Microsoft reaches beyond professional programmers

Grok Headline matches for Microsoft reaches beyond professional programmers

Microsoft Ad for PHP Programmers

Microsoft Ad for PHP Programmers 04/07/2005 09:28 AM

An interesting Google ad appeared on the site today. It may still be there:

That's probably wise, to go after people "working" for the competition. I wonder what their CTR is and how they qualify a "successful conversion."

Hiring Programmers: A Programmers a
Programmer, right? by David K. Every

Hiring Programmers: A Programmers a
Programmer, right? by David K. Every 11/12/2003 01:23 PM
Human Resources people, Managers, and general users, have no idea how simple or complex computer programming is. They think that they can just throw programmers around from one task to another, then some HR people select computer programmers based on language (Syntax), and not what really matters (skills and abilities). This would be like hiring an employee based on what school they attended and not what subjects they studied! This article will give some non-programmers a better idea of what Programming is about, and what they should be looking for when hiring programmers.

Microsoft targets amateur programmers

Microsoft targets amateur programmers 06/29/2004 07:32 AM
Among the perks the software giant will offer are lightweight development tools and a free version of SQL Server.

Microsoft Takes Aim at
'Non-Professional' Programmers

Microsoft Takes Aim at
'Non-Professional' Programmers 06/29/2004 08:59 AM
The Redmond software vendor is targeting the18 million 'wannabe' programmers with its new Express line.

Microsoft to Offer Streamlined Products
Aimed at Programmers

Microsoft to Offer Streamlined Products
Aimed at Programmers 06/28/2004 10:59 PM
Microsoft is making a bid to win over new developers with a stripped-down line of products including a free database and inexpensive developer tools.

Microsoft Targets Solo Programmers with
New Visual Studio Version

Microsoft Targets Solo Programmers with
New Visual Studio Version 09/13/2004 10:23 PM
Microsoft hopes pro-level individual developers now running Visual Basic tools will take to the new Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition environment introduced at VSLive Orlando conference.

Microsoft Reaches for Its Wallet

Microsoft Reaches for Its Wallet 10/29/2003 09:09 AM
The antitrust aftermath continues as the software giant settles six more class-action lawsuits, this time agreeing to pony up $200 million to consumers who bought its software products.

Turbolinux reaches out to Microsoft

Turbolinux reaches out to Microsoft 04/28/2004 04:32 AM
ZDNet UK Apr 28 2004 8:01AM GMT

Oculan reaches where Microsoft doesn't

Oculan reaches where Microsoft doesn't 05/14/2004 04:59 AM
One of the most fertile areas for independent software vendors in the Microsoft world is providing cross-platform services. While Microsoft would like to believe that its customers run 100% Windows-based networks (and Redmond often tries to convince both you and me of that), the reality is that few networks of any size are homogenized. While Windows may dominate on your users' desktops, your server room could probably qualify as a multi-cultural center.

Microsoft reaches out to its Indian
customers

Microsoft reaches out to its Indian
customers 02/16/2004 02:36 PM
IOL Feb 16 2004 6:25PM GMT

Microsoft Reaches Out to PeopleSoft
Users

Microsoft Reaches Out to PeopleSoft
Users 12/17/2004 06:29 PM
Microsoft is extending an open invitation to PeopleSoft customers to check out the allegedly greener pastures on the Windows side of the fence.

Microsoft reaches antitrust settlements

Microsoft reaches antitrust settlements 06/30/2004 01:01 PM
CNEWS Jun 30 2004 5:07PM GMT

Microsoft reaches settlements in Mass.
and N.D. antitrust lawsuits

Microsoft reaches settlements in Mass.
and N.D. antitrust lawsuits 07/03/2004 01:13 PM
Canadian Press Jul 3 2004 4:13PM GMT

Windows XP Professional Deployment
within Microsoft

Windows XP Professional Deployment
within Microsoft 07/05/2004 11:25 AM

European Commission Reaches Decision To
Fine Microsoft, Report Says

European Commission Reaches Decision To
Fine Microsoft, Report Says 01/27/2004 02:51 PM
The European Commission has reportedly reached a decision that Microsoft broke anticompetitive law and will face stiff fines, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Microsoft would not comment on the report but maintained that negotiations with the European Commission are still ongoing.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Bugging Device?

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Bugging Device? 09/19/2004 09:39 AM

Review - Microsoft Visio 2002
Professional

Review - Microsoft Visio 2002
Professional 01/13/2003 09:08 PM
WebmasterBase Jan 13 2003 7:44PM ET

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
Exam Demos

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
Exam Demos 12/13/2003 09:19 AM
Download examples of MCP exam question types and testlet exam format.

Review - Microsoft Visio Professional
2002

Review - Microsoft Visio Professional
2002 01/12/2003 09:44 PM
WebmasterBase Jan 12 2003 8:55PM ET

Microsoft delays security update for
Windows XP Professional

Microsoft delays security update for
Windows XP Professional 08/17/2004 05:43 PM
San Jose Mercury News Aug 17 2004 9:46PM GMT

Microsoft Reaches Out to Enthusiasts
with Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server
Express Editions

Microsoft Reaches Out to Enthusiasts
with Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server
Express Editions 06/30/2004 01:03 PM
“Reaching out to the several million non-professional developers who probably felt snubbed by the past two Visual Studio releases, Microsoft this week revealed that it would ship simpler, lightweight versions of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 next year. Beta versions of the new offerings, which will be sold under the “Express” moniker, are now available for free download; Microsoft says the final versions of these products, along with the more professional versions of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005, will be available by mid-2005.”

Planning and Deploying Microsoft Office
Professional Edition 2003

Planning and Deploying Microsoft Office
Professional Edition 2003 07/06/2004 08:30 AM

Microsoft Certified Gold Partner Tometa
Software, Inc., Reaches Over 1 Million
Desktops Worldwide

Microsoft Certified Gold Partner Tometa
Software, Inc., Reaches Over 1 Million
Desktops Worldwide 06/15/2004 02:12 AM
"Tometa Software reaches over 1 million desktops worldwide with software like Cool Info XP, LaptopLocate.net, and StopPop.net," says Luke Richey, one of the founders and current President of Tometa Software, Inc. Each program can be downloaded as a free trial at http://www.tometasoftware.com. [PRWEB Jun 15, 2004]

ActiveWin.com: Microsoft Windows XP
Professional 64-bit Edition Release
Candidate 2 (RC 2) - Preview

ActiveWin.com: Microsoft Windows XP
Professional 64-bit Edition Release
Candidate 2 (RC 2) - Preview 03/17/2005 03:01 AM
http://www.activewin.com/reviews/previews/xp64rc2/awin_software_templa te_files/image001.gif

Microsoft Details Vision for
Professional Developers, Announces
Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition

Microsoft Details Vision for
Professional Developers, Announces
Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition 09/13/2004 02:39 PM
Microsoft Corp. today announced Visual Studio® 2005 Standard Edition, a flexible development tool for line-of-business application developers building Windows®, Web or mobile applications. During his keynote address at Fawcette Technical Publications' VSLive! Orlando, Microsoft Developer Division Corporate Vice President S. Somasegar explained how the full Visual Studio 2005 product line -- including the Visual Studio 2005 Express products, Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition and Visual Studio 2005 Team System -- meets the needs of developers of all levels. The keynote speech and announcements made at the show underscored the fact that .NET developers are realizing enormous return on Visual Studio and the .NET Framework today, and are positioned to lead the industry forward in the Visual Studio 2005 time frame.

NetIQ Group Policy Guardian Deemed
'Product You Love' by Microsoft
Certified Professional Magazine Readers

NetIQ Group Policy Guardian Deemed
'Product You Love' by Microsoft
Certified Professional Magazine Readers 12/05/2003 04:23 PM
CPU Review Dec 5 2003 3:08PM ET

Microsoft reaches $34 million settlement
of Massachusetts antitrust lawsuit; $9
million settlement in North Da

Microsoft reaches $34 million settlement
of Massachusetts antitrust lawsuit; $9
million settlement in North Da 06/30/2004 11:16 AM
CRM Assist Jun 30 2004 3:04PM GMT

MS Programmers: So Like Us

MS Programmers: So Like Us 02/16/2004 02:46 PM
It turns out Microsoft's Windows programmers have to deal with the same crap as the rest of the world's programmers. Kuro5hin.org has put up a overview of the comments in the recently leaked Microsoft source code. (Some of the comments are not rated G. If you use a text-to-speech reader, cover your kids' ears. )

In the struggle to meet deadlines, I think pretty much all programmers have put in comments they might later regret, including swearwords and acerbic comments about other code or requirements. Also, any conscientious coder will put in prominent comments warning others about the trickier parts of the code. Comments like "UGLY TERRIBLE HACK" tend to indicate good code rather than bad: in bad code ugly terrible hacks are considered par for the course. It would therefore be both hypocritical and meaningless to go through the comments looking for embarrassments. But also fun, so let's go.

The overall conclusion is rather flattering towards Microsoft: a lot of good code, with the obligatory ugly hacks for compatibility with other stuff. No stolen open source, either. Better go have a look before their cease-and-desist shows up.

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Vi for programmers

Vi for programmers 08/09/2004 07:51 AM
CNET Aug 9 2004 10:09AM GMT

Do We Even Need Programmers Any More?

Do We Even Need Programmers Any More? 07/07/2004 02:47 PM
InternetNews is taking a look at the latest development tool releases from Sun and Microsoft that try to "dumb down" programming to the point that any old idiot can create applications and wonder s if coders are still necessary. The obvious answer the article reaches (and, yeah, the article includes a quote from me on this point) is that of course we'll still need real programmers. People have been promising the "programmer-less programs" for ages, and they seem to forget that designing applications isn't like designing a webpage. There's a lot more to it than just the user interface, and it's a different mode of thought. That said, however, it does seem like there is a real opportunity to expand the space of more personalized "quick and dirty" programs to solve specific needs. If people can have tools to build themselves specific programs it can expand the space, not necessarily shrink it for traditional programmers.

For The Programmers...

For The Programmers... 04/22/2004 12:01 PM
I've just come across a piece of code with the following comment (paraphase): "This function returns 0 when is true, and 1 when is false. Please be aware when testing as a boolean."
AARGHHH!!!!

Vi for programmers, part 1

Vi for programmers, part 1 07/26/2004 05:37 AM
CNET Jul 26 2004 10:26AM GMT

Primates as Programmers

Primates as Programmers 12/31/2003 10:43 AM
Primates as Programmers. New firm breaks the mold. Hires primates as programmers leading to significant cost savings!

Programmers So Far Underwhelmed by JSF

Programmers So Far Underwhelmed by JSF 03/08/2004 11:16 PM
Some developers say the latest Web application specification needs third-party vendor tools before they will use it.

Programmers Notepad

Programmers Notepad 01/04/2004 01:14 PM
PN2 0.5 "mingus" released

XML Is Too Hard For Programmers

XML Is Too Hard For Programmers 03/19/2003 10:25 PM
Tim Bray: "The notion that there is an 'XML data model' is silly and unsupported by real-world evidence. The definition of XML is syntactic: the 'Infoset' is an afterthought and in any case is far indeed from being a data model specification that a programmer could work with. Empirical evidence: I can point to a handful of different popular XML-in-Java APIs each of which has its own data model and each of which works. So why would you think that there's a data model there to build a language around?"

XML Keeps Programmers Regular

XML Keeps Programmers Regular 03/19/2003 10:24 PM
...using regular expressions, that is. In response to Tim Bray's dirty little habit of parsing XML with regular expressions, Jon Udell writes:

If the XML gods are resorting to Perl and Python hackery to shred documents, are we just spinning our wheels? I don't think so. But this is, perhaps, an unusual case. ... I can, however, make excellent use of the text stream underlying XML abstractions. So, which way to regard a document becomes a kind of Necker cube puzzle. The bad news: it's confusing. The good news: it's useful.

When the suggestion of XMLizing Blosxom templates came up a week or so ago, I (calmly) dared the proponent to install any number of Perl XML modules under Mac OS X. After all this time, it's still horrid stuff. And then there are those who, at the mercy of their ISPs, don't even have the choice of installing an XML parser.

That said, XML parsing has become a regular part of the modern programmer's nutritious breakfast. There're mouthfuls of RSS to consume, the Google Web API to Google, and the breadth and depth of the Amazon to explore. What's a happy parser-less hacker to do?

I just co-authored a book, 1/4 of which relied heavily on the availability of not only an XML parser, but a SOAP stack. Faced with the reality that more than a handful of readers wouldn't have either at their disposal, I wrote a hack sure to turn the stomach of any XML purist while turning many a hacker frown upside-down... "NoXML, Another SOAP::Lite Alternative" for the Google Web API.

XML jockeys might well want to avert their eyes for this one. What is herein suggested is something just so preposterous that it just might prove useful -- and indeed it does. NoXML is a drop-in alternative to SOAP::Lite. As its name suggests, this home-brewed module doesn't make use of an XML parser of any kind, relying instead on some dead-simple regular expressions and other bits of programmatic magic.

Elegant? Depends on your definition. Pure? As the driven beach sand. Work? You betcha!

WEB DEVELOPERS/ PROGRAMMERS

WEB DEVELOPERS/ PROGRAMMERS 06/12/2004 06:40 PM
Kingsport Times News, TN - 11 hours ago ... A background in HTML, PHP, UNIX and CSS are important considerations for this rewarding position that include a weekly salary, health, 401K and paid vacations. ...

Programmers Are Idiots

Programmers Are Idiots 08/02/2004 01:32 PM

So I'm out here in Boston (home of the Free Speech Zone) at a seminar on distributed enterprise application development. The instructor is Pinku Surana, who certainly seems to know his stuff. I found this interesting article in his blog, where he argues that programmers are idiots, and I have to say he makes a pretty good case.

I occasionally teach IT programmers. I've taught over 100 people now and I can honestly say I've met maybe 5 good programmers. The rest are dangerously incompetent. In fact, they are so profoundly ignorant of computer science and programming that they actually believe they are fairly good. This is the perverse effect of ignorance: because they don't know what they don't know, they think they know everything. Brookes' Mythical Man Month described the uberprogrammers who are mysteriously 10x more productive than the average. I would go further and say the uberprogrammers aren't really so uber; rather, the average is abysmal.

He goes on to say that if non-IT companies want effective software, they should ditch their programmers and demand flexible software from vendors.

I agree with him on the first point. We, as programmers, are not nearly as good as we think we are. I think it probably stems from the fact that even a novice programmer knows more about computers than nearly everyone he knows, and they all praise him for being "so smart" when he fixes their printer or gets rid of their virus problem. My mechanic is "so smart" about replacing my car's water pump. Noone really praises him for it because cars have been around a long time and there's not much magic to them. I don't think I'd have my mechanic build me a new car from scratch, though.

I disagree with Pinku on the idea that you can solve your software problems by demanding configurable and interoperable software from vendors. It's a great idea in theory, but when you start dealing with vendors in reality, it quickly breaks down. We already demand these things from vendors, and they either don't deliver, or don't deliver as expected. Most programmers dislike vendor solutions because they're crappy in some way and hard to integrate with. That's because the vendor's programmers are idiots, too. The vendor's programmers spend a lot of time griping about how the customers write crappy architectures that are hard to integrate with their "well-written" solution. So, which is more dangerous, the idiot you know or the one you don't?

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Microsoft reaches beyond professional programmers

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