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Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering From the 2000 NAE Symposium on Frontiers in Engineering (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Software Development at Microsoft
Pages 17-22

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
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From page 17...
... In fact, one study indicates that about 30 percent of all projects get scrapped, while 50 percent are delivered with significant budget overruns, shipping delays, or a significant fraction of their functionality left out (Standish Group, 1995~. Microsoft's business is designing, building, and shipping large software systems and applications.
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From page 18...
... Technologies such as type-safe programming languages have enabled the elimination of certain kinds of programming errors; however, many kinds of dependencies are still only documented as internal coding comments that can, at best, be checked by ad hoc means. Examples include locking conventions for concurrent access to shared data and fault-handling conventions for dealing with exceptional cases, such as out-of-memory errors.
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From page 19...
... By examining which sets of features are needed for any given user activity, a project can ensure that the set of features actually implemented will allow users to successfully complete some set of their normal activities while avoiding the provision of feature sets that only partially support various activities. A common problem with development projects is that people do not like to report bad news until the last possible minute.
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From page 20...
... This is one of the most important differences between how Microsoft develops software and how various famous failed software projects were run (Seltzer, 2000~. A key reason for why this approach is acceptable is Microsoft's strategy of continual incremental upgrades for all of its products: cutting functionality from a project is a much less onerous task when the option exists of providing it in the next product release cycle.
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From page 21...
... A key facility that enables large-scale testing is automated test scripts and software tools to aid simplified deployment thereof. Automated test scripts enable arbitrary users to run a variety of regression and stress tests without having to know much about the underlying code.
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From page 22...
... This makes extensive testing almost impossible and requires the creation of a new generation of tools that will assist in getting software "right the first time." Continuous operation will require that developers focus on things like reliability, maintainability, and dynamic scalability, in addition to all their usual concerns. Unfortunately, these are so-called crosscutting issues that tend to affect the design of almost every component in a system.
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Key Terms

  • master version
  • development projects
  • incremental milestones
  • vision statement
  • bug fixing

  • typically contain
  • product typically
  • short development
  • test scripts
  • debugging versions

  • multiple incremental
  • automated test
  • development strategies
  • development cycles
  • coding comments

  • software projects
  • short vision
  • successful product
  • integrated development
  • user activity

  • stress tests
  • input parameters
  • normal activities
  • particular version
  • artificially cause

  • bad news
  • product management
  • key aspect
  • contain code
  • activities spanning


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