tellarin

Hmmm. I agree that 'orders' is not an appropriate choice of words.

But I usually don't interpret this kind of claims literally, so I took the GP remark as saying that in practice (IRL) there was no such 'wide gap in productivity', which is opposite to claims/data I saw before (as you mention, 5-20x) and to my own experience.

I overall agree with you on "Code Complete", but where did you find data that disproves 'orders of magnitude programmer's productivity'? I can't reach the linked website.

I'd be genuinely interested to check that. While still anecdotal, my experience from working in big and small companies in 4 countries is that there certainly is a absurdly wide gap in productivity between programmers.

Wouldn't something like Quora cover this area?

It seems the right kind of place to me.

Please check your facts.

Example of the output: http://jeffhuang.com/best_paper_awards.html#institutions

Also look at any proceeding from conferences in areas where MSR works. Their output is pretty high (and high quality).

Research != innovation

Research != R&D

Not trying to antagonize you, just pointing an issue that seems pretty common in this article discussion.

Quite the same in Computer Graphics and Systems/Networking.

True, but as percentage of their academic output (papers, talks, prototypes, ...) they're not so high.

Microsoft's R&D mission is not. But Microsoft Research's is.

The idea is that MSR explores (R), then Microsoft integrates what they feel is interesting into products (R&D).

In my view this is one of the things people in this discussion are not realizing. Microsoft Research is not R&D, it's R. The rest of MS spends a lot in R&D too, but MSR's work and goals are distinct.

Of course transferring tech into products is part of their goal, but it's the product teams that continue from there (R passes the ball to R&D).

Regarding publications, as other pointed out in this thread, MSR does publish a huge percentage of their work.

Not trying to be a MS fanboy here. But, while not truly distributed, this is the one area where I feel Windows 8 might be interesting. I really want to see how (if?) they'll try to provide that experience as it's on phones, tablets, and regular PCs.

Any practical experimentation in this area can provide good insights and help future attempts at other OSs.

At least that's what I hope happens. :)

I guess the point of the article is not "who's the best" neither in usefulness or cool features, but "diversity is good". Both to try new ideas (as you mention) and for diversity sake.

While I too love Linux and the pragmatic approach, it would be really sad if Linux really became the last OS.

Regarding the technically superior features of the mentioned OSs, I'm also curious and trying to find more info on them. ;)

I definitely agree that mobility constraints are common and usually affect decisions on where to live. And, as I stated before, sometimes you do need a car.

But my point was not really related to cost, but to "freedom" in some sense. After the money saving, then no longer wanting to spend money on unnecessary things (but travelling), then moving around, I feel I no longer want to have a car.

Mainly for two reasons:

- I don't miss being stuck in traffic on the drivers seat, or trying to find parking spots. If I'm on a bus, and there is traffic, I don't mind as much as I can read, or browse the Internet, or game or whatever.

- If I don't have a car, I don't need to worry what to do with it if I want to move. No worries about trying to sell it, or wondering if it is worth it to take the car to the new place, what's the traffic legislation on the new place, etc.

Yet another part of my PoV is that, even if a car is necessary, I no longer want a new/expensive car. For example, before moving to the city where I currently live, I had to have a car (as there wasn't much of public transportation there). But at that point all I wanted was a used car that's good enough for the daily needs; and that I wouldn't mind getting rid off later.

Thanks for the link!

I had to go to the mirror and try the little experiment described in the intro.

Not totally convinced yet, gotta try with someone as witness. ;)

Trusty old Debian with no fancy window manager.

But I'm planning on playing around with the new Enlightenment when I have some more free time.

Well, here in China, cutting food (specially raw meat) with scissors is actually quite standard in restaurants.

But I guess the pizza part may not be so common. ;)

This is one of the reasons why I'm an advocate of good public universal health care. Too bad it's not available everywhere. But this is a discussion for another thread/post.

Same here, the more I save, the less I want to spend on these things. The one huge exception is traveling. I even set myself a goal of visiting at least one new country per year.

The interesting thing is that with the years this has also affected other broader considerations. Nowadays I don't really think about buying a house anymore, as it is too big of a 'money and time' commitment and also because it would make it harder for me to move somewhere (which I've been doing quite often now).

Same applies to having a car. While I agree that having one can be incredibly convenient (and, sometimes, even necessary), I feel so much better not having to worry about gas, taxes, or maintenance.