D Melodic Minor Accidental

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Introduction

Greetings online visitors!

So yes, this is yet another online blog, in fact a [hopefully] technical blog. Fittingly, I should do a bit of a self-introduction to at least establish some history.

So, to start off “professionally”, I'm a developer (a.k.a., SDE, or Software Design Engineer) at Microsoft, based in the Puget Sound area. I'm on the Developer Division Sustained Engineering team, or DevDiv SE for short. Or DDSE for even shorter. At work, I work a lot on hotfixes for Visual C++ (versions 7.1, 7.0, and yes, even 6.0), which encompasses the editor, as well as MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes), and the Microsoft C Runtime. For my team, I also work on internal tools, as well as some “current” components of Visual Studio, or other things such as the Microsoft script engine (JScript, VBScript), used for the Windows scripting host, Internet Explorer, and tons of other products. My main languages that I use at work are C++ and C#, and assorted scripting languages as necessary.

My team also touches the entire rest of Developer Division, which means we're responsible for issuing hotfixes and service packs for the .NET Framework, nearly every Visual Studio product, MSDN documentation, etc. -- so I'm one of many “firefighters” that try to come to the rescue when a problem is discovered in an already-shipped product in DevDiv.

Academically, I hold a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Rice University -- where I had a programming languages focus. I really have a passion for object-oriented (OO) design, as well as effective programming languages. This naturally makes me inclined towards interpreters and compilers, but I also enjoy just writing a good OO app. Probably the only other random CS-interest that I have is in network-based programs (i.e. programming for the internet).

Most likely I think my next intention is to eventually begin a slow, but extensive project online with everyone, and being verbose about design decisions, and trying to show maybe some insightful / elegant (or sometimes just nifty) things you can do with the .NET platform.

Alright, until next time! Theo, signing out.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Published Sunday, April 11, 2004 1:05 AM by TheoY

Filed under: Personal

Comments

# re: Introduction @ Sunday, April 11, 2004 6:44 AM

Theo - so you're the team responsible for the lack of hotfixes and service packs for VS.NET?

Well, considering that you haven't realled anything outside off the PSS distribution channel, I'd think twice about admitting that to the developer community.

It's amazing that VS6 is still getting service packs while we have yet to see any for VS.NET 2002 and 2003.

What's the deal?

Anonymous

# re: Introduction @ Sunday, April 11, 2004 8:46 AM

Actually, I can't really post exact shipping dates, but service packs for VS.NET 2002 and 2003 are definitely in the works, VS.NET 2002 SP1 coming out first.

Since VS.NET 2002 shipped, we've delivered two service packs on the 1.0 .NET Framework, so it's not like we haven't been shipping anything along that product line :-)

In regards to hotfixes, we have a very low rate of rejecting hotfix requests (less than 2%) across all of the DevDiv products -- and hopefully soon we should be delivering service packs to provide an aggregate fix for our main customer pool.

Also, since VS.NET 2002 and 2003 shipped in such close vicinity, it's been an interesting scenario since it sort of splits the customer-base (and hence the hotfix request-pool). VS.NET 2003 seems to be more popular since it's the newest version, it may be taking a longer time to collect enough hotfixes to warrant a service pack.

I hope this helps explain some reasons why we haven't yet shipped an SP for VS.NET, and thanks a bunch for your feedback :-)

Theo Yaung

# re: Introduction @ Sunday, April 11, 2004 9:08 AM

Theo, yes, great response! Wow. Thanks a bunch for sharing your thoughts.

We, the community, are definitely looking for a service pack rollup for VS.NET 2003 that contains all the hotfixes, etc., that we can get through PSS. The biggest benefit is that in a Framework service pack it is easy to distribute the fixes to end users (and get ISP's to upgrade), rather than having to worry about redistribution issues (as some others have pointed out) or, worse, not even knowing about bugs that exist that have fixes we should patch.

I think it's also even more important to include these fixes in a service pack rollup at least for VS.NET 2003 consider that the next release of VS.NET is currently slated for 2005.

If I remember correctly, the Framework 1.1 is due a new service pack to coincide with the Windows XP Service Pack 2 release, mainly to assure security compatibility with the breaking changes that XP SP2 will introduce. Is there any chance of making this upcoming Framework service pack anything more than a collection of fixes to ensure XP SP2 compatibility?

Also, can we look forward to a service pack fix for all the issues with VS.NET 2003 (separate from Framework fixes)?

Finally, do you know of a resource that we can check to see what bugs are documented, which have work arounds, etc. The MSDN Bug Center does not seem to have any information at all and the only other option is to search through all the KB articles. The downside to this is that it requires us to regularly comb through your support website for anything new. (Maybe RSS feeds would be a good solution to this need?)

Thanks again!

Paul Laudeman

# re: Introduction @ Sunday, April 11, 2004 10:35 PM

The following is an externally viewable MS website.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/productinfo/XPSP2/introduction.aspx

So it's true, we do plan (so far), to ship SP3 for .NET Framework 1.0, and SP1 for .NET Framework 1.1 in synchronization with XP SP2. I don't know if I can say which fixes are also locked down for those SP's, but I can confidently claim that there will be many other fixes that will make it into those framework SP's, separate from the changes necessary to take advantage of XP SP2's new security features. If we're going to make people update the framework, we should send them as many fixes as we can confidently feel will be beneficial. :-)

As with any patch technology, patching is always a delicate task -- you don't know if you're breaking some feature that seems esoteric, but is critical to some company -- particular with the prevalence and popularity of Microsoft products. We have a policy of incorporating any "fixes" distributed as a hotfix into the next service pack, by default. However, sometimes hotfixes are extremely risky and thus may be rejected or not integrated into the next service pack -- but that certainly IS NOT the norm.

To answer your other questions (to as much as I think is allowable):
(1) Yes, AFAIK, VS.NET 2003 will definitely have service packs, and not too far off in the future
(2) and No, I don't know of a resource off the top of my head that aggregates new hotfixes released by MS. Your idea of an RSS feed would be a great idea. I don't know if we have anything like that in the works.

Here's to committing to stability and trying to assure the satisfaction of our customer base :-)

Theo Yaung