8 Aug
2024
8 Aug
'24
6:09 p.m.
Yes, MSFT and their
https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Professional_Developers_Conference
were important, especially the 1993 Anaheim one that gave many of us our
first real taste of "Chicago." That Brad Silverberg and Steve Ballmer
paid special attention to people like me didn't hurt. I suspect Brad
deserves even more credit than he gets regarding supporting developers.
To keep things vaguely Unix related, that Anaheim conference was after
Rick Rashid had moved to MSFT Research. He and I bumped into each other
in a gift shop in Fantasyland, and discussed our career changes (I had
just left Dell for VTEL).
Charlie
On 8/8/2024 3:46 AM, Marc Donner wrote:
To summarize this discussion, if I may, the unifying
driver was
developer friendliness, with all of its deeper implications, that drove
the process.
Reflecting on this theme, I note that MSFT focused on developers in the
golden age of Windows. Some of it was investment in powerful IDEs but
an awful lot of it was stuff like their MVP program that created
community as well as offering participants some differentiation in their
competition for customers.
Looking back, the community-building aspects attracted me in the early days.
Marc
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