[mkn]

Possibly off-topic.

"However, a year ago the team shrunk by half and our agility was severely limited. I’m omitting the internal reasons for this, as they are the typical big-company middle-management issues every software developer has."

This is one of the things that can happen to you when you work at Microsoft. You can start thinking that the terrible work problems you face are both "typical big-company...issues" and problems that "every developer" has to face.

First, many of these issues, and especially their particular flavor, are not general to the business. Second, not every developer works for a big company. You have to get out and work elsewhere for a while to see this.

There's a minimsft.blogspot.com, but is there an equivalent for Apple? For Google? If so, are they as well known? Do they draw knowledgeable commenters from within the ranks of the host/target company?

There are many better places to work than Microsoft. The place seemed truly pathological to me.

[bad_user]

> There's a minimsft.blogspot.com, but is there an equivalent for Apple? For Google? If so, are they as well known? Do they draw knowledgeable commenters from within the ranks of the host/target company?

Every corporation sucks in some way ... and if there isn't a minimsft equivalent for Google/Apple ... that's a point in Microsoft's favor.

[thought_alarm]

Sorry, but your post is complete nonsense.

In my experience, all medium and large organizations in this industry have a very unique culture that affects everything they do. For better or worse, there's nothing like working at Microsoft. Personally, having the valuable opportunity to see it up close, I would never work there and I'm not surprised to read the accounts of those who have worked there.

[bad_user]

> For better or worse, there's nothing like working at Microsoft ... I would never work there

Dude, those 2 sentences contradict each other ... you either worked there and know what you're talking about, or not.

[rbanffy]

Did you miss the "having the valuable opportunity to see it up close" part?

[rbanffy]

> if there isn't a minimsft equivalent for Google/Apple ... that's a point in Microsoft's favor.

How can you possibly arrive at this conclusion? Are you implying Apple and Google censor and/or brainwash their workforce to think they are perfectly happy?

[endtime]

Maybe not Google...

[rbanffy]

A simpler explanation is that their employees simply like make cutting-edge, successful products they can be proud of.

[gaius]

This is probably the key point:

Also, Jason Zander runs the Visual Studio team, which IronRuby, IronPython, and the DLR happen to be a part of, and is a big proponent of these dynamic languages efforts

Sounds like they are collateral damage of senior management turf wars. This can happen at any company.

How do you think the Pink or Copland guys felt at Apple when their project was canned? Or the Google team who worked on Wave or Orkut...?

[endtime]

>There are many better places to work than Microsoft. The place seemed truly pathological to me.

Have you worked there? I was there last summer and I'm actually not convinced there are many better places to work.