days ago, I watched a single 10 second Short on a
| Souffle from my recommendations page and since then half my
| recommendations are souffle videos.
|
| This is not a joke, and "half" is pretty accurate. I'm pretty
| sure something is broken or YouTube added an LLM to the
| recommendations engine.
| lkramer wrote:
| Last week my recommendation and upcoming videos started
| becoming flooded with videos for children, toys, children's
| songs, etc, toddler age.
|
| I don't have any kids that age, and I only use youtube to
| watch music videos. Their algorithm is baffling.
| pests wrote:
| Delete it from your watch history if you want a solution.
| azalemeth wrote:
| The combination of Firefox, container tabs, uBlockOrigin and
| uMatrix, makes for a far, far better Youtube experience.
|
| I have a container for "I would like Youtube's algorithm to
| learn this". Everything transient by default doesn't go into
| it. This is, incidentally, the most wonderful demonstration
| of the worst aspect of the whole idea of targetted
| advertising: buy a sofa, and get sofa ads forevermore,
| despite you not wanting another one for several years!
| davidmurphy wrote:
| The new YouTube CEO has taken things in a dramatically worse
| direction.
| sznio wrote:
| I watched a documentary on 9/11, on 9/11.
|
| Half of my front page is still videos about 9/11 despite not
| watching a single one since.
| sebazzz wrote:
| He went from "I'm only here for the subs and likes" to "I'm
| mostly here for the subs and likes". I wonder what the next
| step is.
|
| That said, his channel does have much interesting content. I
| just wish he didn't go into sponsorship-reviews like with
| (Chinese) Ecoflow like products.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Dave Plummer gave a nice talk at VCF recently too:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ig_5syuWUh0
|
| I liked seeing him speak extemporaneously more that his
| produced videos.
| kjuulh wrote:
| I recently watched a video (2 years old video) of a guy
| documenting that he had participated in make a wish, and that
| the kid had left this world, etc. very sad video.
|
| My recommendations have been filled with nothing but cancer
| stories, people on their deathbed, all kinds of ailments, etc.
| From that single video, which was not at all related to his
| regular videos. I haven't watched any of them, and they just
| keep pouring in.
| qup wrote:
| I'm learning rust (programming language) and I went through
| one playlist of intro videos...apparently I no longer have
| other hobbies. The DIY/woodworking stuff I've watched
| religiously for years has just disappeared unless I go hit
| the topic selector.
|
| There's also been a big addition of "generic" videos to my
| feed this year--celebrity news and stuff I don't like. In the
| past, I had a different problem...I wanted to watch nearly
| every video recommended.
|
| YouTube: It's not me, it's you.
| hjk_bear wrote:
| Dave's Garage is a channel with genuinely interesting content
| and is very knowledgeable about all things Microsoft/Windows.
|
| However (I hate to be this guy) take everything he says about
| non Microsoft/Windows stuff with a huge grain of salt.
| Especially after this comment he made [1]:
|
| >" _No, Windows is a closed-source operating system loved by
| millions. Linux is an open-source operating system which
| includes a binary blob from Linus Torvalds built into EVERY
| release that ONLY he has the source code for. Pick your poison.
| They 're both closed, one just has the illusion of
| transparency._"
|
| I thought this was fake but you can check the link as the
| comment is not deleted yet.
|
| Again I reiterate, Dave's garage has very interesting content,
| but take everything out of his expertise with some scepticism.
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqWjq2SdzpI&lc=UgwFYyE8lw0hQ...
| shiroiuma wrote:
| "loved by millions"? In all my years in the IT sector, I'm
| not sure I've ever met anyone who actually _loved_ Windows. I
| 've certainly seen my share of Apple fans (some people call
| them "cultists"), and of course plenty of Linux/FOSS
| devotees, but I've certainly never seen this kind of devotion
| in Windows users.
| vsnf wrote:
| I'm not as devoted to Windows as Apple people are to Apple,
| but I will happily go on record and say that at least from
| the perspective of a user, I'm a fan of windows.
| eviks wrote:
| But you don't love it unlike some more devoted people?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| You need intense love to use a mac without (real) games,
| or Linux without (meaningful) GUI. Windows has both, so
| it doesn't require devotion to use.
| irksomehails wrote:
| You might not see devoted Windows users like mac or Linux
| but if the Windows users were to try the other two, the
| majority of them are not going to like the experience and
| the limitations they come with.
| 59nadir wrote:
| Honestly, if you surprised me with a computer running
| Windows XP I think the most immediate feeling I would feel
| for that computer is love. Windows 95/98 would also bring
| up some feelings but not as much as XP.
|
| But yeah, "business as usual" Windows without nostalgia
| attached is hard to love, in my opinion. For the most part
| it just works decently but has a "It doesn't seem like I'm
| in control of my computer, really" feel to it.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| That comment is replying to someone saying "Windows is a
| rootkit". To me it looks like someone replying to an absurd,
| untrue statement about Windows with an obviously untrue,
| absurd statement about Linux.
|
| Unless this is part of a larger pattern of inaccurately
| describing Linux, I don't believe he literally believes what
| he is saying in this comment.
| randomifcpfan wrote:
| The Computer History Museum oral history interview with David
| Cutler is also very good:
|
| Part 1: https://youtu.be/29RkHH-psrY
|
| Part 2: https://youtu.be/SVgSLud50ss
| pjmlp wrote:
| Thanks for the heads up.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yes, having watched that I'm waiting to see if there's
| substantial difference in the content between the two. I've
| watched a few snippets of this new interview, but so far I am
| not sure I heard anything new.
| dboreham wrote:
| Nice to see the full 3h version posted here.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Looking back on all both Daves said, there is an extraordinary
| amount of attention paid to getting things done and out the door,
| and almost no mention of planning ahead, and actual security
| strategy. Its all commercial pressure to get the sausage out of
| the meat grinder, and keep the failures down to an acceptable
| level.
|
| No wonder things never get better, and never take a turn in the
| right direction, industry wide. I used to think we'd eventually
| get to capability based security, but now I see we'll always be
| stuck with application permission flags, the almost worthless
| bastard cousin, instead.
|
| I weep for the future.
| fassssst wrote:
| I mean a lot of this stuff was built before the internet.
| pdw wrote:
| More accurately, before Microsoft cared about the Internet.
| Aloha wrote:
| No, not just that, but before the idea that most systems
| would be internet connected.
|
| NT's design was started in 1989 and 3.1 was released in
| 1993 - development started a full 7 years before the idea
| of a connected world was commonplace, and a full 12 years
| before wide deployment of broadband.
|
| Whatever comes along that is a clean break with NT, and
| Unix - will have these assumptions built in.
| mikewarot wrote:
| POSIX is incompatible with security. Any such new system
| can not support it to have any hope of being secure. Do
| you think folks can live with that?
|
| It's like trying to introduce outlets and circuit
| breakers to folks used to just hot wiring directly to the
| grid.
|
| The idea of the OS directly enforcing the will of the
| user(through power boxes that return
| handles/capabilities, instead of dialogs that return
| names) takes a little adjustment.
| dboreham wrote:
| Not how I remembered this era. When I got my first NT
| beta CD in 1992 the place I worked already had public IP
| connectivity and NT already had working TCP/IP. We were
| pulling new beta releases down from the MS ftp server
| (rhino.microsoft.com) by early 1993. It was Windows 3.1
| that was developed without consideration of internet
| networking.
| subharmonicon wrote:
| Most execs at most companies really are driven by very short-
| term planning and thinking, as it benefits their career to do
| so. They just need enough good quarters/years to justify their
| promotion from VP to SVP or SVP to CEO. Nobody gets blamed and
| punished three years after they move on to a new role for the
| shortsighted choices they made in their previous role.
|
| Having said that, Cutler is not one of those execs, but was
| certainly subject to pressure from above to get systems out the
| door and keep the revenue stream coming in. As he mentions
| early in the interview, he's really bothered by shipping bugs,
| really disappointed with the quality of software engineers in
| the industry, and really bothered by program/project managers
| treating every bug like a rare corner case. I concur with him
| on all three. Most of the bugs I file are "corner cases", and
| yet I hit those issues every day and my bugs have multiple dups
| in the database and/or my bug gets duped back to an early
| report.
|
| Having spent a few decades in this industry, all of it in Big
| Tech, I have yet to come across a company that doesn't fold to
| the same sort of pressure, even if the engineers and first-
| level managers are pushing to get bugs fixed before shipping,
| and pushing for more frequent bug fix updates.
| esafak wrote:
| Steve Jobs pushed individual contributors to perfect products
| before shipping them. Bill Gates had no taste to justify any
| sort of perfectionism, or compunction against shipping buggy
| products (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84). It
| was all dollars and cents, as far as I can tell.
| subharmonicon wrote:
| As an Apple user since the launch of the original Mac, I
| guarantee there have never been any perfect Apple products.
|
| Every Mac OS until OS X crashed continuously on even
| moderate use. Thankfully Steve did manage to build better
| systems at NeXT and brought that technology back when Apple
| acquired NeXT and was able to substantially improve Apple's
| Mac product as a result.
|
| It's still far from "perfect products", though, even during
| the time period that Steve was still alive and at Apple. To
| your point, I do agree that things have gone downhill
| quality-wise since his death, but I attribute this as much
| to being completely schedule driven as I do to the
| personalities involved in managing the projects.
| eviks wrote:
| Why would you believe this easily disproven (via brief use
| of Apple products) myth???
| esafak wrote:
| I do use them. The hardware is impeccable. The software
| is admittedly more spotty. But even then, the OS is
| great. All in all, I can't think of a better platform or
| I'd use it.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| Short term planning can mean anything to an observer though.
| For some, that's the next cycle, others thats the next 10
| years.
|
| Microsoft employs a huge squadron of engineers, managers, and
| execs, all owning distinct products, tools, software, etc.
|
| They can have multiple people planning short and long term
| things, and they do. I doubt Microsoft will cease to exist
| within the next 10 years.
| Arainach wrote:
| Shipping is a feature. Nothing is ever done and nothing is
| ever bug free. Cutting the scope to have a complete product
| in finite time is the single most important part of product
| management.
| Philpax wrote:
| > I used to think we'd eventually get to capability based
| security, but now I see we'll always be stuck with application
| permission flags, the almost worthless bastard cousin, instead.
|
| My hope is that WASI will introduce capability based security
| to the mainstream on non-mobile computers [0] - it might just
| take some time for them to get it right. (And hopefully no
| half-baked status-quo-reinforcing regressive single-runtime-
| backed alternatives win in the meantime.)
|
| [0]:
| https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/blob/main/docs/...
| mikewarot wrote:
| Strong agree. My main concern is that someone will _" fix"_
| WASI by grafting on a POSIX extension and kill its security.
| hayley-patton wrote:
| WASIX?
| Philpax wrote:
| That was the unfortunate entity I was implying in my
| post, yes :(
| xyst wrote:
| The market rewards companies that get there first. Market and
| regulators hand out slaps on the wrist for lapses in security.
| Actually punished if you are second to market
| glhaynes wrote:
| At the time, Windows NT was lauded for having better security
| than its competitors. I remember "Department of Defense C2
| level security" being invoked often. It was a major selling
| point, though one that didn't feel relevant for most users (in
| fact, lots of people felt like "why would I need this?"; it
| made it seem like an OS that wasn't for "normal users").
|
| Early '90s conceptions of security--both what makes it and how
| relevant it is/for whom--don't match our expectations or what
| we consider state of the art today.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Windows XP still likely meets that standard as long as it's
| air-gapped and placed in a facility that has at least the
| equivalent level of access control, and never removed.
| pests wrote:
| ... and never used. That was the punchline?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I don't see why? You can safely use it as long as you
| don't ever connect it to anything that isn't also at the
| same or higher level of certification.
| Veserv wrote:
| Yeah, that was all marketing nonsense meant to confuse
| laypeople.
|
| TCSEC Level C2 was intentionally designed to be a "baby's
| first security certification" level meant to allow existing
| known insecure products to get a (low) rating so that
| commercial vendors could get familiar with the concept [1].
| It, at no point, was ever meant to indicate any meaningful
| level of security was achieved, just that you filed the
| paperwork. In fact, Level B1, the level above C2, was meant
| to be the "training wheels" level. Microsoft has still never
| achieved a security certification in the successor standard,
| the Common Criteria, that has reached the "training wheels"
| level.
|
| Microsoft security is a joke now and was a joke then, nothing
| has changed.
|
| [1] https://www.stevelipner.org/links/resources/The%20Birth%2
| 0an...
| helloooooooo wrote:
| Frankly, those are just box ticking exercises. Same with
| SOC certifications. Security is not a state of being, it is
| a process.
| Veserv wrote:
| In what world are formal proofs of correctness "box
| ticking exercises"?
|
| You are wrongly extrapolating that the lowest levels of
| certification, that were literally designed to allow
| people incapable of more than box ticking to be rated on
| a unified scale, somehow applies to the levels that were
| designed to evaluate actual security.
|
| That is like saying the Richter scale is useless because
| you can not even feel a 1.0 earthquake. That is the
| entire point. The _scale_ can _measure_ from very low to
| very high. You are complaining that the scale is useless
| because the lowest ratings are easy to get, yeah, duh,
| that is why they are _low_ ratings.
|
| However, you are correct for SOC. That is because the
| _highest_ ratings are easy to get and are mere box
| ticking exercises. If the _highest_ rating is easy, then
| the standard is useless for evaluating anything beyond
| that. This logic does not apply when a _low_ rating is
| easy to get; that just means anything which can only get
| a low rating sucks.
| astrange wrote:
| Adding the word "formal" to something doesn't mean it can
| do the impossible. It's not realistic to prove things
| correct, since it's both an impossible amount of work and
| you'll end up finding that your definition of "correct"
| was incorrect.
|
| (CompCert, a "formally correct C compiler", has had bugs
| found in it.)
| Veserv wrote:
| I do not see how that is relevant to my statement that
| formal methods, as required by the higher Common Criteria
| levels, do not constitute "box-ticking exercises".
|
| Or are you arguing that these standards which require
| proofs of correctness are useless because proofs of
| correctness are much less impressive than box ticking?
| astrange wrote:
| They are extremely expensive box ticking exercises.
|
| Furthermore, I don't think anything except box ticking
| exercises exists or could ever exist.
|
| You can only write down ways to make a process worse, not
| better.
| Veserv wrote:
| I know that I have more confidence in a proven compiler
| that is thoroughly tested over a random compiler Joe the
| intern slammed out, but you do not seem to think that
| way. That is fine, you do you.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Nothing realistically complex can be proven "correct".
| There is even a mathematical theorem about it - given a
| program's code, one can't even prove that it ever stops.
|
| One can, of course, apply proof of correctness to simple
| curcuits, where all possible inputs and outputs can be
| enumerated.
| Veserv wrote:
| That is a complete misunderstanding of consequences of
| Rice's theorem which generalizes the halting problem.
|
| You can not prove non-trivial properties about _all_
| programs that could could ever exist with no false
| positives or false negatives.
|
| You _can_ prove non-trivial properties about almost every
| program.
|
| For instance, if I want to disallow programs that will
| not halt, I can just reject any program with a unbounded
| loop. I may also reject programs with a unbounded loop
| that will halt, a false negative, but I do not care. I
| just want to be certain that I will never run a program
| that will not halt. I just decided: "will definitely halt
| for my purposes" even though the halting problem is
| unsolvable in general.
|
| This is generically true and is why formal methods work
| at all.
| kalleboo wrote:
| > _At the time, Windows NT was lauded for having better
| security than its competitors_
|
| But not as secure as the classic Mac OS!
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/19991128124149/http://www.dtic.m.
| ..
|
| > However, he said the Army has moved its web sites to a more
| secure platform. The Army had been using Windows NT and is
| currently using Mac OS servers running WebSTAR web server
| software for its home page web site. Unger said the reason
| for choosing this particular server and software is that
| according to the World Wide Web Consortium, it is more secure
| than its counterparts.
| subharmonicon wrote:
| > Unger said the reason for choosing this particular server
| and software is that according to the World Wide Web
| Consortium, it is more secure than its counterparts.
| According to the Consortium's published reports on its
| findings, Macintosh does not have a command shell, and
| because it does not allow remote logins, it is more secure
| than other platforms. The report also said the Consortium
| has found no specific security problems in either the
| software or the server.
|
| That's a rather dubious conclusion if based on that
| criteria.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Their EULA absolves them from _all_ consequences! why would
| they care what happens to your computer after they get their
| chunk? That could arguably be the biggest economic contribution
| software has "given" us, these binding agreements that "we'll
| take your money, but we _don 't promise you anything_, Sucker!"
| jmbwell wrote:
| For those who misread the title as I did, this is not Dave
| Coulier. Moreover, it is not Dave Coulier wearing stonewashed
| jeans and a mullet, making Full House era jokes, in a forgotten
| Microsoft promotional video about Windows 95.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| cut it out!
| jmmv wrote:
| I'll recommend here the book "Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to
| Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft", which
| someone else recommended a few weeks ago. Link:
|
| I'm still reading it, but it's really enjoyable. And it makes me
| wish I had been part of that history. Particularly the whole
| thing about dogfooding a brand new OS. But it caught me a few
| years too early.
| _mlvljr wrote:
| How about https://www.amazon.com/Barbarians-Bill-Gates-
| Jennifer-Edstro... ? :)
| dblohm7 wrote:
| Also a great book
| reubenswartz wrote:
| Great book. I remember reading it on the flight out to a job
| interview with an OS team. Thanks to the book, I sounded much
| more knowledgable than I really was, and I was more excited
| about the whole space than I had been a few days earlier. ;-)
|
| (Got the offer, but didn't end up taking the job.)
| dewey wrote:
| I came here to mention exactly that, I read it a few months ago
| and really enjoyed it too.
|
| Relevant too: https://blog.codinghorror.com/showstopper/
| trentnelson wrote:
| Fantastic book that had a huge impact on me. I reached out to
| the author on Twitter way back to tell him how much I liked it,
| and he was really nice.
| CurtHagenlocher wrote:
| I knew someone who worked on the Windows kernel in the "aughts".
| Apparently, Dave Cutler was still looking at kernel code reviews
| back then, and could be quite unsparing in his feedback.
| oaiey wrote:
| Sounds like another kernel maintainer we all know.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Hard to believe this guy is 81. He looks and sounds like he's in
| his late 60s.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| We've got such range as a species. Yesterday I read about a 99
| year old walking up 1776 stairs of the CN Tower. I'd probably
| require medevac if I tried that.
| sgt wrote:
| He looks 65 to 66, but his ears give it away. Definitely in his
| 80s. However, his energy is that of someone in their 30s or
| 40s!
| TMWNN wrote:
| Cutler was a total jock in high school and college. <https://ar
| chive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19930516&slug...>
| _Showstopper_ talks about his continued focus on athletics
| while whipping the NT team to finish the job and get it out the
| door.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I've been watching Dave's garage for a while now and really love
| it. The combination of new projects and "war stories" as well as
| his personality ticks all the boxes for me.
| fidotron wrote:
| This is fascinating in so many respects. One is it is almost like
| his whole career developed through a series of events attempting
| to escape the usual bureaucracy of successful companies.
| petercooper wrote:
| The bit I found interesting was how Xbox's hypervisor is based on
| that of Azure, rather than anything they did on the desktop, and
| that Xbox games are/were packaged up with an OS rather than
| relying on a single OS on the device, so a bit more like
| containers. Dave also said he's working on making ML workloads
| run on idle Xbox Cloud Gaming devices. Any architectural tie
| between Azure and Xbox had never occurred to me before.
| muststopmyths wrote:
| Packaging a game with the entire OS was very common in all
| consoles, since the game was supposed to be the only thing
| running, and in real time .
| dijit wrote:
| _sort of_ , if you go back into the NES and Gameboy days,
| sure, but PS2/Xbox had an operating system that it loaded and
| so did PS3/Xbox 360.
|
| Microsoft took a step "backwards" in allowing it to load any
| variant of the SDK that you built the game with.
|
| In contrast, you had to keep rebuilding your PS4 games when
| they came out with new major SDK versions, so the development
| experience was definitely better on the xbox one. (oh, and
| you could turn a test kit into a retail kit was great too, as
| someone who worked closer to live operations than dev only).
| mhh__ wrote:
| The Wii UI is partly a library (shared library even?) iirc
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Unikernel, baby! (Everything old really is new again, and I
| love it)
| TMWNN wrote:
| Many PC games through the mid-1980s were shipped as booters,
| for ease of use and for copy protection. The growing
| popularity of hard drives caused the shift to key disks, code
| wheels/books, and other forms of copy protection. Same for
| many Apple II games.
|
| Although C64 does not have disk autoboot, one can argue that
| the same principle exists there too, again because of copy
| protection; many Commodore disk games use custom disk formats
| that Commodore DOS cannot read. `LOAD "*",8,1` loads a
| boostrap that in turn reprograms the drive to load the format
| for the rest of the game.
| helloooooooo wrote:
| The hypervisor in Azure, Xbox and Windows are all the same:
| HyperV.
| spaintech wrote:
| Hey Torrent, can you provide a reliable source for that info?
| Recently, I've noticed a surge in Domain Specific VMs even in
| userland for Linux (like Google Falcon). This has led me to
| wonder if a boot loader combined with a bytecode VM could
| optimize performance in not only games but also various
| applications. I tried checking an Xbox game binary for traces
| of a VM. Given the potential for encryption obfuscation, I
| assumed the binaries might be encrypted and didn't dig
| deeper. I'm not familiar with the gaming or pirating scenes,
| so this is all novel to me. But I'm keen on exploring this
| idea further. What can HyperV bring to the table in this
| context?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| There is an amazing video about Xbox security. It's extreme.
|
| For example the games executables are actually encrypted on the
| game discs, and it's almost impossible to even dump the actual
| binary that is running. RAM is also encrypted.
|
| Or the reason modern TPMs live inside the CPU is to prevent
| sniffing the TPM bus which people did on the Xbox.
| azalemeth wrote:
| The part about that video that makes me resolve to never buy
| an XBox is when they explicitly state that the user is
| considered hostile and the threat vector - hence the silicon-
| level DRM that requires a clean room, electron microscope,
| and molecular beam epitaxy to reverse (which their crypto
| algorithms also assume _will_ happen, what with the whole
| pubkey /privkey root of trust and all...).
|
| I'd like to be treated as a customer, and allowed to play on
| the hardware I just paid a lot of money to buy!
| ErneX wrote:
| I prefer that so we don't get cheaters in online games for
| example.
|
| Consoles are cheap too, so not a lot a money.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Is it not unbelievably rare to get an interview with Dave Cutler
| or even to get him to speak on camera at all?
| Kwpolska wrote:
| It's probably easier if you're a former Microsoft employee who
| worked on Windows.
| dboreham wrote:
| Yes. Everything I've heard about Cutler prior to the CHM
| interviews came from people I know who worked with him.
| xyst wrote:
| Not a fan of MS as a business.
|
| But the tech that built the business is fascinating. Surprised to
| see an 81 y/o still working. Dude looks good.
|
| Haven't fully watched the episode (3hrs long!). But it's queued.
| tbalci wrote:
| Dave Plummer is making an amazing job in his channel with the
| things about Microsoft. This interview with Dave Cutler cannot be
| missed.
| rvba wrote:
| Dave somehow looks like he aged 5-10 years when compared to his
| first videos
| sgt wrote:
| Maybe just the beard?
| eismcc wrote:
| I worked in the windows kernel team and my favorite story about
| DC is when he basically made x64 happen because he hated Itanium
| architecture so much. He worked with AMD and basically made it
| happen while cranking in his corner office.
| CSSer wrote:
| There's a little segment where he talks about that! It blew me
| away because he so casually mentions how it happened as a side
| project. I hope someday I can manage to put something that
| impressive together in my free time.
| bitwize wrote:
| What's intriguing to me is that Itanic was the "fetch" that
| Intel tried to make happen not once, not twice, but three
| times: once as iAPX 432, once as i860, and once as Itanium. The
| whole idea of "pack multiple (often variable bit-length)
| instructions into a word and rely on compiler writers to
| determine optimal instruction packings" to make implementation
| simpler and therefore hopefully faster, but woe betide thee if
| thy compiler dost not find such optimal instruction packings;
| for then thy CPU will actually run code _more slowly_ than a
| conventional design like x86! Someone very high up at Intel
| must 've been very in love with this idea, as it was tried and
| flopped thrice throughout Intel's entire history as a major
| microprocessor vendor.
|
| I didn't think AMD64 was a good idea at the time because it was
| more of the same. But good on Dave for helping eliminate the
| cruft that pretty much killed the RISC revolution.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Funny in contrast to all the "I want the cpu to do what I
| tell it and nothing else" comments in every thread about
| speculative execution.
| philjohn wrote:
| Thinking about instruction packing and if this is something a
| JIT could have helped with, if we'd had state-of-the-art
| JIT's at the time.
| astrange wrote:
| Unfortunately it can't work well because memory latency is
| so high and variable.
|
| It has been used in GPUs though.
| cpeterso wrote:
| I was an SDET on the Windows team in the 2000/XP era and heard
| that the internal code name for the x64 port was "Sundown"
| because Microsoft was hoping it would take down Sun in the
| server market. Unfortunately for Microsoft, that prize went to
| Linux on x86-64.
| astrange wrote:
| Microsoft also wanted to "destroy Sony" in gaming and so
| codenamed Xbox and DirectX after a WW2 battle that Japan lost
| and the US atomic bomb project.
|
| Presumably the resulting bad karma is why the Xbox never sold
| well in Japan.
| trentnelson wrote:
| One of my favorite technical papers covers the AMD x64
| inception -- it's gold if you're into low-level OS internals:
| https://github.com/tpn/pdfs/blob/master/A%20History%20of%20M...
| cfn wrote:
| Cutler: ...Microsoft had DOS which was pathetic... Dave: .. I
| wrote some of that!
|
| That was hilarious. I still remember how good NT even though it
| struggled in my 486 with 4Mb of RAM, Dave Cutler is a legend.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Near the tail end of WinNT 3.1 development, I read an article
| (possibly from Usenet) about someone creating a screensaver that
| showed a bluescreen.
|
| I had never created a screensaver before.
|
| I could reliably cause my WinNT dev box to bluescreen due to a
| bug in an internal Microsoft network driver.
|
| So I read the docs for writing a Windows screensaver. After
| writing down the values shown for my bluescreen, I cobbled
| together my first and only Windows screensaver.
|
| I sent an email to the Windows NT group announcing my creation
| for laughs and giggles.
|
| A few weeks later, the NT build group decided to play a prank on
| Dave Cutler.
|
| They installed my bluescreen screensaver on one of their build
| servers.
|
| They also unplugged the mouse and keyboard from the build server.
|
| Then they waited...
|
| Dave Cutler comes in to check on the status of the latest NT
| build.
|
| He turns on the monitor and sees a bluescreen.
|
| He tries moving the mouse.
|
| Nothing.
|
| He tries typing on the keyboard.
|
| Nothing.
|
| Then the unanticipated happens.
|
| He reaches over and pushes the power button on the build server
| to reboot the build server.
|
| NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
|
| I never heard about the aftermath/any fallout from their prank.
|
| With great power comes great responsibility.
| macintux wrote:
| How in the world was that unanticipated?
| ww520 wrote:
| Because a blue screen is a nice spot to debug. It's like an
| assert statement. You want to find out what's the error code,
| where it happens, and why. Even a vague location can narrow
| down the problematic area.
| justin66 wrote:
| Right, and you can look into all of that... after you
| restart the machine
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I guess if you're in the OS Dev group maybe they can
| attach a debugger to the live system?
| mechanicker wrote:
| Was the BSOD screensaver from sysinternals by Mark Russinovich?
|
| I had installed the same and couple of my colleagues sitting
| around me had done the same.
|
| Our CTO (Robotics simulation software) was visiting and had an
| early morning meeting. He saw this on all screens and had a
| minor panic attack fearing a virus outbreak or software bug.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| A much younger version of myself put that screensaver on my
| workstation at work.
|
| A week or so later, one the IT folks passes me at lunch --
| "Hey, your computer is on the fritz, it keeps rebooting and
| going to a blue screen ..." :)
| gregmac wrote:
| I installed that on a housemate's PC and waited for his
| reaction in the next couple days... But it never came. And so
| I forgot about it.
|
| I moved out. It must have been a couple months later (we were
| and still are good friends), we're out somewhere and the
| first thing he says to me "did you install a BSOD screensaver
| on my computer?!?" And I suddenly remembered, realized it had
| been _months_ and started laughing.
|
| What's hilarious is he never tried pressing anything or
| moving the mouse.. since, being a developer, he knew that was
| pointless. He'd sit down, see the BSOD, (often swear,) then
| just press the hard reset button. In true evil fashion, I
| think I set it to a long interval, like 2 hours, so it only
| activated if he walked away but left it running.
|
| I do still feel a bit bad about it. But only a bit. :)
| fuzztester wrote:
| Unix koans: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7286973
| spondyl wrote:
| I haven't watched this video yet but I'm looking forward to it,
| having read Showstopper[1] quite a few years back.
|
| One thing that stuck out to me when I was still in my early 20s
| thinking I needed to work all the time was the mention that Dave
| would always take holidays on time, every time without any
| debate.
|
| While I may not love Microsoft, it was probably my first real
| exposure of a highly competent and qualified person who wasn't
| grinding 24/7.
|
| It still feels nuts to write it but it's a holdover from rural
| (and retail) life where the mindset is basically "The more you
| suffer, the more virtuous you are".
|
| As much as I still struggle to properly take time off (that is,
| it's easy to postpone because of X or Y being more important),
| thinking about Dave's view is always a good reminder that it's
| not a choice between taking a break and being good at X.
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-
| Mic...
| fatherzine wrote:
| I wish I would have more spiritual and material insights onto
| how the 24/7 grind mindset became widespread in USA, possibly
| via Calvinism and the Protestant work ethic. The foundations do
| prescribe regular perusal of relief valves.
|
| 8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
|
| 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
|
| 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in
| it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy
| daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,
| nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
|
| 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and
| all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the
| Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
|
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2020&ver...
| mmastrac wrote:
| 24/6 grind kinda sucks though. We need three point five
| Sabbath days really.
| fatherzine wrote:
| Pure personal anecdote, a couple years back I did
| explicitly choose to observe 'zero work Sundays', either
| office or domestic. Rejecting the oft self-induced guilt
| for daring to catch my breath 1/7 made a measurable dent in
| improving QoL. While YMMV, give it a try. Usually stuff can
| wait a day.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I have noticed this too. Often people spend the weekend
| doing housework, personal projects or other chores so it
| doesn't really feel much like a rest day.
|
| I don't always have the chance, but truly doing no work
| one day a week is very refreshing.
| thinkerswell wrote:
| But the puritans would also recognize the value of rest,
| along with the folly of overworking for riches.
| joshspankit wrote:
| And really, it primarily benefits business _owners_ who live by
| a different motto (making money work for you). Each employee
| who "puts the nose to the grindstone" /"puts their back in to
| it" generates more profit for the company but doesn't need to
| be paid more. Then when their health deteriorates enough that
| they can't do the work they can be replaced.
|
| Apologies for the roughness of this late-night reply. I feel
| like people here know this intuitively already anyway.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I read the same book you did. How is it that I got the
| impression from the book that most people (Microsofties)
| actually did overtime voluntarily? I mean Microsoft didn't have
| to pay overtime because the employees all thought they were
| sufficiently compensated by the stock price going up!
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| Interesting tidbit.. DC mentions he's using 96 core Thread
| Ripper.. which got announced 1 day before the release of the
| video.
| Keyframe wrote:
| I caught that too! It's either he got an early proc since he's
| Dave Cutler (see his other mentions of AMD in the talk) or he
| confused it with EPYC. Considering he mentioned he has two
| machines, the other 64-core and how AMD approached him before
| on 64-bit and all.. I'd venture to guess he got in early.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| > Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing
| to do
|
| Love it
| trentnelson wrote:
| One of the most pivotal moments in my software engineering career
| came from reading the leaked NT source code (6-7 years ago) in
| conjunction with reading the Showstopper[1] book. The NT leak is
| particularly fascinating because it included all of the author
| history, so you can see exactly what files Dave Cutler worked on.
| The book goes into detail about how we ended up with things like
| kernel modules having pageable sections -- which is fascinating
| in its own right.
|
| The book describes Cutler coming in and revamping certain
| assembly routines and you can see exactly what routines are being
| talked about in the actual source code.
|
| Cutler's code was (and I'm sure still is) absolutely beautiful C
| code. It really impacted the way I write NT-style C code.
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-
| Mic...
| trentnelson wrote:
| I keep meaning to try ask Bill Gates this question whenever he
| does one of his Reddit AMAs:
|
| Bill, what are you most proud of out of the following two:
|
| 1. Getting Cutler to come over from DEC and spearhead NT.
|
| 2. Committing to backwards compatibility early on, that ensured
| old apps Just Worked on new versions of Windows.
|
| I don't think Microsoft would look like it currently does without
| either of those two historical paths taken.
| leecommamichael wrote:
| Cutler credits Steve Ballmer as the reason he joined Microsoft
| in the linked video.
| trentnelson wrote:
| Oh, absolutely. I more meant from the "CEO of Microsoft"
| perspective; I guess I could ask Ballmer the same thing if he
| did an AMA.
| HankB99 wrote:
| I was hoping to get some insight into the roots of NT. At the
| time my understanding was that it resulted from the split between
| IBM and MSFT and that MSFT was already developing NT based on
| their derivative of OS/2. That was IIRC before Dave Cutler went
| to MSFT.
|
| Later on that (OS/2 -> NT) seems to have been scrubbed from
| history and NT is now derived from VMS. I'm curious where the
| truth lies.
|
| It was well documented at the time that early NT error messages
| occasionally identified themselves as OS/2.
|
| I'm over an hour in and not sure how close I'm getting to that.
| At about 1:09:00 Cutler states that they "developed NT on OS/2"
| but I think he meant their toolchain was hosted on OS/2 (and they
| couldn't wait to get off of it.)
| twoodfin wrote:
| The Smithsonian has a copy of the "NT OS/2 Design Workbook" by
| Cutler and others on the team. I don't think there's a piece of
| technical writing I'd more like to read.
|
| https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma...
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