RSS 2.0

Personal Info:

Joe Send mail to the author(s) is a lead architect on an OS incubation project at Microsoft, and was the architect for Parallel Extensions to .NET. He is an author and frequent speaker.

Blogroll:
Other
News
 C|Net
 Kuro5hin
 The Register
Technology
 <?xmlhack?>
 Daily WTF
 DevX
 Hacknot
 Java Today
 Microsoft Top 10 Downloads
 MSDN
 MSDN: "Longhorn"
 MSDN: XML Developer Center
 Slashdot
 Techdirt
 theserverside.com
 W3C
 Web Pages That Suck
 XML Cover Pages
 XML Journal
 xml.com
Technology Blogs
 Aaron Skonnard [PluralSight]
 Adam Bosworth [Google]
 Andy Rich [MS/C++]
 Arpan Desai [MS/XML]
 BCL Team [MS]
 Bill Clementson [Lisp]
 Bill de hÓra
 Bruce Eckel [J]
 Bruce Tate [J]
 Casey Chestnut
 Cedric Beust [Google]
 Chris Anderson [MS/Avalon]
 Chris Lyon [MS]
 Christian Weyer
 Clemens Vasters [newtelligence]
 Craig Andera [PluralSight]
 Dan Sugalski [Parrot]
 Daniel Cazzulino
 Dave Chappel
 Dave Roberts [Lisp]
 Dave Thomas [PragProg]
 Dave Winer
 Dion Almaer [J]
 Don Demsak
 Doug Purdy [MS/Indigo]
 Drew Marsh
 Eric Gunnerson [MS]
 Eric Rudder [MS]
 Eric Sink
 Fritz Onion [PluaralSight]
 Gavin King [J/Hibernate]
 Grady Booch [IBM]
 Hervey Wilson [MS/Indigo]
 Hillel Cooperman [MS/Shell]
 Howard Lewis Ship [J/Apache]
 Ingo Rammer [PluralSight]
 James Gosling [J/Sun]
 James Strachan [J/Groovy]
 Jason Matusow [MS/OSS]
 Jeffrey Schlimmer [MS/Indigo]
 Joe Beda [Google]
 Joel Spoelsky
 Jon Udell
 Josh Ledgard [MS/Evang]
 Joshua Allen [MS]
 Lambda
 Larry Osterman [MS]
 Maoni Stephens [MS/CLR]
 Mark Fussell [MS/XML]
 Martin Fowler
 Martin Gudgin [MS/Indigo]
 Me
 Michael Howard [MS]
 Miguel de Icaza [Mono]
 Mike Clark
 Omri Gazitt [MS/Indigo]
 Pat Helland [MS/PAG]
 Pinku Surana
 Raymond Chen [MS]
 Rich Lander [MS/CLR]
 Rob Howard
 Rob Relyea [MS/Avalon]
 Robert Cringely
 S. Somasegar [MS/DevDiv]
 Sam Gentile
 Scoble [MS/Evang]
 Scott Guthrie [MS/WebNet]
 Scott Hanselman
 Sean McGrath [J]
 Simon Fell
 Stanley Lippman [MS/C++]
 Steve Maine
 Steve Swartz [MS/Indigo]
 Steve Vinoski
 Steven Clarke [MS/Usability]
 Stuart Halloway
 Ted Leung
 Ted Neward [DM]
 Tim Bray [Sun]
 Tim Ewald [Mindreef]
 Tim O'Reilly
 Werner Vogels [Amazon]
 Wintellect
 Yasser Shohoud [MS/Indigo]
Top 20
 Brad Abrams [MS/CLR]
 Chris Brumme [MS/CLR]
 Chris Sells [MS/Ultra]
 Cyrus Najmabadi [MS/C#]
 Dominic Cooney [MS/XAF]
 Don Box [MS/Ultra]
 Don Syme [MS/R]
 Guido van Rossum [Python]
 Herb Sutter [MS/C++]
 Ian Griffiths
 Jason Zander [MS/CLR]
 Jim Hugunin [MS/CLR]
 Joel Pobar [MS/CLR]
 Krzysztof Cwalina [MS/CLR]
 Patrick Logan
 Paul Graham
 Rico Mariani [MS/CLR]
 Rory Blyth [MS/DN]
 Sam Ruby
 Wesner Moise
VC/Business Blogs
 Ed Sim
 Fred Wilson
 Jonathan Schwartz [J/Sun]
 Lawrence Lessig [Stanford]
 Mark Cuban
 Michael Hyatt
 Pierre Omidyar
 Ross Mayfield
 VentureBlog
 Weekly Read
Wine, Food & Tea
 The Silk Road of Wine
 Vinography: a wine blog
 Wine Whys

Disclaimer:
The content of this site are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

© 2010, Joe Duffy

 
 Wednesday, July 28, 2004

These people are nuts (I'm including myself in this broad categorization, too, btw). Microsofties definitely utilize a different vocabulary than normal human beings. Sometimes this entails noun-izing verbs, mutating existing words, or even just plain making stuff up. I've noticed that I'm now incorporating nearly all of these into my daily speech, so before I've completely conformed I wanted to document the odd experience of being subjected to it all...

Here's a brief guide to the top ones I've encountered thus far:

ask
noun
A requirement or request that something happen.
Example: The Speedo team has an ask that we add red dancing baboons to our product's splash screen.
Example: What are the Speedo team's asks?

bar
noun
A dichotomy in which a set of criteria defines a categorization status of below/above. Things which fall below the bar are considered to be necessary to address, while things above the bar are not (most likely temporarily). The bar is subject to move up and down at will.
Example: We have a defined a bar for the Super Soaker 5000's release criteria.

blocked
verb
Prevented from making progress due to a dependency on someone or something else.
Example: Are you blocked on getting feedback from Henry?

bits
noun
Software.
Example: The Whidbey Beta1 bits are now available on MSDN.

drop
noun
A release of software intended for a specific purpose.
Example: We should expect the next product drop in May.

feature-complete
adjective
A product state in which all features have been completed, albeit not completely stabilized and tested.
Example: As of September 12th, you must be feature-complete.

Franken-build
noun
A conglomoration of unfinished software components which evidently function together, although the steps are typically Black Magic to reproduce.
Example: Hey, could you send me some reproducable steps to get a Franken-build of System.Collections, JIT hotspot inlining, and tuned GC working together?

needs
noun
The set of asks that a particular entity needs. This implies they are not full of shit. (See also: wants.)
Example: We should address team ZoomZoom's needs in our next status meeting.

own
verb
If you screw it up, your head is on the chopping block.
Example: Joe owns this initiative.

triage
verb
The act of taking a set of things, comparing it to a defined bar, and assigning a status to those things - i.e. above or below.
noun
An effort to perform triaging against a large set of items.
Example: We triaged our feature requests against the minbar, and came up with this set of items which need completion by the end of today.

S+ (or Sched+)
noun
An Outlook meeting request.
Example: S+ me w/ the details.

scrub
verb
When some set of things are reviewed to ensure that they are up-to-date, and if not updated to reflect the current state of affairs.
noun
A large-scale effort to perform scrubbing against a large set of items.
Example: By scrubbing our database, we were able to close out 90% of the issues.

vett
verb
Finalizing, discussing, and agreeing on a common outcome.
Example: Have you vetted the design yet?

wants
noun
The set of asks that a particular entity wants. This carries with it a connotation of not believing that the entity actually requires them, but rather that they are nice-to-haves.
Example: Do we have a good handle on team ZoomZoom's wants?

 

Recent Entries:

Search:

Browse by Date:
<February 2010>
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
31123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28123456
78910111213

Browse by Category:

Notables:

Currently Up To:

Reading...

Listening...

Watching...