Even the MS engineers are complaining already 
Vista. The term stirs the imagination to conceive of beautiful
possibilities just around the corner. And just around the corner
is what Windows Vista has been, and has remained, for the past two
years. In this time, Vista has suffered a series of high-profile
delays, including most recently the announcement that it would be
delayed until 2007. The largest software project in mankinds
history now threatens to also be the longest.
[I originally deleted the rest of this post of my own volition,
without any pressure whatsoever from people within the company,
because the discussion around it wasn't constructive. I've now
restored the original content unedited. More discussion on this
topic here. - Ed.]
Admittedly, this essay would be easier written for Slashdot, where
taut lines divide the world crisply into black and white. "Vista is
a bloated piece of crap," my furry little penguin would opine,
"written by the bumbling serfs of an evil capitalistic
megalomaniac." But that'd be dead wrong. The truth is far more
nuanced than that. Deeper than that. More subtle than that.
I managed developer teams in Windows for five years, and have only
begun to reflect on the experience now that I have recently
switched teams. Through a series of conversations with other
leaders that have similarly left The Collective, several root
causes have emerged as lasting characterizations of what's really
wrong in The Empire.
Useless Trivia Sidebar: Broken Windows Theory
The original broken windows theory, first coined by Wilson and
Kelling, describes the purported phenomenon whereby an abandoned
warehouse with no broken windows is mostly left alone, but as soon
as one window is broken, it acts as an open invitation to
passers-by that it's open-season for rock-throwing.
This was generally accepted for many years as being true, but is
recently coming under fire from different angles. We won't delve
into those here, since we mostly commandeered the phrase because it
sounded good, not because it actually has anything at all to do
with our subject matter.
The Usual Suspects
Ask any developer in Windows why Vista is plagued by delays, and
they'll say that the code is way too complicated, and that the pace
of coding has been tremendously slowed down by overbearing process.
These claims have already been covered in other popular literature.
A quick recap for those of you just joining the broadcast:
* Windows code is too complicated. It's not the components
themselves, it's their interdependencies. An architectural diagram
of Windows would suggest there are more than 50 dependency layers
(never mind that there also exist circular dependencies). After
working in Windows for five years, you understand only, say, two of
them. Add to this the fact that building Windows on a dual-proc dev
box takes nearly 24 hours, and you'll be slow enough to drive Miss
Daisy.
* Windows process has gone thermonuclear. Imagine each little email
you send asking someone else to fill out a spreadsheet, comment on
a report, sign off on a decision -- is a little neutron shooting
about in space. Your innocent-seeming little neutron now causes
your heretofore mostly-harmless neighbors to release neutrons of
their own. Now imagine there are 9000 of you, all jammed into a
tight little space called Redmond. It's Windows Gone Thermonuclear,
a phenomenon by which process engenders further process, eventually
becoming a self-sustaining buzz of fervent destructive
activity.
Let's see if, quantitatively, there's any truth to the perception
that the code velocity (net lines shipped per developer-year) of
Windows has slowed, or is slow relative to the industry. Vista is
said to have over 50 million lines of code, whereas XP was said to
have around 40 million. There are about two thousand software
developers in Windows today. Assuming there are 5 years between
when XP shipped and when Vista ships, those quick on the draw with
calculators will discover that, on average, the typical Windows
developer has produced one thousand new lines of shipped code per
year during Vista. Only a thousand lines a year. (Yes, developers
don't just write new code, they also fix old code. Yes, some of
those Windows developers were partly busy shipping 64-bit XP. Yes,
many of them also worked on hotfixes. Work with me here.)
Lest those of you who wrote 5,000 lines of code last weekend pass a
kidney stone at the thought of Windows developers writing only a
thousand lines of code a year, realize that the average software
developer in the US only produces around (brace yourself) 6200
lines a year. So Windows is in bad shape -- but only by a constant,
not by an order of magnitude. And if it makes you feel any better,
realize that the average US developer has fallen in KLOC
productivity since 1999, when they produced about 9000 lines a
year. So Windows isn't alone in this.
The oft-cited, oft-watercooler-discussed dual phenomenon of Windows
code complexity and Windows process burden seem to have
dramatically affected its overall code velocity. But code can be
simplified and re-architected (and is indeed being done so by a
collection of veteran architects in Windows, none of whom,
incidentally, look anything like Colonel Sanders). Process can be
streamlined where inefficient, eliminated where unnecessary.
But that's not where it ends. There are deeper causes of Windows'
propensity to slippage.
Cultured to Slip
Deep in the bowels of Windows, there remains the whiff of a bygone
culture of belittlement and aggression. Windows can be a scary
place to tell the truth.
When a vice president in Windows asks you whether your team will
ship on time, they might well have asked you whether they look fat
in their new Armani suit. The answer to the question is deeply
meaningful to them. It's certainly true in some sense that they
genuinely want to know. But in a very important other sense, in a
sense that you'll come to regret night after night if you get it
wrong, there's really only one answer you can give.
After months of hearing of how a certain influential team in
Windows was going to cause the Vista release to slip, I, full of
abstract self-righteous misgivings as a stockholder, had at last
the chance to speak with two of the team's key managers, asking
them how they could be so, please-excuse-the-term,
I-don't-mean-its-value-laden-connotation, ignorant as to proper
estimation of software schedules. Turns out they're actually great
project managers. They knew months in advance that the schedule
would never work. So they told their VP. And he, possibly
influenced by one too many instances where engineering re-routes
power to the warp core, thus completing the heretofore impossible
six-hour task in a mere three, summarily sent the managers back to
"figure out how to make it work." The managers re-estimated,
nipped and tucked, liposuctioned, did everything short of a
lobotomy -- and still did not have a schedule that fit. The VP was
not pleased. "You're smart people. Find a way!" This went back and
forth for weeks, whereupon the intrepid managers finally understood
how to get past the dilemma. They simply stopped telling the truth.
"Sure, everything fits. We cut and cut, and here we are. Vista by
August or bust. You got it, boss."
Every once in a while, Truth still pipes up in meetings. When this
happens, more often than not, Truth is simply bent over an
authoritative knee and soundly spanked into silence.
The Joy of Cooking
Bundled with a tendency towards truth-intolerance, Windows also
sometimes struggles with poor organizational decision-making. Good
news is that the senior leaders already know this and have been
taking active steps to change the situation.
There are too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many vice presidents,
in reporting structures too narrow. When I was in Windows, I
reported to Alec, who reported to Peter, to Bill, Rick, Will, Jim,
Steve, and Bill. Remember that there were two layers of people
under me as well, making a total path depth of 11 people from Bill
Gates down to any developer on my team.
This isn't necessarily bad, except sometimes the cooks flash-mob
one corner of the kitchen. I once sat in a schedule review meeting
with at least six VPs and ten general managers. When that many
people have a say, things get confusing. Not to mention, since so
many bosses are in the room, there are often negotiations between
project managers prior to such meetings to make sure that no one
ends up looking bad. "Bob, I'm giving you a heads-up that I'm going
to say that your team's component, which we depend on, was late."
"That's fine, Sandy, but please be clear that the unforeseen delays
were caused by a third party, not my team."
Micromanagement, though not pervasive, is nevertheless evident.
Senior vice presidents sometimes review UI designs of individual
features, a nod to Steve Jobs that would in better days have
betokened a true honor but for its randomizing effects. Give me a
cathedral, give me a bazaar -- really, either would be great. Just
not this middle world in which some decisions are made freely while
others are made by edict, with no apparent logic separating each
from the other but the seeming curiosity of someone in
charge.
In general, Windows suffers from a proclivity for action control,
not results control. Instead of clearly stating desired outcomes,
there's a penchant for telling people exactly what steps they must
take. By doing so, we risk creating a generation of McDevs. (For
more on action control vs. results control, read Kenneth Merchant's
seminal work on the subject -- all $150 of it, apparently).
Uncontrolled? Or Uncontrollable?
We shouldn't forget despite all this that Windows Vista remains the
largest concerted software project in human history. The types of
software management issues being dealt with by Windows leaders are
hard problems, problems that no other company has solved
successfully. The solutions to these challenges are certainly not
trivial.
An interesting question, however, is whether or not Windows Vista
ever had a chance to ship on time to begin with. Is Vista merely
uncontrolled? Or is it fundamentally uncontrollable? There is a
critical difference.
It's rumored that VPs in Windows were offered big bonuses
contingent on shipping Vista by the much-publicized August 2006
date. Chris Jones even declared in writing that he wouldn't take a
bonus if Vista slips past August. If this is true, if folks like
Brian Valentine held division-wide meetings where August 2006 was
declared as the drop-dead ship date, if general managers were
consistently told of the fiscal importance of hitting August, if
everyone down to individual developers was told to sign on the
dotted line to commit to the date, and to speak up if they had any
doubts of hitting it -- mind you, every last one of those things
happened -- and yet, and yet, the August date was slipped, one has
to wonder whether it was merely illusory, given the collective
failure of such unified human will, that Vista was ever
controllable in the first place.
Are Vista-scale software projects essentially uncontrollable by
nature? Or has Microsoft been beset by one too many broken windows?
Talk amongst yourselves.
By a Windows Vista Developer, Philip Su, Source
