Microsoft and software engineering

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
Date: September 23, 2005 5:57:22 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Microsoft and software engineering


There was a long article on the front page of today's Wall Street
Journal about how Microsoft is finally starting to appreciate the
tenets of software engineering.  For a long time, they didn't:

    The news got even worse: Longhorn was irredeemable because  
Microsoft
    engineers were building it just as they had always built software.
    Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers
    each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it
    together into one sprawling program. Now, Mr. Allchin argued, the
    jig was up. Microsoft needed to start over.

The rationale within the company was classic; so were the consequences.

    But as personal computers
    took off in the 1980s, companies like Microsoft didn't have time
    for that. PC users wanted cool and useful features quickly. They
    tolerated -- or didn't notice -- the bugs riddling the software.
    Problems could always be patched over. With each patch and  
enhancement,
    it became harder to strap new features onto the software since new
    code could affect everything else in unpredictable ways.

Some people, such as Jim Allchin, realized this all along, but couldn't
get any traction to change it.  The article indicates that Gates didn't
understand the scope of the problem.  Furthermore, and not
surprisingly, there was a lot of resistance from the progammers who
enjoyed the lack of structure.  Apparently, though, now that some of
the new techniques and tools are starting to show their worth, people
are starting to accept them.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the article; I have no idea how
things are done inside Microsoft.  It is very clear to me, though, that
if matters were as described, no one with any background in software
engineering should be even slightly surprised by the state of Windows.

        --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb




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