Twee dagen na elkaar een ongemeen boeiende entry bij Chris Pratley:

I also detected another old saw about hidden advantages or undocumented APIs that somehow made Word better than competing apps. The reality on this is so counter to the conspiracy it is astounding. The Office team barely talks to the Windows team. If anything, there is more mutual contempt than cooperation, although we constantly try to make that better. And, what are “undocumented APIs” really? Are they APIs like “ExReallyFrickingAwesomeTextOut()” that somehow make our applications have features and usable designs that customers want?

Dat is consistent met wat Chris Sells zegt over de georganiseerde chaos bij Microsoft.

En deze is ook goed:

…we made a rule that the next versions of Office had to save in a format that was compatible with 97. We could still add new features, but whatever they were, they had to fit in the old format. This is why Word97, Word2000, Word2002, and Word2003 all use the same binary format. Fortunately we had those last few months to add some bits to the 97 format that made it possible to add things in the future that the old versions of Word would ignore politely, but sticking with the same format for the last 8 years (Word97 shipped in 1996) has put a significant crimp in our style. There is a corresponding claim that circulates the net that says we change the format “every release”. Since we bend over backwards not to do this, that one always makes me chuckle.

Ik zou graag bij Microsoft werken.