Sunday, July 4, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
So you love Windows?
Here is what MS Developers have to say about their own code!!. Having been there, I can vouch for the fact that the development practise is still to put 20 developers in a room and ask each one to go and do something by himself/ herself!!!
http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS_2.html
In the file private\ntos\rtl\heap.c, which dates from 1989:
// The specific idiot in this case is Office95, which likes
// to free a random pointer when you start Word95 from a desktop
// shortcut.
In the file private\ntos\w32\ntuser\kernel\swp.c from 11-Jul-1991:
// for idiots like MS-Access 2.0 who SetWindowPos( SWP_BOZO )
// and blow away themselves on the shell, then lets
// just ignore their plea to be removed from the tray.
Morons are also to be found in the file private\genx\shell\inc\prsht.w:
// We are such morons. Wiz97 underwent a redesign between IE4 and IE5
And in private\shell\shdoc401\unicpp\desktop.cpp:
// We are morons. We changed the IDeskTray interface between IE4
In private\shell\browseui\itbar.cpp:
// should be fixed in the apps themselves. Morons!
As well in private\shell\ext\ftp\ftpdrop.cpp:
We have to do this only because Exchange is a moron.
Microsoft programmers also take their duty to warn their fellow developers seriously against unsavory practices, which are apparently committed on a regular basis. There are over 4,000 references to "hacks". These include:
In the file private\inet\mshtml\src\core\cdbase\baseprop.cxx:
// HACK! HACK! HACK! (MohanB) In order to fix #64710
// at this very late date
In private\inet\mshtml\src\core\cdutil\genutil.cxx:
// HACK HACK HACK. REMOVE THIS ONCE MARLETT IS AROUND
In private\inet\mshtml\src\site\layout\flowlyt.cxx:
// God, I hate this hack ...
In private\inet\wininet\urlcache\cachecfg.cxx:
// Dumb hack for back compatibility. *sigh*
In private\ispu\pkitrust\trustui\acuictl.cpp:
// ACHTUNG! HACK ON TOP OF HACK ALERT:
// Believe it or not there is no way to get current height
In private\ntos\udfs\devctrl.c:
// Add to the hack-o-rama to fix formats.
In private\shell\shdoc401\unicpp\sendto.cpp:
// Mondo hackitude-o-rama.
In private\ntos\w32\ntcon\server\link.c:
// HUGE, HUGE hack-o-rama to get NTSD started on this process!
In private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\dlgmgr.c:
// HACK OF DEATH!!
In private\shell\lib\util.cpp:
// TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD HACK
In private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\nt6\user.h:
// The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that
// of the national debt.
http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS_2.html
In the file private\ntos\rtl\heap.c, which dates from 1989:
// The specific idiot in this case is Office95, which likes
// to free a random pointer when you start Word95 from a desktop
// shortcut.
In the file private\ntos\w32\ntuser\kernel\swp.c from 11-Jul-1991:
// for idiots like MS-Access 2.0 who SetWindowPos( SWP_BOZO )
// and blow away themselves on the shell, then lets
// just ignore their plea to be removed from the tray.
Morons are also to be found in the file private\genx\shell\inc\prsht.w:
// We are such morons. Wiz97 underwent a redesign between IE4 and IE5
And in private\shell\shdoc401\unicpp\desktop.cpp:
// We are morons. We changed the IDeskTray interface between IE4
In private\shell\browseui\itbar.cpp:
// should be fixed in the apps themselves. Morons!
As well in private\shell\ext\ftp\ftpdrop.cpp:
We have to do this only because Exchange is a moron.
Microsoft programmers also take their duty to warn their fellow developers seriously against unsavory practices, which are apparently committed on a regular basis. There are over 4,000 references to "hacks". These include:
In the file private\inet\mshtml\src\core\cdbase\baseprop.cxx:
// HACK! HACK! HACK! (MohanB) In order to fix #64710
// at this very late date
In private\inet\mshtml\src\core\cdutil\genutil.cxx:
// HACK HACK HACK. REMOVE THIS ONCE MARLETT IS AROUND
In private\inet\mshtml\src\site\layout\flowlyt.cxx:
// God, I hate this hack ...
In private\inet\wininet\urlcache\cachecfg.cxx:
// Dumb hack for back compatibility. *sigh*
In private\ispu\pkitrust\trustui\acuictl.cpp:
// ACHTUNG! HACK ON TOP OF HACK ALERT:
// Believe it or not there is no way to get current height
In private\ntos\udfs\devctrl.c:
// Add to the hack-o-rama to fix formats.
In private\shell\shdoc401\unicpp\sendto.cpp:
// Mondo hackitude-o-rama.
In private\ntos\w32\ntcon\server\link.c:
// HUGE, HUGE hack-o-rama to get NTSD started on this process!
In private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\dlgmgr.c:
// HACK OF DEATH!!
In private\shell\lib\util.cpp:
// TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD HACK
In private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\nt6\user.h:
// The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that
// of the national debt.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
How MGSI is destroying Engineering Talent in India
Similar to the British and East India Company who wanted to make all Indians clerks. Today MGSI has succeeded in hiring the cream of the Indian software talent and destroying the future of Indian software by making them work as coolies in their Hyderabad Sweatshop office.
Just imagine, if we had a future Sergey or Bill Gates, he must be sweating under the chains and whip of the managers in MGSI or working in some shanty town in South Africa.
While working there, I have seen so many brilliant, but very unhappy senior engineers who were trapped there for some reason or the other. As the taxi driver who drove me to the office every morning said to me -
"Sir, don't be so happy and optimistic. I have been dropping off Microsoft Employees for a long time now. This is the most brutal work environment in the world. I have seen many engineers come and go from here. They suck your blood here, and you are trapped for now."
How very true were these words from a honest, hardworking person who has seen the turmoil in the engineers life through his own eyes every day morning and evening!
They are not doing us a favor by being in India. They are exploiting our intelligent engineers, and making sure, none of these young boys and girls ever build anything great and continue to toil away silently suffering day in and day out.
Just imagine, if we had a future Sergey or Bill Gates, he must be sweating under the chains and whip of the managers in MGSI or working in some shanty town in South Africa.
While working there, I have seen so many brilliant, but very unhappy senior engineers who were trapped there for some reason or the other. As the taxi driver who drove me to the office every morning said to me -
"Sir, don't be so happy and optimistic. I have been dropping off Microsoft Employees for a long time now. This is the most brutal work environment in the world. I have seen many engineers come and go from here. They suck your blood here, and you are trapped for now."
How very true were these words from a honest, hardworking person who has seen the turmoil in the engineers life through his own eyes every day morning and evening!
They are not doing us a favor by being in India. They are exploiting our intelligent engineers, and making sure, none of these young boys and girls ever build anything great and continue to toil away silently suffering day in and day out.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The truth about Microsoft Global Services India
Last year, I decided to go back to India for good even though I had a green card and home in the US. So, leaving my $150K salary, SUV, house and sending all the stuff back home, I decided to go back to “my” home country India. It was all good until I was approached to interview by MGSI – Microsoft Global Services, India, which is a 100% subsidiary of MCS, USA. For the client “MGSI” is invisible. It is just MCS.
I had a lot of telephonic interviews, and finally got called to Hyderabad India for my final face to face interview. I was happy because I always wanted to join Microsoft as my work experience is mostly in MS Technologies. I completed a practical test with a fully working demo, which passed with flying colors. Then I cleared my final interview with one of the directors in MGSI. So far so good. The only thing was the people there looked dull and morose, and this stuck in my mind when I went back home.
You know Indian families – they were overjoyed that I got in Microsoft, and I decided to join. I was very trusting of Microsoft as they are a very large company and I always admired them. I joined even before getting a formal letter or knowing the exact terms. It took them 3 weeks to give me the letter which had weird details like a slightly different salary structure than what I expected (in the US, if it is 100K, it is 100K, not 75K actually). This was the first sign that things were run differently in India. Then it had really draconian terms like 90 day notice period or otherwise I would have to pay them 2 months salary and relocation costs.
MS has the weird policy that if they took in a person for a particular position, even if the hired person had no idea or experience with that technology, without giving any training on the same, they would simply put him in a project on that technology.
I did get time to study and I did study and worked without too much difficulty in a large project. I have to say one thing about MGSI that these people have no culture or respect for others. The office was the worst kind of hostile, abusive environment I have ever seen in my experience. Even if you did do good work, it was not acknowledged, and people would treat you brutally.
I talked to people who worked there for several years, and no one was happy working there. This is because everyone knows that SharePoint is built on very old and very ancient COM technology and is very difficult to work with. Nobody wanted to work on it, but they were forced to, because usually the work done by MGSI was that which nobody wanted to touch in the US.
I also learnt that Microsoft does not care about anything except making money, even if it means selling what everyone knew as bad obsolete technology, if it meant they could make money out of licenses.
So, the morale was very, very low. In addition to all of these constraints, people had to travel a lot during the year, get paid in rupees, while they hardly got to stay at home with family. You would be in places like Egypt, South Africa or Vietnam all the time. The worst thing was this was the first large company where even people who worked there for a long time were unhappy with it. In the words of one person: “I hate it here, I wish I could leave, but I can’t”. He never told me why exactly he couldn’t leave even though he had been working there for a long time.
Very many people started leaving MS, because of this they added this draconian 90 day notice period to the employment agreement.
I worked there for a few months, and in the meantime, explained the problems to my manager who told me that, they already knew that this guy was abusive, disrupting work and were working on it. I made the mistake of believing him, only to find out that they kept him in the same position, and actually gave him a promotion. So, thing obviously got very bad.
I had great difficult keeping my hands off this guy towards the end, because I wanted to slap him hard the next time he said something rude and brutal.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I resigned one fine day, and went away. I explained the truth in my resignation letter and talked to a few managers. I definitely did not want to work in a company like this.
The truth about Microsoft in India is that, they hire very talented people through extensive interviews. Maybe one in 300, and give them really junk work which nobody in the US wants to touch. If by mistake, some good work does come to India, then when focus shifts to that, they move it back to Redmond. Some of the people they hire come from outside the country like me. And we feel very let down by this experience.
This is true exploitation of talented Indian software engineers and making sure that, they never get a chance to realize their true potential. It is like taking the best grads from a college and making them work in an abusive sweatshop environment. This is the worst part about Microsoft in India. I sacrificed a lot to come back to India, and I was let down. I will never make the mistake again.
Let everyone know the truth about what really MGSI is:
1. They cheat and lie to their customers.
2. Their own employees don’t feel happy doing this day in and day out.
3. They are the most arrogant, cruel and abusive, uncultured people I have ever met.
4. They tarnish the image of the parent company.
5. There is no software process or SDLC in place.
6. If good code means ignoring requirements and just making sure that the code passes the rules engine, this is what they do.
7. Their idea of software development is to hire 10 engineers, tell them to do something and sleep over it.
8. They are busier trading blames with each other than anything else.
9. Forget international quality, even local Indian companies do a better job.
10. They have a closed mind.
I had a lot of telephonic interviews, and finally got called to Hyderabad India for my final face to face interview. I was happy because I always wanted to join Microsoft as my work experience is mostly in MS Technologies. I completed a practical test with a fully working demo, which passed with flying colors. Then I cleared my final interview with one of the directors in MGSI. So far so good. The only thing was the people there looked dull and morose, and this stuck in my mind when I went back home.
You know Indian families – they were overjoyed that I got in Microsoft, and I decided to join. I was very trusting of Microsoft as they are a very large company and I always admired them. I joined even before getting a formal letter or knowing the exact terms. It took them 3 weeks to give me the letter which had weird details like a slightly different salary structure than what I expected (in the US, if it is 100K, it is 100K, not 75K actually). This was the first sign that things were run differently in India. Then it had really draconian terms like 90 day notice period or otherwise I would have to pay them 2 months salary and relocation costs.
MS has the weird policy that if they took in a person for a particular position, even if the hired person had no idea or experience with that technology, without giving any training on the same, they would simply put him in a project on that technology.
I did get time to study and I did study and worked without too much difficulty in a large project. I have to say one thing about MGSI that these people have no culture or respect for others. The office was the worst kind of hostile, abusive environment I have ever seen in my experience. Even if you did do good work, it was not acknowledged, and people would treat you brutally.
I talked to people who worked there for several years, and no one was happy working there. This is because everyone knows that SharePoint is built on very old and very ancient COM technology and is very difficult to work with. Nobody wanted to work on it, but they were forced to, because usually the work done by MGSI was that which nobody wanted to touch in the US.
I also learnt that Microsoft does not care about anything except making money, even if it means selling what everyone knew as bad obsolete technology, if it meant they could make money out of licenses.
So, the morale was very, very low. In addition to all of these constraints, people had to travel a lot during the year, get paid in rupees, while they hardly got to stay at home with family. You would be in places like Egypt, South Africa or Vietnam all the time. The worst thing was this was the first large company where even people who worked there for a long time were unhappy with it. In the words of one person: “I hate it here, I wish I could leave, but I can’t”. He never told me why exactly he couldn’t leave even though he had been working there for a long time.
Very many people started leaving MS, because of this they added this draconian 90 day notice period to the employment agreement.
I worked there for a few months, and in the meantime, explained the problems to my manager who told me that, they already knew that this guy was abusive, disrupting work and were working on it. I made the mistake of believing him, only to find out that they kept him in the same position, and actually gave him a promotion. So, thing obviously got very bad.
I had great difficult keeping my hands off this guy towards the end, because I wanted to slap him hard the next time he said something rude and brutal.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I resigned one fine day, and went away. I explained the truth in my resignation letter and talked to a few managers. I definitely did not want to work in a company like this.
The truth about Microsoft in India is that, they hire very talented people through extensive interviews. Maybe one in 300, and give them really junk work which nobody in the US wants to touch. If by mistake, some good work does come to India, then when focus shifts to that, they move it back to Redmond. Some of the people they hire come from outside the country like me. And we feel very let down by this experience.
This is true exploitation of talented Indian software engineers and making sure that, they never get a chance to realize their true potential. It is like taking the best grads from a college and making them work in an abusive sweatshop environment. This is the worst part about Microsoft in India. I sacrificed a lot to come back to India, and I was let down. I will never make the mistake again.
Let everyone know the truth about what really MGSI is:
1. They cheat and lie to their customers.
2. Their own employees don’t feel happy doing this day in and day out.
3. They are the most arrogant, cruel and abusive, uncultured people I have ever met.
4. They tarnish the image of the parent company.
5. There is no software process or SDLC in place.
6. If good code means ignoring requirements and just making sure that the code passes the rules engine, this is what they do.
7. Their idea of software development is to hire 10 engineers, tell them to do something and sleep over it.
8. They are busier trading blames with each other than anything else.
9. Forget international quality, even local Indian companies do a better job.
10. They have a closed mind.
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