December 2006 - Posts
OK, so now I've had two Aussies ping me in the last 24 hours since the debacle of England losing the 2nd Test. Losing the first wasn't good enough for us.
How we lost this one, I'll never know. Well, I do - England lost nine wickets for 60 in 43 overs in the last innings. Our batsmen apparently decided that the fifth day of test would be a good time to practice their impressions of Lemmings. That, after scoring 551 in the first innings is, frankly, Un-Funking-Believable.
And thanks to Phil, I have come to realise that I may in fact not be the only one to be suffering mild depression given the Australians are now two up on the Ashes series. Save Our Souls...
I've had a one of those damn wisdom teeth causing me some grief lately. What a pain. And what nonsense.
It's my view that evolution has generally done an excellent job in developing stuff that 'just works' and eases out stuff that just doesn't. But when it comes to human teeth 'design', evolution gets a clear 'D-' from me a least. The wisdom teeth in particular, what a joke.
Really, why can't our teeth do what sharks' teeth do? You know, bite through anything and, if you lose a tooth, well hey - grow a new one...all part of a days work! No, no...ours have to chip, get crooked, acquire 'cavaties' and 'decay', we need fillings and crowns or get them removed entirely, and blah, blah, blah.. And even if you do happen to be genetically blessed with a strong and straight set of teeth, and even if you have taken care of them all your life, you've still got a good chance that those bastard wisdoms are going to randomly stir into action and cause mysery. Bah!
I've been brought up to believe widom teeth are artifacts of our evolutionary process. Or could it be, as some are arguing, that the wisdom tooth is in fact an 'inconvenient tooth', that it is clear evidence of intelligent design and not a vestigal organ? (I didn't realise teeth were organs?...)
If wisdom teeth are the product of an 'intelligent designer', I have to ask - what the hell was he (or she) smoking when they were at the drawing board?
Earlier this year I read Joel Spolsky's 'Joel on Software'. It's a collection of his blog posts bundled up into a real-world book on topics ranging from tips on code development, to advice on managing programmers, to strategies on running a successful small software business. As an ex-Microsoft employee (he was a program manager on the Excel product team), Spolsky's criticisms of Microsoft practices and strategy can be insightful, if not entertaining...
Now, I started reading the book soon after I joined the Data Programmability team to focus on our community efforts, so you could see why the following paragraph from his Fire and Motion blog post / essay made me sit up and pay attention:
"Think of the history of data access strategies to come out of Microsoft. ODBC, RDO, DAO, ADO, OLEDB, now ADO.NET - All New! Are these technological imperatives? The result of an incompetent design group that needs to reinvent data access every goddamn year? (That's probably it, actually.)"
Hey!! He was talking about my team here and the technologies my team is responsible for. And not only that, he was doing so in a well read book (amongst software developers at least), accusing us (at least with some tongue in cheek) of incompetence!!
I asked around our team: why is the history of data access technologies at Microsoft the way it is? How did we get to where we are today? As a newbie to team I wanted to know the history and to somehow get our own historical perspective out there.
So I asked Mike Pizzo, a Microsoft veteran who has been a member of the team responsible for the 'alphabet soup' of data access technologies at Microsoft for the last 15 years (yes, fifteen) if he would blog something on this topic. To my delight, he agreed.
Today, Mike published Part I – The Early Years, the first blog post in a great series of four documenting the history of data access at Microsoft. I think it's a classic. Enjoy.
"Following is a short history of the evolution of Microsoft Data Access APIs in four parts (so far…)
- Part I – The Early Years (ODBC, DAO, RDO, ODBCDirect)
- Part II – Componentizing Data Access (OLE DB)
- Part III – Disconnected Programming in a Managed Environment (ADO.NET)
- Part IV – Programming at the Conceptual Model (ADO.NET Entities and LINQ)
My goal is to describe the industry trends, platform shifts, and usage scenarios that shaped our API landscape over the past 15 years (and, in the retelling, perhaps receive some absolution for my sins…)"
Bacteria rules. Adopt a Microbe.
Thank you Kent.
Nathan at Inside Microsoft has the links to some new Windows Live mobile app goodness with some tasty screenshots too.
"The Windows Live folks have released a really cool application for mobile phones, one that makes it easier to check out maps and find driving directions and traffic conditions. The application is available by pointing your mobile browser at wls.live.com, and comes in two version: one for J2ME platforms, and one for Windows Mobile devices."
Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley has published her 2007 predictions on Microsoft...
"This time around, I've decided to break my traditional Top 10 predictions list in two: One half being what I consider relatively safe and well-considered bets on what Microsoft is likely to do (and is likely to fail to do) in 2007, and the other my out-on-a-limb list of Microsoft predictions."
Of the out-on-a-limb list, I thought this one interesting:
"4. Adobe will sue Microsoft. Adobe almost sued Microsoft in June -- if you believe the press reports -- but didn't actually pull the trigger. But once Microsoft ships its Expression design tools (meant to compete with Dreamweaver et al) and Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/e) Flash-killer in 2007, watch Adobe's legal department kick into action."
hmmm...("WTF is WPF/e???" I hear you ask!...check this post by Ryan Stewart, the new MSDN WPF/e site and JD's (of Adobe) links on Adobe / Microsoft, plus some Channel 9 vids here and here)
And a relatively safe and well-considered bet?
"I foresee 2007 as the year that Microsoft gets tougher on its bloggers."
I don't know about this one...and I don't know why she believes this. She mentions that Mini-Microsoft has been 'wavering' in its criticism of Microsoft, but there's nothing that Microsoft could have done even if it wanted to in this case (after all, Mini-Microsoft was / is anonymous) and goes on from there to say a general clamp down will be forthcoming. I don't see the connection.
Arguably, Microsoft's support and encouragement of blogging has paid off to date in that it has provided a great deal of transparency into the company where it was lacking previously and helped demystify it in the customers eyes by providing direct access channels for dialogue with employees from hundreds of product teams. Why would Microsoft 'get tougher'? What would that mean? Yes, mistakes will happen (e.g. overly enthusiastic timing of product news ) and errors of judgement will be made (e.g. accidental disclosure of stuff under NDA, or bad-mouthing competition), but these are the risks involved when you trust your employees to blog.
As blogging become an increasingly powerful way of connecting with customers, the best an employer could and should do is educate its employees on how to 'Blog Smart', not to 'get tough'. If you need to 'get tougher' with your employees, the real problem you have is that you need smarter employees.
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