[kjellsbells]

I do wonder how Microsoft will manage the transition of the NT generation. Raymond Chen has been doing this kind of work for thirty years. He probably has, what, another ten years, max? Who are the next generation of Windows gurus that will take up the mantle?

Hanselman is good on the blog part, but not in Chen's class re Windows domain expertise. And Windows is not, despite all that is said, going away anytime soon. I think this could be a real problem.

Hopefully there is a set of 25 year old developers in the Windows team who have deep and growing skills in Winternals, and Microsoft have the good sense to encourage them in their career.

[hackrmn]

These were my thoughts more or less, but how many Chens does the world's largest software company need to at least maintain the now "legacy" code before they find a way not to need them any longer. Maybe they're betting on large language models having trained on the cumulative output of experts like Chen, but I think that's fit for contingency situations -- maintaining existing code and making sure it doesn't break the bottom-line -- but for all the praise of AI I have my doubts Microsoft are crazy enough to just leave it to AI to develop Windows containing hundreds of thousands of SLOC of the kind only Chen can effectively debug.

As for 25 year olds -- I am sure there will always be those around, people have been pretty consistently varied in their pursuits, but it going to be so niche they'll be like COBOL/FORTRAN developers hired by the banks today -- far and in between and paid so handsomely they can pick and choose consultancy any day of the week anywhere in the world. So I guess good for them, but again -- can Microsoft depend on that form of provision of labour they still need (and will need for a few years ahead at least)?